Summary: Sony’s XAVC S does not work with FCP X/7/6. To be able to import Sony Alpha 7 II XAVC S MP4 to Final Cut Pro for editing, you’ll need to convert XAVC S to QuickTime using 3rd party software.
Sony has announced the Alpha 7 II, which the company has managed to keep very close to its vest. The big story on this 24MP full-frame mirrorless is its 5-axis sensor-shift image stabilization – the first of its kind in a full-frame mirrorless camera. Sony claims that this IS system can reduce shake by 4.5 stops using the CIPA standard. If an E-mount lens with OSS is attached, the camera will detect it and use a combination of in-lens and in-body stabilization.
Like the original a7, the a7 II features 117 phase detect and 25 contrast detect points on its CMOS sensor but Sony is claiming a 30% improvement in the a7 II’s AF speed and 1.5x better tracking performance than its predecessor. Sony says this is thanks to its ‘proprietary image analysis technology’ using more information from a scene to keep focus locked on a subject.
On the video front, the Sony Alpha 7 II now supports the XAVC S codec, which can record 1080/60p video at 50Mbps. All that and more make Sony Alpha 7 II a versatile tool content creation.
If you shot with XAVC S format, you will find that Sony’s XAVC S does not work with FCP X/7/6. In such a case, you can convert Sony Alpha 7 II XAVC S MP4 to Apple ProRes 422, the best friendly codec for Apple’s Final Cut Pro. Considering ease of use, reliability and final output quality, we would recommend UFUSoft XAVC Video Converter for Mac to do format transcoding.
More than converting Sony Alpha a7II XAVC S format to Final Cut, this Mac XAVC S converter software is also able to encode AVCHD, MP4, MOV, XACAM, XDCAM EX, MXF, P2 MXF, Canon MXF, and K2 GXF footage to other intermediate formats for using in iMovie, FCP 6, FCP 7, FCP X, FCE, Avid MC, Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas, and more.
Converting Sony Alpha 7 II XAVC S for Editing in Final Cut Pro X/7/6
Step 1: Import Sony Alpha a7II XAVC S videos
Install and run the XAVC S Video Converter on your Mac, then run it. Click on “Add”, and browse your files; select all the Sony Alpha 7 II XAVC S files you wanna convert. If you want to combine all the files together for easy importing to FCP, please select all Sony Alpha 7 II files and click Merge on the main interface.
Step 2: Choose ProRes as output format
Click the “Format” bar and select Final Cut Pro > Apple PreRes 422(*.mov) as output format.
Tips: Adjust video, audio settings
Click the “Settings” button and customize proper video/audio parameters including Video size, bitrate and fame rate and mroe. Usually 1920*1080 video size and 30fps video frame rate are recommended for FCP editing. Well, if you prefer to work with 4K video, you can adjust video size to get 4K ProRes for FCP.
Step 3: Start Sony Alpha 7 II XAVC S to ProRes conversion
After all necessary settings, hit the convert button to start the XAVC S video to ProRes conversion on Mac OS X. Once the conversion process shows in 100%, click Open to get the output videos. Create a project and start editing Sony Alpha a7II XAVC S video in Final Cut Pro 7/6 or FCP X with light speed.