Converting mpeg2 files to prores?

Hey everyone,

First post for me, but wanted to say thanks in advance to everyone on this forum for all the valuable knowledge I've gleaned here.

Here's the issue: I had some film transferred and instead of giving me prores files as requested, they gave me mpeg 2 files that I had to rip off a dvd. Problem is, I can't find anything other than dubious scamware that claims to convert these files to prores or any other format that is FCPX friendly. I am using final cut pro 10.0.8 and mavericks.

Tried MPEG Streamclip to no avail. Don't have Compressor but wondered if it might work. Or am I missing any other software that people have had success with?

Anyone have any experience with this? I could go back to the guy that digitized this for me, but he's out of town and was hoping for a quicker solution.

Thanks,
Mark

Compressor won't do this. You need the latest MPEG Streamclip beta version. It should work perfectly for this.

Thanks for the reply!

I tried this with version 1.9.3b8

I got this message:

You must install the MPEG-2 Playback Component before trying to export MPEG2 files! You can buy it online from Apple:
www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2

So I bought it from apple and tried to install it but it says it will only run on an earlier version of the mac system. I'm running 10.8.5.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Mark

Hold on....just got it to work. Converting now. That was odd. Don't know what it wouldn't load the Mpeg playback component but it seems to have done it now.

Yes, got that to work. Thanks!

By the way, would you have a recommendation on a format to convert it to prior to prores? If I convert it to h264 I can use 5Drgb to convert to prores, but that seems like an extra lossy step.

Prores doesn't seem to be an option in Streamclip for some reason under quicktime.

I know I've seen it there before when converting h264 files.

Any thoughts on this?

Thanks very much,
Mark

It should be there if you downloaded the FCP additional content. It is there for me. Post a screen shot of what you see.

Here's what I'm getting. Also, this is not the machine I have FCP on. I'm using this machine to rip the DVD. Maybe that's the issue?

m

Unless you have Apple pro apps installed you don't get ProRes for production only for playback.

I see. I'll load my FCPX on that machine then as well.

Thanks for all your help!

m

Hey Tom,

So I loaded FCPX on the machine with the DVD reader and still am not getting the prores option in Streamclip. Is there something else I have to do to access that? Is it a streamclip option associated with that program or something that gets loaded behind the scenes when you install FCPX?

Thanks for your time,
Mark

Did you download the additional content from the FCP menu? You should reboot after that.

Bingo!

Thanks very much. I never would have found that.

Many thanks and happy holidays!

m