I don’t know if anyone else is still having this issue. I have an old Canon XL2 Mini DV camcorder, and it was easily able to import the miniDV footage into iMovie. However, when I turn to Final Cut Pro 6, it does not recognize there is a camera attached via FireWire (4-pin to 6-pin). I also tried to download the Premiere Pro and Avid Media Composer trial version, but none can read and ingest the Canon XL2 videos.
At first I thought it was the cable, or the camera, but it will connect to a Dell laptop via the 4-pin to 4-pin FireWire cable. Whereas, problems occurred again. The .AVI clips imported from my Canon XL2 can’t be viewed and edited within FCP/Premiere Pro/Avid MC. What is the problem? Any suggestions? Canon’s website says the camera is compatible and there are no drivers to download.
After further searching online, more one than one guys suggest to convert Canon XL2 .avi to a more editable format for Final Cut Pro, Premiere Pro or Avid Media Composer with a third-party software like Brorsoft Video Converter for Mac. It is the best video converter that can help users to transcode Canon XL2 AVI to MPEG-2 for Adobe Premiere Pro, ProRes for Final Cut Pro X or FCP 6/7, DNxHD for Avid Media Composer, Apple InterMediate Codec for iMovie with least quality. Download the software and follow the guide to convert and edit Canon XL2 clips on Mac OS X.
How to Convert and Import Canon XL2 AVI to Avid, FCP and Premiere
1. Install and launch the Canon XL2 Video Converter Mac. Click Add button to load the DV-AVI footage for converting.
2. Click on the “Format” bar and choose a best editable format.
a. Select Final Cut Pro > Apple ProRes 422 (*.mov) as the output format for Final Cut Pro.
b. To convert Canon XL2 MiniDV files to Avid Media Composer, choose Avid Media Composer -> Avid DNxHD (*.mov) as the target format.
c. Choose Adobe Premiere/Sony Vegas –> MPEG-2(*.mpg) as output format for editing Canon XL2 videos in Adobe with natively supported video codec.
3. You also can click “Settings” to set video frame rate, video size and Video Bitrate as you want.
4. As soon as all things are finished, please click “Convert” button to start the MiniDV Mac conversion.
Once the conversion process shows 100%, you can easily import the converted files to Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Media Composer with smooth workflow.