MXF, short for Material eXchange Format, is widely used by professional HD digital video camcorders like Canon XF300, Canon EOS C300, Panasonic P2, etc. However, MXF is not a Mac friendly video format so you can't play and edit them with Apple software and devices like QuickTime, iTunes, iMovie, Final Cut Pro, iPhone, iPad, iPod and more. If you want to play MXF smoothly on Mac, you'd better convert MXF to MOV, a Mac friendly format.
Here Aimersoft Video Converter for Mac is strongly recommended to convert MXF files to MOV on Mac OS X (Mountain Lion) in fast conversion speed and with high output quality. In addition to MOV, it can also convert MXF to AVI, MP4, WMV, FLV, M4V, 3GP, VOB and more regular video formats. Moreover, it provides some video editing functions like cropping, merging, trimming, rotating, adding watermarks, etc. to let you personalize your video files in clicks. Download it and check out the easy steps to convert camcorder MXF video files to MOV on Mac.
How to convert MXF files to MOV on Mac (Mountain Lion)
1 Import MXF video
After downloading, follow the wizard to install and launch the program. Then you can either directly drag and drop the MXF video files you want to convert to the item bar for conversion or click File > Add Video Files to load your target videos. After the files are loaded, you can preview them, take snapshots, select subtitles, choose audio tracks, etc. as you like. Also, you can click the Merge option to merge all the added video segments into one file so as to enjoy it without any interruption.
2 Choose MOV as the output video format
Next, specify MOV as the output video format. Simply browse the format list at the bottom and choose MOV from Video as the output format to convert your MXF files to MOV. Note that if you want to edit those videos in iMovie or Final Cut Pro, you can directly go to Editing and select iMovie or Final Cut Pro as the output video format to get videos with optimized settings to fit your editing apps.
3 Start conversion
When all settings are done, click the Convert button to start the video conversion. When the conversion completes, the destination folder will open automatically. Get the converted MOV video and play them with iTunes, QuickTime or edit in iMovie, Final Cut Pro, etc.
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When i load the mxf video file and choose imovie for the final video file, the video file will not load into imovie. Is there an issue with the latest version of your software? When i try opening the video file into Quicktime, Quicktime first attempts to convert the video file.
I imagine they most likely use a USB SD-Card reader which can be purchased from most stores for around $20, I love mine and can take it along to use with my laptop as well if needed. Whenever I am trying to convert mxf to mov though I usually try to use my desktop just because it has so much more processing power and works a lot faster.
After reading the comment from Cecelia, I have a question of my own: If the camcorder has an SD card, can you not download the videos to your computer by inserting the SD card from the camera into the computer? (Of course, not all PCs have an SD slot.) If you do not have an SD slot, how were you downloading the videos from your camcorder to your PC?
Thanks for explaining what a MXF file is, that was a new one to me! I am slowly learning to understand many of the other file extensions. Your site here really helps a lot with all your detailed instructions and guides. I really appreciate it! One thing I don't understand, do all camcorder videos have to be edited, etc. before they will download properly onto a computer? We are unable to download videos directly from our Panasonic HDC-TM90 camcorder onto our Windows PC. We always need to load it into a program such as Windows Movie Maker first, then edit and save it there, before it will be downloaded and saved. Is that normal, or are we missing a step somewhere? I just think it should be easier, like I can send images from my phone to my PC's inbox, etc. Sorry this got so long!