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XDCAM Workflow:
MPEG-2 Long GOP, standard MXF Material Exchange Format
Sony Microsite for XDCAM includes links for Sony XDCAM Browser version 1.00 (XDB1) which allows Intel Mac or PC to view clips on a laptop or desktop; Sony XDCAM Transfer version 2.12 (PDZ-VX10) which is a Plug-in for Final Cut Pro on the Mac. All these are free downloads.
XDCAM EX
 based on Solid State SxS removable media,
XDCAM HD 
removable, re-writable Optical Media, prices are if you buy direct from videotape suppliers
Sony PFD23A2 23GB disks 85 min ~ $20-25 ea
Sony PFD50LA2 50GB disks 185 min ~ $60-65 ea
Download/Copy from the Sony F800 camera, or from the Sony PDW-U1 drive
iLink/Firewire interface, or USB 2.0
 Sony PDW-U1 Drive Software for Intel Macs allows you to rent our PDW-U1 drive to ingest and backup all your XDCAM disks onto hard drive drives, and also to take your SxS media and record to Optical Media for archiving. Since hard drives are at risk for freezing up over a period of years this is an excellent way to preserve your media.
ARRI Alexa workflow
  Standard Sony 32GB SxS cards hold about 20 minutes of HD footage
With the Direct to Edit feature, the Alexa records to SxS memory cards in the 10 bit Apple ProRes HQ codec with options for either 422 and 4444. This format is native to Apple Final Cut Pro, and can also be ingested natively in a Quicktime wrapper to the latest version of Avid Media Composer.
ARRI UDF Universal Disk Format icon shows up on your drive. Copy all the clips and the index.xml file into a separate folder for each card
For Final Cut
Standard XML 2.0 data file on every card (index.xml) simplifies post, import it by using
File > Import > XML, a dialog box comes up asking you to set a destination project, then √ the boxes for
√ Reconnect to Media Files
√ Include Markers
√ Include Audio/Video Effects
then all your clips will show up in the bin
.Gary Adcock Creative Cow link for more details on ARRI Alexa and workflow
In the future there will be Uncompressed ARRIRAW (.ari) files and Uncompressed HD recording with the Alexa. Glue Tools has a toolkit for ARRIRAW and Alexa LogC Pro Res.
The Alexa dual link output can also record to a Sony HDCAM SR field recorder, as well as digital recorders from S-two, Codex, and Cinedeck.
MAC and PC Interchange:
Telestream Flip4Mac WMV Components for Quicktime allow import and export of WMV files on your Mac. The Flip4Mac exports can be used with QuickTime Pro, Final Cut Pro, Compressor
Apple ProRes article by Gary Adcock
[Excerpt] ...while DVCProHD and Long GOP Mpeg files can offer exceptional quality for acquisition, their use in post could be a detriment to achieving high quality work. ProRes was designed to be the highest quality intermediate codec to keep the postproduction workflow data at 10bit quality, yet at a low enough bandwidth to be usable for the majority of FCP users.
Data rate for 10 bit ProRes HQ for 1080/23.98 is about 24.75 MB/s or 220 Mbits compared to uncompressed 199 MB/s or 1.5 Gb/s
This is a higher data rate than 8 bit HDCAM at 136 Mbits or DVCPro HD at 100 mbits.
ProRes SQ note: Gary Adcock's testing found that when the camera native codecs (DVCPROHD, HDV or SxS cards with MPEG-2) were converted to ProRes in software they universally ran better when using the Standard version of ProRes rather than choosing the HQ version.
Output of ProRes HQ out of our workstations with AJA Kona 3 cards records to HDCAM SR at 440 Mbits data rate.
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