Canon XF705 H.265 HEVC Files

[Dan Hyman]

Hello,

Wondering when Premiere Pro CC will support the files from this new camera. I anticipate it becoming very popular, like a Sony EX1-EX3.

Right now, only a paid version of Da Vinci Resolve will work with these new files (which I don't have).

Thanks,

Dan

[tjdaly13]

One other thing - my copy of Resolve 15 has to come as a PHYSICAL activation code written on a card.  won't arrive from B&H until early next week.  Thank goodness I'm not on a tight deadline.

[RobbieBoyette]

Got DaVinci Resolve Studio a week ago. Just can't wait on Adobe.
They take way too long.
First they screw me over as a longtime customer spending thousands of dollars on their software over a couple of decades by going to a subscription model and NO updates for all the "pre-cc" versions.

Then, a few years back I went to 4K with the Samsung NX-1 which shot in h265.  But Premiere couldn't ingest ANY H265 files of any sort. Took them months and months. I had to invest back then in an encoder just to get them to a file that slow-ass Adobe could see.

Now this.
With my past experience with their SLOW techs...I went ahead and got DaVinci Resolve studio. Cost me $300 that I don't think I should have to spend when paying a subscription service monthly to Adobe.

Resolve is not good enough for editing in my opinion. Premiere is miles ahead in that dept.

But encoding? It's WAY faster than Adobe Media Encoder. I mean it's not even close.

So my current work-flow is: xf705 files to Davinci Resolve Studio. Output them out as h264 .mp4 and then into Premiere Pro for editing and final output.

[Jim_Simon]

Resolve is not good enough for editing in my opinion. Premiere is miles ahead in that dept.

If you are going down the Resolve path, be sure to pick up the following.  Approach Resolve as if you're brand new to editing.  Learn what it can do, and how it operates.  I think you'll find the current 15.2.3 is every bit as capable an NLE as PP, and even superior in some ways.

https://www.amazon.com/Definitive-Guide-DaVinci-Resolve-Blackmagic/dp/0999391364

Once that's done, there's a LOT more to learn:

DaVinci Resolve 15 – Training | Blackmagic Design

[RobbieBoyette]

I may have not said that right.
What I found was that it's not as easy to do things quickly as it is in Premiere. Titles for instance are now super fast to do on Premiere.
Also having to cut footage at the end and beginning of clips in order to use the few transitions available for Resolve really sucks and is time consuming.
But the one thing that made me finally throw my hands up with Resolve was the choppy timeline. I tried everything to get it to play smoothly. Made "optimized media" ("proxies"), lowered the timeline monitor resolution, etc.   Still had choppy playback. I just can't edit film like that.

But I can encode out a h64 .mp4 to go into Premiere Pro pretty fast and then I'm set to go.

[Jim_Simon]

What I found was that it's not as easy to do things quickly as it is in Premiere.

That will change as you learn the new software.  Some period of adjustment is always expected.

Choppy playback is...not normal.  It's up to you, of course, but that's likely an issue that can be corrected.

[RobbieBoyette]

Hmmm...I read a lot about Resolve and many, many users were reporting the same problems with playback.

I tried the optimized media, etc.  
I'm using dual Xeon E-2620 processors, 32 gigs of Ram and a fast hard drive.

What suggestions do you have for me to get the xf705 h265 MXF files to play without the choppiness? Or for that matter the "optimized media" (their version of "proxies")?

In Premiere Pro, for instance...I don't even bother with proxy files anymore. I just drop the playback to 1/8 and edit.

[Dan Hyman]

Hey guys, as mentioned, right now it’s a $300 media encoder for Premiere. Adobe should float us some comped months for having to shell out $300 just to be able to edit our footage on a Creative Cloud program designed to avoid this exact scenario.

[Jim_Simon]

What suggestions do you have for me...

That's probably better asked in the Resolve forums.

Blackmagic Forum • Index page

[RobbieBoyette]

Cool Jim...thanks for nothing! lol  As I said, I read the Resolve forums and saw that people are having the same problems with choppiness.
Doesn't matter. I've got a workflow now.

Had to pay $300 for it and that's not right with Adobe charging us every month for Premiere.

[lobralobra]

Since yesterday I have a Canon XF 705. I tried the footage with PPro and Resolve. Import in Resolve no problem, import in PPro not possible, i must change the file extension to MPG and then i can import the footage. Playback via the AJA card is not possible, you see only a frozen picture. Playback in Resolve via the BM card is no problem. I produce HDR Videos, before it was with PPro very, very difficult, but now it is impossible. I think, I will use Resolve in the future. The newest version of PPro is very bad, I use PPro for about 8 years, but never seen so a buggy version. What is the reason? The good staff changed to BM?

Please excuse my bad English, I am German.

[8raptor8]

This does NOT work.

[RobbieBoyette]

If you are referring to Resolve Studio...YES it does.

I bought it. I had no choice with Adobe screwing around making new apps and not paying enough attention to the MAIN "bread and butter" Premiere Pro.

The free version of Resolve doesn't work. The paid one does.

And what I am doing for the last few months is importing my files into Resolve. Put them in order on the timeline in the "Edit" mode. Then switch to "Deliver" mode (rendering) and output it as a .mov

THEN, I import that into Premiere Pro and finally get to go to work.
Fortunately...Resolve Studio's output is much, much faster than Adobe Media Encoder. So it doesn't take a very long time to get the .mov out of it.

Sure would be nice if instead of making apps for people to put videos up with their cellphones...they would get back to work on the professional apps like Premiere Pro.

[rbrimson]

I tried that but premiere keeps crashing when I import it as an .mpg

[dkaplowitz]

Changing the file extension to .mpg does not work. Pretty sure this is the straw that broke the camel's back - £600/year to Adobe for this, plus inadequate tech support. Da Vinci Resolve Studio and some Photoshop alternative I guess; can totally live without the rest of the suite.

[kevcar]

I give up!!!!!!! Adobe talk to Canon and please support the XF HEVC 265

[Trent Happel · Accepted solution]

Canon XF HEVC support is now in Premiere Pro 14.0.

More information on 14.0:

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/whats-new/2020.html

[kevcar]

I bought a Ninja 5 for my XF705 as Canon were very slow for the XF705 4K codec, about 15 months. I also just bought a brand new computer for editing which cost £4000 my XF705 files wont play (major lag and loads of dropped frames) unless I use a Proxy, The Ninja 5 ProRes files is as smooth as butter not one dropped frame, (impressive). So the Ninja 5 is the best piece of Tech I have bought, The Cannon XF705 is crap until Canon or (Adobe can help sort this out) or both work together to sort out the mess. 

[MillIvar]

I have 4 XF705's for filming stage performances. Love them, a great upgrade from the Sony PMW200's I used before.

But the HEVC-files are veeery heavy. That is your problem. If you use a CPU monitor, it will show you that all processor cores go to 100%, and have a miserable video output (but the audio plays as if nothing, on my machine, anyways)

Maybe the new AMD 32 core Threadrippers will handle it with an unholy amount of ram. I hope to find out this week. I guess it will set me back some 8-10 000$, if there is a solution for 4cam 4K native multiview playback at all... 

Otherwise, its proxies until the PC's catch up;)

[danilod52214788]

Hello there, I've an iMac Pro - 2.5GHz 14-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.3GHz
128GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory, 4TB SSD, Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB of HBM2 memory. The XF705 HEVC files play very slow and dropping frames, quite unusable. Will Adobe release a new version of support in Premiere of HEVC files? Because now is impossible to work with them, my iMac and Premiere both crashed importing files too. Will Adobe make a new implementation soon of the HEVC codec or it will remain like this? Please let me know.

[dimba83]

Jus rename all the .mxf to mpg and suddenly the play much smoother...how in the Hell Adobe? I jus found out by accident because my fresh installed 14.8 Premiere refused to import h265 mxfs from the xf705.
And i started wondering how the 4k50p HEVC suddenly play smooth. And it took me that long to find out? But whats the reason ADOBE? Why is MXF implemented so bad in Premiere?