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MXF video format is one of the most difficult formats to handle. Being different from home cameras or camcorders, which mainly capture AVCHD format, this professional format is widely used in movie-making. In the before, to make a movie is the patent of a professional worker. That’s totally because when editing the video files, too much edit was necessary, and after that, if you want to store the videos in DVD, a DVD burner should be used. As limited people can manage such video editors or DVD burners, to make movies became so difficult.

I have Canon C300 camcorder and shoot the videos recently, the Canon C300 supports the highest HD quality with Full HD 1920×1080 resolution with Canon XF codec, up to 50Mbps bit rate and 4:2:2 color sampling. I would like to edit the recorded .mxf video on iMac with iMovie 11, which is the free and useful part of the Apple Mac iLife.

MXF format, Material Exchange Format, is a “container” or “wrapper” format which supports a number of different streams of coded “essence”, encoded with any of a variety of codecs, together with a metadata wrapper which describes the material contained within the MXF file. I got these words from wikipedia. Actually, the explanation is too difficult for most video fans to understand as limited people are clear about “container” or “codec“. But in my opinion, it’s not necessary to make clear what MXF is, you can just remember that MXF is the best video format for professional users and it’s widely used by movie-makers, program editors and so on.

MXF is a “container” or “wrapper” format which supports a number of different streams of coded “essence”, encoded with any of a variety of codecs, together with a metadata wrapper which describes the material contained within the MXF file. MXF has been designed to address a number of problems with non-professional formats. MXF file format is not compatible with many programs. So you may have problem to play, edit or use these MXF format came from Panasonic HVX200/HPX300, Canon XF100/XF100/XF300/XF305/C300/C500, Sony EX camera, etc, let alone share and show your MXF video files to the world via Youtube and Vimeo.

Sony XDCAM series camcorders like Sony PMW-EX1, PDZ-VX10, Sony PMW-350K, Sony PMW-320K, Sony PMW-EX3, Sony PMW-EX1, Sony PMW-F3L, Sony PMW-F3K, Sony PMW-100, Sony PDW 700, Sony PDW-F800, etc are high-end professional camcorders which can capture stunning-quality HD images; they can offer very high quality HD recording at a data rate of up to 50Mbps at MXF format.

As a representative one of Panasonic P2 series, AJ-HPX3700 records video files in MXF (Material Exchanged File) format as other P2 series camcorders do. However, the MXF files do not always stand for a more advanced experience though MXF is a HD video format with high video quality. Sometimes you may want to import them to video editing tools like Adobe Premiere CS5/CS6 and then you will find that the MXF format means large file size as well as high video quality.

P2 MXF files are OP-Atom （MXF Operational Pattern Atom）, where each track of video and audio are stored in separate files. This complicates the housekeeping of the files since steps must be taken to ensure related tracks are kept together when files are moved or copied. The P2 uses a 6-character identifier in the filename of all related files.

The Canon EOS C300 supports the highest HD quality with Full HD 1920×1080 resolution with Canon XF codec, up to 50Mbps bit rate and 4:2:2 color sampling.Utilizing file-based MPEG-2 compression with an MXF File Wrapper ensures the widest compatibility with existing industry infrastructure, metadata and non-linear editing (NLE) systems. After shooting some footage on the Canon EOS C300, you may want to edit them in Final Cut Pro 6/7 or Final Cut Pro X. However, you may also face the problem that FCP 6/7 or FCP X does not recognize the .mxf videos.To make it easier for editing Canon EOS C300 MXF videos on FCP 6/7/X, you can use aPubsoft MXF Video Converter for Mac, which was a great Mac Canon EOS C300 MXF Converter. It can not only convert Canon EOS C300 MXF .mxf videos to FCP 6/7/X, but also make iteasy for merge videos.