[FFmpeg-user] Not able to convert from AVID MXF XDCAM HD

[Robert Krüger]

On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 10:18 AM, Robert Krüger <krueger at lesspain.de> wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 8:42 PM, Rienk Leendertse <subscribe at lasserij.nl> wrote:
>>
>>
>> On 30 okt. 2013, at 11:10, Robert Krüger wrote:
>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 11:04 AM, Rienk Leendertse
>>> <subscribe at lasserij.nl> wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 8:53 AM, Rienk Leendertse wrote:
>>>>>> Hi Carl Eugen
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for the quick reply.
>>>>>> I will try to put a sample on an FTP server later today.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Meanwhile can you please explain whether it should work natively, with XDCAMHD MXF files?
>>>>>
>>>>> I can confirm that it generally works with XDCAMHD MXF files, although
>>>>> it depends on how they were created. Until very recently files created
>>>>> using XDCAM transfer tool combined with FCP7 were not handled properly
>>>>> (decoding worked somewhat but at least seeking was broken) but that is
>>>>> fixed now.
>>>>>
>>>>> There are different flavours of MXF and the Avid flavour "Op-Atom" is
>>>>> not supported by ffmpeg. Once you have uploaded the file I can have a
>>>>> look at it, if it is such a beast.
>>>>>
>>>>>> Is installing AVID codecs necessary for this?
>>>>>> I have avid LE codecs installed. Not AVID PE Codecs. Which seem to be necessary for XDCam footage?
>>>>>> Or is it necessary to install Sony codec packages like XDCam transfer? Which I have.
>>>>>> Or should ffmpeg be able to play (and decode) it natively.
>>>>>
>>>>> No ffmpeg does not interact with these things on your system. It's
>>>>> MPEG2 decoder is perfectly capable of playing/decoding all XDCAM
>>>>> variants I have seen.
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll check te files today. Because I found out that Assimilate scratch does play the video and audio file, but adobe media encoder CS6 chokes in the video files (without a descriptive log, just "could not export"). AME does convert the audio file, though.
>>>>>> XDCam transfer doesn't take either of the files. So I suspect a problem with the files.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In the previous post I said the video and audio MXF were exported from Avid MC 6. That is not really true.
>>>>>> They were video and audio mixdowns, which I thought should not make a difference, but perhaps it does?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Hope you can answer the general questions above. Meanwhile I'll check the MXF files on an avid system today....
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>
>>>>> Robert
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> ffmpeg-user mailing list
>>>>> ffmpeg-user at ffmpeg.org
>>>>> http://ffmpeg.org/mailman/listinfo/ffmpeg-user
>>>>
>>>> thanks Robert,
>>>> don't have acces to your ftp server right now. (Too many connections for this IP).
>>>> Probably someone somewhere in the building has a connection with your server now.
>>>> Will try it later today, otherwise tonight, from my home...
>>>
>>> You can also use http://www.datafilehost.com if that works better for you.
>>
>> Well,
>>
>> obviously you guys are more command line people than I am :-)
>> (no pun intended)
>> Filezilla, Cyberduck and safari were not able to upload, but plain command line ftp put did the trick...
>>
>> There are testfiles now on the ftp server, with an explanation text. file names all start with 1sec_mxf_test
>
> These files are Op-Atom files as suspected, which means this is not a
> bug but a missing feature. Support for this flavor of MXF is not
> implemented. I attached all diagnostic info I have about the files.

Sorry, I have to correct myself. Though a comment in the muxer source reads

 * Simple demuxer, only OP1A supported and some files might not work at all.

looking at the code there seems to be some Op-Atom support there. I
don't know to what extent. Maybe one of the maintainers could comment
on that?

> Maybe it helps if someone wants to tackle this.
>
> If you need to convert the files to something ffmpeg can handle (for
> further processing), you can use the bmxtranswrap utility from the bmx
> project at sourceforge.