MXF

File Format Description

MXF is a 'container' or 'wrapper' format which supports a number of different streams of coded 'essence', encoded with any of a variety of codecs, together with a metadata wrapper which describes the material contained within the MXF file, from Wikipedia.

MXF packs together video, audio, and programme data, such as text – together termed essence – along with metadata and places them into a wrapper. It's body is stream based and carries the essence as well as some of the metadata. It holds a sequence of video frames, each filled with involved audio, and data essence, plus frame-based metadata. The latter typically comprises timecode and file format information for each of the video frames. This arrangement is also called an interleaved media file.

Causes of Failed Importing

Many NLE systems like FCP, Sony Vegas and AviD, claim to have full support for editing MXF files, but actually most of them can only import parts of MXF files for editing since the codec problem. Like any other media container format, the appropriate codec must be available in order to play or edit the media stored within an MXF file. If you failed to import MXF to FCP, etc for editing, you should consider converting MXF to the accepted formats such as ProRes 422. Know More>>