Playing an Item after Exporting to a SxS Card

I'm able to export my .mxf file to a SxS card, but then I'm having a problem playing this card in a Sony SxS card player (in a sat truck, for example).
The method I've been told is after exporting an edit from my laptop, take the SxS card and put it back into the Sony camera and update the clip in the menu. This allows me to see the edit in the camera and even play it out of the camera, but if I take the card out and put it in the player, there's nothing there??
If I don't do this and just export to the card from the laptop, the player says there's nothing there.
In Avid, for this to work, you have to do an audio mix down first so there's only two tracks.
Is there something that I'm missing in FCP X on the audio side to enable this export to work properly??

Hi Kevin,

FCP X always mixes the audio down to 2 channels when you do an export (except if your Project is set to Surround, which is probably not the case here).

If you can read and playback the MXF file from the SxS card in your Sony camera but not in a Sony SxS deck, this probably means the file is okay but there must be some compatibility issues between your gear. I would advise you to get in touch with Sony and ask them why the same file on the same card plays perfectly in their camera but not in their deck.

- Ronny

Thanks

Just checking, until now I've tended to pan the audio left (interviews & voiceover) & right (effects) rather than use Roles. Would this make any difference at all?

If this is for news uplinks, that's a perfect workflow. This will allow the recipient to treat and/or mix Dialogue and M&E independently.

Roles would not make any difference here because you are exporting to MXF straight from FCP X, which does not take Roles into account.

Of course, if Apple would implement a new feature with which you can group all clips that have the same Role and that would allow you to assign pan settings - or audio settings in general - to all clips that have the same Role at once, setting Roles would save a lot of time even when you export MXF straight from within the app.

The real question in this post still remains why your camera can read and play the exported MXF from your SxS card, and the SxS deck cannot. That's something for Sony to figure out.

- Ronny

Thanks again. I've sent an email to Sony, so will await there answer with interest.

I would be very interested to see their response. So please keep us updated on this.

- Ronny

If you are taking a laptop with you, buy a Blackmagic UltraStudio Express and playout through that. It will also give you longer to do the edit without having to worry about exporting etc.

Do a test wit the sat truck, leave the Blackmagic with them - go edit - then go back and plug up- play!

Peter

If you are taking a laptop with you, buy a Blackmagic UltraStudio Express and playout through that. It will also give you longer to do the edit without having to worry about exporting etc.

Do a test wit the sat truck, leave the Blackmagic with them - go edit - then go back and plug up- play!

Peter

Funnily enough I've looked at the Blackmagic box before, but then when .mxf was supported in FCPX, I thought I wouldn't need it. Often I can FTP the edit, but it all depends on signal! Exporting back to the card should work if I can see it in the camera, but it's clarifying the problem with the deck, etc. If there's a sat truck on location it makes sense to use it rather than rely on 4g or wi fi.

Just a quick update to say that Sony haven't, so far, given me any clear explanation as to why I can't play the edit in the Sony SxS deck, even though I can see it in the camera.

I was asked to check the firmware version of the deck, but I haven't been near the truck recently to be able to do that and when I was I couldn't find the maintenance menu to be able to do this.

One thing that I did do on Sony's recommendation was to format a Sony SxS card in the Sony SxS deck and then export the edit from my laptop to the card. Again when it was updated in the Sony camera, I could see the edit.
But this time in the Sony deck, the edit sort of showed up but had no image in the box. What I did get was a message on the deck saying 'format not recognised'.

How can this be so?
The camera footage for the edit was shot in HD 1080 50i (for UK news output before anyone asks). It was edited in the same codec in FCPX and then exported as a .mxf still with the same codec.

The edit is then written back to a card formatted in a deck set up in HD 1080 50i and then it says it doesn't recognise the format!!

Anyone have any ideas what is happening here?
Thanks

A further update, I received this from Sony:

"You must pay attention to the AUDIO settings on FCP when exporting from FCP.
Many customers have the settings set in the wrong mode.
They need to set the AUDIO at 8 mono channels.
Please check this?"

So, just to clarify XDCam EX cameras always record 8 channels most of which are never needed, but this can't be changed.
Previously, after importing into FCP X, I would laboriously have to go through the clips and in the Inspector, under Audio, uptick the 7 mom ones that I didn't need to leave either Channel 1 or 2 that I did need. I would then edit the item and then pan channel 1 left and channel 2 right prior to export. When exporting to a .MXF file, the Share window would still state 8 discreet mono channels, but only 2 would show up on the edit.

So, am I doing something wrong that is causing the problem I'm finding in the original post??

Thank you for posting yor updates for this topic, very helpful.

I don't think you are doing anthing wrong. In fact I think your workflow is perfect for exporting to MXF on SxS. The fact that you can play the exported file from your SxS card in the camera confirms this. There should not be any difference when playing that same card in an SxS player.

I agree with the Sony people that here seems to be a compatibility issue between your camera card reader and your deck card reader.

But by far the simplest solution would be the one that Peter has suggested: doing the playout straight from within FCP X using a BMD UltraStudio Express. This works without any issues, and it makes your job much simpller because you won't have to create false mute tracks anymore.

- Ronny

But it bugs me that the export to card won't play in the deck when I can see no reason for this to happen. Sony don't seem to know either which isn't very helpful.
I was mistaken, I wasn't thinking of the BM Ultrastudio box but the BM Mini Monitor. Will it do the same thing?

And here's curve ball...
Sony asked me to record something onto a SxS card via the deck and see if it would play in the camera.
This I did and, low and behold, it played OK in the camera too!
So, if it works this way ie. deck to camera - why won't it work the other way camera to deck?
There must be something going on regarding the file structure when the camera updates the Edit in the Clip menu to be able to see/play it??
So, it appears (?) something is missing from the file structure which is why the deck won't play/see what has been exported onto the SxS card.
Again though, this seems very strange when all the products involved are Sony!

Anyone have knowledge of the file structures of SxS cards and Sony PMW range of cameras & decks to try to figure out what is happening here?

Finbo wrote: … after exporting an edit from my laptop, take the SxS card and put it back into the Sony camera and update the clip in the menu. …

so, the card is in some card-reader, connected to Mac, for playout?

me no expert in file-structures, but I'm aware, MacOS writes all sorts of 'hidden' files, .DSTORE, ._filename etc etc.
MacOS doesn't display such files (a . at the begining of the filename makes it invisible), but other OS' do. Some Windows users tell me "there's stuff on the stick you gave me!!"

So, search for 'invisible mac files'-tools(if I remember correctly there's one called CleanUp.. Soap.. Wiper?? .. kinda ) , which are able to wipe off such unwanted files.
Prob is/could be, that the Sony player DO read these files e.g. a _mxf file which is 0kB in size and mainly empty...

Sony have replied to say it thinks there may be a problem with my SxS cards based upon their serial numbers. But Sony haven't said what the could be or what to do to solve it, if anything!!
My conversations with Sony have been ongoing for a few weeks now and I'm no further forward...marvelous!

Thank you for keeping us updated on your progress with this issue. And I am happy to hear that at last Sony seems to confirm that the problem might be coming from them. This seems to show once again that writing edits back to camera cards is not always reliable.

- Ronny

It would be very useful to know, if anyone else has tried exporting back to a SxS card with or without success specifically from FCP X. And, if not, what work around do you use?

I have bought a Blackmagic Ultrastudio Mini Monitor as well. It's much smaller and fits in my laptop case better than the bigger and more expensive other Blackmagic option. This seems to work, but sometimes the picture can be jittery on playback. Also, audio levels are lower than on my laptop which is strange...