Written by Compact, lightweight and self-contained, the ARRI ALEXA Mini is a versatile additional tool in the ALEXA camera range. The unit can record in a wide variety of formats including HD, 2K, 4K and UHD and can also spit out native resolution outputs like uncompressed ARRIRAW 2.8K or ProRes 4K. After recording, as the default editing software in Mac operating system, FCP X is a good choice if you wanna edit ALEXA Mini 2K/4K files further.
Final Cut Pro X, the latest version of video-editing software geared for professionals from a company increasingly focused on mainstream consumers. FCP X is a follow-up to Final Cut Pro 7, software Apple released in 2009 as part of Final Cut Studio. Like Apple’s newly released of Mac OS X Yosemite, Final Cut Pro X was only be available to customers through the Mac App Store. While the advantage appears, disadvantages are not hidden.
“New to ALEXA Mini and plan to import ALEXA Mini 4K files to FCP X for editing. But the result is not so well. FCP X refused to accept these videos.”
ALEXA camera offers several recording options and ProRes has proven to be a high quality and robust video format that is widely used in the industry today. What a coincidence, it also seems to be the suitable one of the video formats for FCP X! The ALEXA has an uncompressed video output, but I believe many productions will choose to record in ProRes directly in the camera.
Generally, log and transfer or log and capture can solve the import issues, but don’t expect it to result in top quality. From Apple official website, you will know that FCP best supported video codec is Apple ProRes codec, which is native codec for Final Cut Pro editing on Mac. So we could depend on Pavtube Video Converter for Mac to rewrap ALEXA Mini 2K/4K files to ProRes with fast conversion speed and high quality preserved. The one used here can meet your demands with its simple interface but rich functions.
How to work ALEXA Mini 2K/4K files with Final Cut Pro X?
Step 1: Download and have a quick installation. The trial version will have a watermark on your converted files. Except for that, there are no time limitation, no virus, and no unnecessary bundle apps while downloading. After that, click “Add Video” button to load your files from ALEXA Mini. You can load several files at once thanks to “Add from folder” button.
Step 2: Click the “Format” bar to get the drop-down menu and you can get “Final Cut Pro>>Apple ProRes codec”, including ProRes 422, ProRes 422 (HQ), ProRes 422 (LT), ProRes 422 (Proxy) and ProRes 4444. Choose the proper one you want. Here, we suggest you to choose “Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)” as the best output format.
Tips: Apple ProRes 422 and Apple ProRes 422 (HQ) have higher qualities. Apple ProRes 422 (LT) and Apple ProRes 422 (Proxy) have smaller sizes. You can choose according to your requirement.
Step 3: Click “Settings” button to customize the output video and audio settings by yourself. But if you are not good at it, you’d better use the default parameters, they will ensure you a good balance between file size and image quality basically. You can change the resolution, bit rate, frame rate as you need.
Step 4: When everything is done, you can take a preview by hitting “Play” button. If you are satisfied with the final result, you can click “Convert” button to finish the conversion work.
Conclusion: When the conversion is done, you can click “Open” to get your generated files. Now, you can edit ALEXA Mini 2K/4K files in FCP X without any hassles.
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