Sony a7R III XAVC S to FCP/iMovie/Avid/Premiere Best Workflow

The Alpha A7R III is Sony's latest high-resolution mirrorless camera that supports UHD 4K movies in multiple frame rates up to 30 fps. Plus, Full HD 1080p recording is also supported in frame rates up to 120 fps, and both resolutions utilize the 100 Mbps XAVC S format contained within an MP4 wrapper with 4:2:0 sampling. For guys who are going to have some professional editing work of Sony a7R III XAVC S with NLEs such as Final Cut Pro, Avid Media Composer, iMovie, Adobe Premiere, etc, you're in the right place. Here is the best Sony a7R III to FCP/iMovie/Avid/Premiere workflow which can help you a lot in editing Sony A7R III XAVC S footage.

Issues: Editing Sony A7R III XAVC S in FCP, Avid Media Composer, iMovie, Premiere Pro

When you directly import your Sony a7R III XAVC S into those NLE, you will probably find that the error message pops up sometimes, or the rendering process lasts forever, or the editing work is not smooth at all.

The video shot under the XAVC-S mode with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 compression codec, which cannot be natively supported by those NLEs, they need to render the XAVC-S mode into other compatible mode if it can be recognized. It's a long time process and sometimes it's interrupted or crashed during the process.

And then, the video shoot under the XAVC-S mode of a7R III with 4K resolutions also requires a powerful CPU and Graphics. Generally speaking, even the NLEs such as the FCP X, Avid, iMovie has ability to handle the 4K video, editing in an old or low configuration PC/Mac can be a pain.

Solution: Transcode Sony A7R III XAVC S to a more edit-friendly format

Although, there are some plugs such as AMA, which provides support for XAVC and XDCAM/XDCAM HD files in Avid Media Composer, editing experience of XVAC S in NLEs is still not good as users expect. Therefore, we'd like to suggest the best workflow: transcode Sony A7R III XAVC S to the nativie format or codec for each NLE. For example, ProRes MOV to FCP, DNxHD MOV to Avid MC, AIC MOV to iMovie/FCE, MPG to Premiere, etc.

Here Brorsoft Video Converter for Mac is highly recommended as the best XAVC S converter. With it, you can directly choose the preset format for the NLEs such as the FCP, iMovie, Adobe Premiere, Avid, etc or some players like QuickTime. Several optional buttons you can take around to adjust your output videos, for example, "Settings", "Edit" or "Options" provide more exciting videos for you. If you are on Windows PC, please turn to Brorsoft Video Converter.

READ MORE:
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Sony a7s to Premiere Pro | Sony a7s II to FCP/Avid/Premiere
Sony a7S II XAVC S to Davinci Resolve | Sony a7 III XAVC S to Premiere Pro
Sony a7 III XAVC S to Davinci Resolve | Sony a9 to FCP/Premiere/Avid
Sony UMC-S3CA XAVC S to Davinci Resolve

Guide: Transcode Sony a7R III XAVC S for FCP/iMovie/Avid/Premiere

1. When you download and install the best XAVC S converter program, with two buttons on the main interface we can easily load our source files in. "Add video" and "Add from folder" can both help you in that way.

2. Click "Format" bar, from its drop-down list:

a. Select "Final Cut Pro" > "Apple ProRes 422 (HQ)" or "Apple ProRes 422 (LT)" or "Apple ProRes 4444" as the desired format for editing in Final Cut Pro.
b. Select "iMovie and Final Cut Express" > "Apple InterMediate Codec (AIC)" as the desired format for editing in iMovie.
c. Select "Avid Media Composer" > "Avid DNxHD(*mov)" as the desired format for editing in Avid Media Composer.
d. Select "Adobe Premiere/Sony Vegas" > "MPEG-2 (*.mpg)" as the desired format for editing in Premiere.

Tip: You can click the Settings to pen profile window to adjust output video and audio parameter settings according to your own preference.

3. After all the setting is over, go back to the main interface and hit right-bottom "Convert" button to start Sony a7R III 4K XAVC S to the native supported codec you have selected conversion process.

When the conversion is done, you can click "Open" button to get the generated video files. Now, you can import the converted Sony a7R III XAVC S files to Premiere/FCP/iMovie/Avid with the native codec and edit flawlessly.