Sony HXR-NX5U and iMovie Workflow - Transcode AVCHD to AIC MOV

The first in Sony's line of NXCAM solid-state camcorders, the HXR-NX5U is also the company's first professional-level AVCHD camcorder. And while it may look similar to its HDV predecessor, the HVR-Z5U, in fact this is a very different animal. Its ability to capture HD and SD video in AVCHD and MPEG-2 formats--and save it to solid state media--is only one of its distinctive traits. Full-raster 1920 x 1080 video is another, including the option of recording 720/60p video as well as 60i, 30p and 24p.

From Sony's official, we find that Sony HXR-NX5U can support AVCHD 1080i60 HD movie recordings; however, when you importing Sony HXR-NX5U AVCHD to iMovie for editing, you would find that Mac software iMovie cannot recognize the 1080i AVCHD files. The best and easiest solution is to convert Sony HXR-NX5U AVCHD MTS/M2TS to iMovie perfectly supported video format- the Apple Intermediate Codec(AIC) MOV format. To process HXR-NX5U AVCHD MTS to QuickTime AIC Conversion, you can use HD Video Converter for Mac, which works great an Sony AVCHD to MOV Converter for Mac.

Download HD Video Converter for Mac free



Sony HXR-NX5U AVCHD workflow in iMovie

Step 1. Free download the AVCHD Converter for Mac and click on 'Add Video' to load your Sony HXR-NX5U AVHCD MTS files to the best Mac AVCHD converter.

Step 2. Click on “Format” and you will get a dropdown menu; move your pointer to iMovie and Final Cut Express > Apple Intermediate Codec(AIC) (*.mov) which is the Sony HXR-NX5U AVCHD transcoding format you need for iMovie. Then you can set the output folder by clicking “Browse” icon as you need.

Step 3. Click 'Setting' button and go to 'Profile Settings' window to custom video and audio settings if necessary.

Tips: You'd better set the video frame rate as 30fps, video size as 1920*1080 to keep the best quality for editing in FCP. If you wanna have a smaller file size but keep the good quality, you can change the video size to 1440*1080.

Step 4. When ready, click 'Convert' to start transcoding Sony HXR-NX5U AVCHD footage to AIC - the best suited editing format for using within Apple iMovie Version 8, 9, 11. When the conversion is complete, you will be able to get the output files for FCP/iMovie via clicking on “Open/Import” button effortlessly. Now you can easily import the converted Sony HXR-NX5U AVCHD to FCE/iMovie with 30fps to FCE/iMovie for editing with high quality without any trouble.

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