The Sony Alpha A7S II is the sequel to a camera series that bowled us over last year. Now it has come to us. In addition to highly detailed stills with smooth gradations, the a7S II now has access to the high-bit-rate XAVC S format with 60p, 30p, and 24p recording options, all at 50 Mbps. If you've got some XAVC S material from Alpha A7S II, you will research possible workflows for XAVC S to Avid Media Composer, so as to as have smooth work with the Sony a7S II XAVC S in Avid. In this article, we will list specifics about a workflow of XAVC S codec from Sony A7 II to Avid Media Composer.

Sony has created a special free of charge AMA plug-in for Avid which provides support for XAVC and XDCAM/XDCAM HD files in Avid Media Composer. However, XVAC S is not currently supported natively by Avid Media Composer. To import Sony A7S II 4K XAVC S to Avid for smooth editing, a suggestion is to transcode XAVC-S to a more editing-friendly format, such an Avid's DNxHD codec. Along with some help from a third-party software like EaseFab Video Converter for Mac, you can achieve your goal easily and quickly.

The Mac XAVC S Converter can easily transcode Sony A7S II 4K XAVC S to Avid Media Composer preferred DNxHD MOV video without quality loss. Actually, it can generates kinds of professional editing format/codec for filmmakers to use in different NLE apps, such as MPEG-2 for Adobe Premiere Pro/Adobe After Effects, AIC .mov for iMovie/Final Cut Express, Apple ProRes for Final Cut Pro 6/7/X and more. If you are on Window PC, please get the Video Converter for Windows. Just download it and follow the workflow using Avid MC with Sony A7S II footage.

Transcode Sony A7S II XAVC S 4K Video to DNxHD for Avid Media Composer

Step 1. Add source videos

Launch the professional XAVC-S Video Converter for Mac, and then click "Add video" button to browse and load your source files. (Note: batch conversion is supported, so you can load more than one file to save time.)

Step 2. Select output format as DNxHD

You can directly choose the DNxHD preset from "Editing Software" category for Avid Media Composer which has been supplied by the XAVC S to Avid Converter. The settings also works for Avid MC 8, Avid MC 7, Avid MC 6 and Avid MC 5 etc.

Tip: By clicking the Settings icon, you can adjust video and audio parameters like codec, bit rate, frame rate, sample rate, etc., in that way, you can take charge of the size and quality of the output files. In principle, the larger input values, the better output quality, but the corresponding larger file size.

Step 3. Start XAVC S to Avid Media Composer conversion

When the former steps finished, you can press "Convert" button to start converting Sony A7s II XAVC S 4K files to DNxHD for Avid Media Composer on Mac OS X. Once the conversion process is done, click "Open" button to get the generated files which can be directly imported to Avid MC.