Edit Canon XF300 MXF Recordings in iMovie with MXF to iMovie Converter

Canon XF300 Professional Camcorder, as Canon's another innovation and development in image and solid state video acquisition, has successfully received positive comments from electronic newsgathering (ENG) crews, independent filmmakers, documentary producers, event videographers and military agencies all around the world. It features 50Mbps MPEG-2 4:2:2 codec, recording HD videos to Compact Flash (CF) Cards for unsurpassed image quality and efficient, robust workflow at an affordable price. Nearly everything you'd want in a handheld, pro-level camcorder is here in one sleek package. How could you resis the temptation of Canon XF300?

But the happy XF300 users still meet the problem when they are trying to edit Canon XF300 1080i MXF in iMovie. When connecting to Mac, they can not find their camcorder there. Although Canon's adaptation of MPEG-2 for XF300 has actually widened the compatibility with the existing industry infrastructure and non-linear editing (NLE) systems, iMovie can not support MPEG-2, so it can not support MCF files from XF300. How to import XF300 MXF recordings to iMvoie is a big problem to the users.

As far as we know, iMovie natively supports Apple InterMediate Codec and this information make the problem easier--- you just need to find a third party software and convert Canon XF300 MXF footages to AIC for iMovie. It will be perfect if the converter can also deinterlace the 1080i files so that they will be more smooth in iMovie. After googling, you will get a lof options. Among them, I highly recommend Brorsoft MXF Converter for Mac. The top MXF to iMovie Converter can not only transcode XF300 MXF files to AIC with original quality, but also deinterlace the 1080i files with the quickest speed.

Now, you can follow the step-by-step guide and easily get the MXF files imported to iMovie.

Step 1: Instal and launch the best MXF to iMovie Converter.
Click the button “File” to add MXF files to it. (Note: You should find the MXF videos from one MXF whole structure folder). If it is necessary, you can double click the each file to have a preview.
Tips:
1. If you want to merge MXF files, just need to check the “Merge into one” box.
2. You shouldn’t move the single MXF video out of the whole MXF whole structure folder, or the MXF video would be wrong such as without audio.

Step 2: Select an output format for iMovie and set the output folder.
Click on the “Format” and you will get a dropdown menu. Move you pointer to iMovie and Final Cut Express > Apple Intermediate Codec(AIC) (*.mov). The Apple Intermediate Codec(AIC) is the compatible format for iMovie and FCE. Then you can set the output folder by clicking “Browse” icon as you need.

Step 3: Click “Settings” icon to adjust audio and video parameters.
Click the “Settings” icon and you will go into a new interface named “Profile Settings”. You can adjust codec, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate and audio channel in the interface according to your needs and optimize the output file quality.
Note 1: You’d better set the video frame rate as 30fps, video size as 1920*1080 to keep the best quality for editing in iMovie. If you want to have a smaller file size but keep the good quality, you can change the video size to 1440*1080.
Note 2: Please click Edit and then you can deinterlace 1080i MXF files in the Video Editor.

Step 4: Start to convert Canon XF300 MXF files to AIC for iMovie.
Click the “Convert” button; it will convert Canon XF300 recordings to AIC on Mac immediately. You can find the process in the “Conversion” interface.


When the MXF to AIC conversion process is 100% completed, you will be able to get the output files for iMovie by clicking on “import” button effortlessly. Now you can easily transfer the converted and deinterlaced Canon XF300 MXF files to iMovie for editing in perfect sync of video and audio without quality loss.

See also:

Canon C300 MXF to iMovie

Canon XF100 MXF to iMovie

Canon P2 MXF to iMovie

MXF Converter to Mac