DJI has announced Phantom 3 in two versions: the professional model which is capable of capturing 4K (4096 x 2160) video at 24p or 30p. And the advanced camera shoot 1080p video at up to 60 frames per second.
Why does my DJI Phantom 3 4k video look horrible in FCP X?
"Hello, I just purchased a DJI Phantom 3 Professional camera, when I import the 4k video into FCP X, it looks blurry and pixely. However, when I view the same video out of the folder that it resides in, the video looks amazing. What am I doing wrong? I'm assuming I'm doing something wrong during the import process. Any suggestions? Thank you!"
The DJI Phantom 3 professional captured 4k video in MP4 or MOV(MPEG-4 AVC/H.264) format, which is not a native editing codec for Final Cut Pro X. In addition, the 4K video footage compressed with MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 will still have big file size, it will take a lot of time for Final Cut Pro to render those 4k videos. To ensure a smooth workflow of DJI Phantom 3 4K video with FCP X, it is ideal for you to transcode DJI Phantom 3 Professional 4K video to Final Cut Pro X best editing codec - Apple Prores 422 codec, a post-production format designed for pristine quality and high-performance Final Cut Pro real-time editing.
You can perform Phantom 3 4K video to FCP Apple Prores transcoding process on Mac OS X El Capitan with Pavtube HD Video Converter for Mac, the program allows you to output different types of Apple Prores Codecs, if you computer is old or slow, or you just want to do some rough editing, you can select to output "Apple Prores Proxy)(*.mov)"or "Apple Prores (LT)(*.mov)"format to save more space and bandwidth. However, if your computer are powerful enough to handle multicam and high-resolution video and you are going to do many effects editing work with FCP X, you'd better choose to output "Apple Prores 422(*.mov)"or "Apple Prores 422(HQ)(*.mov)"for better performance.
Related topics: best free 4K Video Converter | Upload 4K Video to YouTube | Play 4K Video on Mac
How to import and edit DJI Phantom 3 4K video with Final Cut Pro X Mac OS X 10.11?
Step 1: Transfer DJI Phantom 3 4K recorded footage to Mac computer.
The DJI Phantom 3 records footage on an SD card, you can remove the SD card from the camera, insert the SD card to a card reader, then plug in the card reader into your Mac computer SD card Port for transferring the video footage to your Mac local hard drive.
Step 2: Import DJI Phantom 3 Professional 4K videos.
From "File"drop-down option, select "add Video/Audio"to add source DJI Phantom 3 4K video files to the program.
Step 3: Select output file format.
Click "Format"bar, from its drop-down list, select "Final Cut Pro"> "Apple Prores 422(*.mov)"as your desired output file format.
Step 4: Convert DJI Phantom 3 4K video to Apple Prores format.
Go back to the main interface and press the "Convert"icon on the right-bottom to start DJI Phantom 3 4K video to Final Cut Pro Apple Prores process.
When the conversion is done, you can easily import the converted video to FCP X for furthering professional editing.
