The ‘everyone except me knew this’ tutorial on how to convert your cellphone and point n’ shoot video files, and edit them on any video editing software, whether it’s FCP, Adobe Premiere, or the free iMovie and Windows Movie Maker.
The reason I only mention N95 and Cybershot is because those are the only devices I’ve shot video with besides a camcorder that shoots DV. Nokia N95 saves as .mp4 format while Sony Cybershot saves as .MPG. Final Cut or iMovie can’t edit compressed audio embedded in those formats. Not sure if that has changed with FCP 6 or Adobe CS3.
The solution is simpler than anything. Download the free MPEG Streamclip (Mac/Win). Since discovering this converter, I’ve used nothing else for encoding video files. I have Apple Compressor but I don’t use it.
I just drag and drop the file(s) on the icon and select, since I edit on FCP, ‘Apple DV/DVC Pro NTSC’ option from the dropdown menu. You can choose from tons of other options to output to the format your video editing software ‘talks’ to.
I even use MPEG Streamclip to convert finalized Quicktime files for upload on video sharing sites. Like the unboxing video where I’ve used both N95 and Cybershot footages.
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Eric 10.29.08 at 6:48 pm
Thanks so much. I just switched over to FCP and was having trouble getting audio playback from my Sony Cybershot. Thanks to you, it’s working now, and I can proceed with my next episode. Cheers, Eric