Smoothly Edit Sony NEX-VG10/NEX-VG20/NEX-VG30/NEX-VG900 AVCHD in FCP

Sony NEX Interchangeable Lens HD Camcorders are popular for us, they all can record richly-detailed, film-like AVCHD Progressive footage with breathtaking quality. The NEX-VG10, NEX-VG20, NEX-VG30 and NEX-VG900 cameras are the most popular for us.

Here I will give you a brief introduction about them:

Sony NEX-VG10: world’s first interchangeable lens HD Handycam camcorder, shoot 1080p (1,920 x 1,080/60i at 24Mbps)
Sony NEX-VG20: an updated version of its NEX-VG10 Handycam Camcorder capable of 1080p60 recording
Sony NEX-VG900: Full-Frame Interchangeable Lens HD Camcorder, offer 1080/24p along with 1080/60p shooting
Sony NEX-VG30: succeeds the acclaimed NEX-VG20, 1080 60p/24p Progressive recording

The above four cameras all exccellent for us to shoot HD videos. However, the HD video uses AVCHD Progressive technology, which may cause some incompatible troubles. Please see the below faqs.

FAQs for Sony NEX Lens HD Camcorders:

1. How to transcode Sony NEX Interchangeable Lens HD Camcorder AVCHD for Final Cut Pro?

As we all know AVCHD is not a good editing format for many video editing softwares, especially 1080 60p or 60i AVCHD movies. Though Apple company says FCP 7 and FCP X can support AVCHD, which can't support 1080 60p full framerate well, because the FCP is designed to edit ProRes. So the best way to directly get Sony NEX AVCHD to FCP is convert AVCHD to ProRes firstly by using the AVCHD to ProRes Converter.



Step 1: Install and launch this MTS Converter for Mac. Import your Sony NEX-VG900, VG30, VG20 footage to the converter. Merge several AVCHD clips by ticking “Merge into one” box.

Step 2: Click "format" bar to choose the output format. Click and choose "Final Cut Pro -> Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov)" as Final Cut Pro compatible codec for editing AVCHD MTS files in FCP smoothly.
Note: To have a smooth playback and editing after conversion, for FCP 6, you can only choose ProRes 422 and ProRes 422(HQ); while, for FCP 7 and FCP X, Pro Res 422(LT)/Pro Res 444/Pro Res 422(Proxy) are all supported.

Step 3: You can click "settings" to customize the output parameters, adjust the resolution, bitrate as you want. Set video size as 1920*1080, video frame rate as 30fps is better.

Step 4: If you got the 1080 60i video, you can deinterlace 1080i AVCHD files first follow Edit >> Effect >> Deinterlacing. Then click convert button; start to convert Sony NEX AVCHD to ProRes for FCP on Mac OS X. When the conversion ends, get the output MOV video via tapping the Open button.

2. How to transfer converted Sony AVCHD files to FCP X/7/6?

- To import transcoded Sony NEX- VG900/VG30 AVCHD videos to Final Cut Pro X, do as the follow:
From File menu > Import > Files…

-To load re-wrapped Sony NEX MTS files into Final Cut Pro 6/7, do as the follow:
From File menu > Import > Files…

You can click "settings" to customize the output parameters