Recent versions of ffmpeg do preserve the timecode by default. I just tested it:
ffmpeg -i A152C001_131008UZ.MXF -an -vcodec prores -profile:v 0 testtc.mov
ffmpeg version 2.0.1-tessus Copyright (c) 2000-2013 the FFmpeg developers
built on Aug 10 2013 21:25:56 with llvm-gcc 4.2.1 (LLVM build 2336.1.00)
configuration: --prefix=/Users/tessus/data/ext/ffmpeg/sw --as=yasm --extra-version=tessus --disable-shared --enable-static --disable-ffplay --enable-gpl --enable-pthreads --enable-postproc --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-libspeex --enable-bzlib --enable-zlib --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libxavs --enable-version3 --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libvpx --enable-libgsm --enable-libopus --enable-fontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-filters --enable-runtime-cpudetect
libavutil 52. 38.100 / 52. 38.100
libavcodec 55. 18.102 / 55. 18.102
libavformat 55. 12.100 / 55. 12.100
libavdevice 55. 3.100 / 55. 3.100
libavfilter 3. 79.101 / 3. 79.101
libswscale 2. 3.100 / 2. 3.100
libswresample 0. 17.102 / 0. 17.102
libpostproc 52. 3.100 / 52. 3.100
...
Input #0, mxf, from 'A152C001_131008UZ.MXF':
Metadata:
...
timecode : 18:56:52:22
...
Output #0, mov, to 'testtc.mov':
Metadata:
...
timecode : 18:56:52:22
...
And the resulting Quicktime does have the correct timecode (as shown by QT7).
I got my Mac OS X binary of ffmpeg from http://www.evermeet.cx/ffmpeg/
And ffmbc
is available for Mac OS X through homebrew (brew install ffmbc
). However, it does not preserve the timecode by default. You need to specify it with the -timecode hh:mm:ss:ff
option.
If you do install homebrew, you can also use it to install ffmpeg.