Best method exporting from Final Cut into Pro Tools?

[Jamz]

Video and dialogue currently reside in Final Cut Pro.
Must be transferred into Pro Tools for SFX, music spotting, Scoring, mix.
What is the best way to get the video (Quicktime I guess) into Po Tools?
Must remain locked.

[imgoinmad]

I generally have them output uncompressed (if they're doing DV, then they export a quicktime movie uncompressed DV/DVPRO and NTSC if you're in the US). I then open the file in QUICKTIME and compress to a 720x480 quicktime movie using the PhotoJPEG compression setting at medium quality. I find this gives me a decently compressed quicktime movie that doesn't overload my system and pro-tools likes it fine

[smsjr]

Not to be nitpicky, but take the word uncompressed out when you talk to them. Just a 720x480 DV/NTSC (which is a compressed format). Otherwise, people may get confused.

I find DV quality works just fine, but as was mentioned photo-jpeg can work as well. You want to work with codecs that the machine doesn't have to do too much work to process so that more resources go to your audio.

Ideally, you would get the video processing completely off your DAW system and onto another computer that can be lokced with your session. But that's not very practical for a small shop.

Steve

[minister]

what Steve says is correct.

and an OMF for audio.

there is info in the manual about all this.

[soundguydave]

Originally Posted by Jamz

Video and dialogue currently reside in Final Cut Pro.
Must be transferred into Pro Tools for SFX, music spotting, Scoring, mix.
What is the best way to get the video (Quicktime I guess) into Po Tools?
Must remain locked.

An OMF will work, only if you have digitranslator. Otherwise you'll have to export each track individually and you'll lose handles. But as minister said, its in the manual. Did you check there first?

[yazoo]

We are about to buy Automaticduck pro export for our studio.

Anyone who has used it? is it the best export tool for FCP to Protools
or is there any other alternative?

/benny

[philper]

Originally Posted by yazoo

We are about to buy Automaticduck pro export for our studio.

Anyone who has used it? is it the best export tool for FCP to Protools
or is there any other alternative?

/benny

The only reason you would want Automatic Duck for OMF export to ProTools would be if you want the FCP keyframe automation to come across to the PT session. Otherwise FCP has pretty much always exported ok audio OMFs (embedded type) on its own. Getting a picture editor's volume automation is a mixed blessing at best--it is true that you get a good approximation of sound mixing they did, but I find it very limiting in terms of finding my own way thru the project. I almost never want their track layout, I probably don't have any of the plugins they used, and editor's levels are almost never correct for broadcast etc., so a lot of their work has to be undone in a somewhat confusing way. In any case, if the directive is to use that automation for better or worse, then they (the FCP people) have to buy Automatic Duck--that is the only way to move that info across.

Philip Perkins CAS

[soundslikejoe]

I'm working on a project (low budget) that uses Automatic Duck. The director is the editor and had very specific automation curves he wanted to perserve. AutoDuck was the only way to get the automation out and into my DAW.

Here's some observations.... it doesn't translate perfectly. The way FCP handles automation is different than other programs and it translates poorly. (some paning problems, automation points created at the start of every new clip, etc)

[starcrash13]

Does FCP do AAF export? I've gotten AAF's from an Avid and was able to retain the automation. Is it diffferent with FCP?

[Jamz]

Originally Posted by soundguydave

An OMF will work, only if you have digitranslator. Otherwise you'll have to export each track individually and you'll lose handles. But as minister said, its in the manual. Did you check there first?

Which manual...Final Cut, Digitranslator or Pro Tools?
Thanks for the replies fellas. Sounds like I should really look into Digitranslator.

[soundslikejoe]

Originally Posted by starcrash13

Does FCP do AAF export? I've gotten AAF's from an Avid and was able to retain the automation. Is it diffferent with FCP?

AutoDuck has promised AAF with the next update but it hasn't hit yet. Soon it will.