Transcoding Canon C300 with Telestream Episode Pro 6: Glitch

Canon C300 footage transcoded with Telestream's Episode Pro 6 causes a 3 frame drop at the end of each clip.

Eventually I will post on this entire process, but for now, this entry will focus on a glitch I seem to have discovered when transcoding Canon C300 MXF files to XDCAM MXF files so than can be transported to post via XDCAM Disk.

The C300 splits the clips into 2.05GB segments, or 5:16 long.  Rather than stitching them back together for or during transcoding, post is having me transcode them all as if there are individual clips, and they stitch them in AVID.  In Episode Pro, I'm using the "XDCAM HD422 MXF 1080p25 50Mbit" encoder, found under "Editing Avid (MXF) XDCAM HD" section of the encoders menu.  Our only goal is to take the Canon wrapper off, and re-wrap it in XDCAM, so I modify it by unchecking anything else it could possibly change besides the wrapper: "Frame Rate", "Deinterlace", "Resize", and "Sample Rate."

This is a show with a high volume of footage, so I don't have time to manually check every clip before sending it to post.  Post eventually reported back to me that all of my transcodes were missing three frames at the end of each clip.  This is a decently big problem when it comes to shots longer than 5:16.  My biggest complaint about this job was the lack of a prep week.  There was actually a lack of any sort of prep, and I feel this is something I would have discovered had I had prep time.

As much as I hate to admit it, my first thought was "Oh god I did something wrong and have probably been ruining most of this footage!!!"  So I frantically checked all of my setting and work and couldn't find anything, and contacted Telestream.  I have to say, Telestream has pretty great customer support!  Unfortunately it was a weekend when this came up and no one was able to respond, but come Monday, I got an email with FTP server information asking me to send in a sample along with all of my settings.  I've also spoken with them over the phone and have to give mad props to Todd, I've pretty much only been working with him and he is awesome, patient, and will answer any stupid or not stupid question I have for him, as well as join in with me on aggravation with computers, bosses, and tricky workflows.  And he used to work for Apple!  BONUS!  Anyway, Telestream was able to replicate the problem (THANK GOD I WASN'T CRAZY) and has sent it to the engineers.

Currently their guess is it has something to do with the C300s metadata since the camera is still fairly new and Episode Pro does not exhibit this problem with any other MXF workflows.  Hooray for discovering new problems!  But double hooray for companies so willing to jump on it and fix it!  A massive breath of fresh air compared to the 3D AVID debacle.