AVID MXF Files won't open!

[M3G4]

Hi all,

Recently had someone drop in an AVID project at work on a hard drive as they wanted to donate some footage. This is fair enough, but unfortunately being a Mac/FCP based institiution my work doesn't have an AVID suite capable of reading the project and despite the installation of many codecs onto my work mac, I can't get the MXF files to open. Not even in the Avid Media Composer 5 trial I downloaded. I've tried using MediaInfo to identify the files and it comes up with the following:

General
Complete name :
movie.mxf
Format :
MXF
Format_Commercial_IfAny :
DV
File size :
788 MiB
Duration :
120h 0mn
Overall bit rate :
15.3 Kbps
Recorded date :
2009-04-22 14:04:30
Encoded date :
2009-04-29 16:11:19.00
Video
ID :
1
Format :
DV
Duration :
120h 0mn
Bit rate mode :
Constant
Bit rate :
24.4 Mbps
Width :
720 pixels
Height :
576 pixels
Display aspect ratio :
16:9
Frame rate mode :
Constant
Frame rate :
25.000 fps
Standard :
PAL
Chroma subsampling :
4:2:0
Bit depth :
8 bits
Scan type :
Interlaced
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) :
2.357
Stream size :
1.20 ?iB
Encoding settings :
wb mode= / white balance= / fcm=manual focus
Audio
ID :
1-0
Format :
PCM
Duration :
120h 0mn
Bit rate mode :
Constant
Bit rate :
1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) :
2 channels
Sampling rate :
48.0 KHz
Bit depth :
16 bits
Stream size :
0.00 Byte (0%)

Another file comes up as just having a video stream:

General
Complete name :
video2.mxf
Format :
MXF
Format_Commercial_IfAny :
DV
File size :
728 MiB
Duration :
5mn 5s
Overall bit rate :
20.0 Mbps
Encoded date :
2009-04-29 16:00:02.00
Video
ID :
1
Format :
DV
Duration :
5mn 5s
Bit rate mode :
Constant
Bit rate :
24.4 Mbps
Width :
720 pixels
Height :
576 pixels
Display aspect ratio :
4:3
Frame rate mode :
Constant
Frame rate :
25.000 fps
Standard :
PAL
Chroma subsampling :
4:2:0
Bit depth :
8 bits
Scan type :
Interlaced
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) :
2.357
Stream size :
889 MiB

Which to me suggest they're just DV files - but VLC, Quicktime, Final Cut Pro etc won't open them. VLC will open them if I rename the extension to .DV but then just produces a load of coloured artifacts and no sound.

Is there any way to retrieve/convert this footage?

[havaham]

You don't say if you have the AVID Codec Installed so here is a link to the MAC version of the AVID Quicktime codec. Maybe that's the problem.

http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=372311

[M3G4]

Thanks for your help, but unfortunately installing the codecs didn't work.

[edDV]

Thanks for your help, but unfortunately installing the codecs didn't work.

It's an MXF demux issue. Source DV MXF's have different flavors Sony, Panasonic, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_Exchange_Format

Why not request the clips on MiniDV tape?