Summary: Sony PXW-Z100 XAVC is not the preferred format by Sony Vegas 13. To avoid these problems or limit, the best way is transcoding 4K XAVC footage to a more editing-friendly format.
Cameras that can record in 4K are not new: Sony has the F55, Canon the EOS 1D-C and C500, and there are the Reds. Sony recently added 4K as an option to the F5 and FS700, and the GoPro can even shoot 4K, albeit briefly. But the Sony PXW-Z100 has few competitors, on price. The EOS 1D-C is almost twice the price of the PXW-Z100, and the Canon’s price is body only. The Sony, however, is expected to sell for around ￡4500, a similar price to the 1080p, PMW-200.
After shooting videos with Sony PXW-Z100, how to do the post editing to those XAVC videos on Sony Vegas 13 or other editors is really a headache for many users. “Anyone having an issue getting Vegas 13 to accept the 4K XAVC clips from the new Sony PXW-Z100? Why do the Sony camera divisions and SCS not work together to ensure that their own NLE can accept their own camera footage when a camera is released. It’s crazy.”
XAVC allows for a wide range of content production including intra frame recording and long group of pictures (GOP) recording. Although Sony states that the Vegas 13 supports native XAVC editing, we find it’s not easy to edit XAVC in Sony Vegas 13. Why Sony Vegas 13 won’t import Z100 4K XAVC files? Sony Vegas 13 supported file formats may give you some clues:
Opens: MOV, WMV, H.264, AA3, AAF, AIF, ASF, AU, AVC, AVI, BMP, BWF, CDA, DIG, DLX, DPX, DV, EXR, FLAC, GIF, HDP, IVC, JPEG, AVCHD, M2T, M2TS, MVC, Sony MXF (XDCAM and HDCAM SR), MP3, MP4, M4A, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, OGG, MPO, OMA, Panasonic MXF (DVCPRO, AVC-Intra) PCA, PSD, QT, R3D, PNG, SFA, SND, TIFF, TGA, W64, WAV, VOX, WDP, WMA, XAVC Intra MXF, XAVC S
Saves: H.264, AA3, FLAC, AC3, AIF, ATRAC, AVC, AVCHD, AVI, DPX, EXR, HDP, MOV, MP4, WMV, MP3, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 video, M2T, Sony MXF (XDCAM and HDCAM SR), MVC, OGG, Panasonic MXF (AVC-Intra), PCA, W64, WAV, WMA, XAVC S, XAVC Intra MXF
To ingest 4K XAVC to Sony Vegas 13 perfectly, Pavtube HD Video Converter for Mac is highly recommended to convert 4K XAVC to Sony Vegas 13 native format- MPG. No matter what version of the NLE apps you are applying, and what Mac system you are working on, this video converter will assist you to import XAVC files to Sony Vegas 13 smoothly.
Follow its step-by-step instruction below to learn how to encode XAVC to MPEG-2 for Vegas 13:
Step 1: Backup your 4K XAVC videos from your Z100 camcorder to hard drive. Install and launch 4K HD Video Converter for Mac. Drag and drop 4K video files to the software. You can import multiple files at once thanks to batch conversion.
Step 2: Click the drop-down list in the format line to get the format box. Then choose “Adobe Premiere/Sony Vegas>>MPEG-2 (*.mpg)” as output format.
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: You can preview to check the final result. Once you are satisfied with it, click the “Convert” button to startconverting Z100 4K XAVC to MPEG-2 .mpg format. It will take you a little while.
Conclusion: After conversion, you’ll get no troubles in editing Z100 4K XAVC in Sony Vegas 13. Follow the steps and have a try!
Further Reading:
- Make Canon C300 MXF Footage Editable in Final Cut Pro 7
- Make Panasonic V130 MTS Compatible with Premiere Pro
- MXF to DaVinci Resolve- Import Ikegami MXF to DaVinci Resolve for Editing
- Import Canon T6s/760D MP4 to VLC, QuickTime for Playing on Mac OS X Yosemite
- Sony Alpha a7II Workflow with Premiere Pro CC/After Effects CC
- Load Sony HDR-PJ670/B MTS Files to Avid MC for Editing
- Playing Captured AVI Files from Bushnell Trail Camera on QuickTime Player
