Migrating Final Cut Pro

7/28/2019 Migrating Final Cut Pro

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www.avid.com

Migrating from Final Cut Proto Media Composer

What you should know to make your transition successul


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Migrating from Final Cut Pro to Media Composer

What you should know tomake your transition successul

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The editorial community has undergone a

proound transition with the recent introduction o

Apple Final Cut Pro X, causing many to re-evaluate

their proessional video editing tool. Final Cut Pro 7

editors looking to migrate to a solution that provides

similar workows and proessional editing eatures

will fnd Avid Media Composer 6 a amiliar and

powerul application.

This guide is designed to assist you with

understanding the basics in migrating rom

Final Cut Pro to Media Composer, and how

to successully navigate the transition.

Choose your hardware

One o the fnancial challenges during a migration

is to maintain your investment in both computerhardware and video interaces. Final Cut Pro users

have a number o options when choosing video

interaces, including products rom AJA, Blackmagic

Design, Matrox, and MOTU. Various confgurations

include baseband SDI inputs and outputs, HDMI

connectivity, AES/EBU and S/PDIF digital audio

inputs and outputs, as well as analog composite

and component connections. Beginning with

Media Composer 6, Avid has created a sotware

development kit (SDK) that enables developers to

create connections between their hardware and Avid

sotware. This technology, known as Avid Open I/O,

enables you to use many o the same interaces that

you may already have implemented in your Final Cut

Pro system with Media Composer.

Media Composer 6 is also platorm agnostic, with

support or both the latest Mac OS X (Lion) and

Windows (Windows 7) operating systems. Although

Final Cut Pro 7 is a 32-bit application, the last

available version (7.03) is compatible with Mac OS X

Lion. That means i youre currently using Mac OS X

Lion and Final Cut Pro 7, no additional OS upgrade is

required to migrate to Media Composer.

Media Composer also has complete parity with its

PC version, meaning the application is identical in

eature set and operation on both platorms. This

provides you with complete platorm portability when

moving projects between a Mac and PC.

Managing your media

One o the strengths o Media Composer has always

been its robust media management database.

Its ability to keep track o all o your media and

easily delete unused media and eects, as well as

consolidate media, has been a major eature beneft.

Baseband captures and imported fles are managed

by the Avid storage fle structure using Avid tools. The

fles also contain additional metadata embedded in

the fle such as inormation about the project, source,

and media ormat.

When working with Avid managed media, fles are

wrapped in MXF containers and stored at the root

level o the hard drive in an Avid MediaFiles older.

This allows the system to track additional metadata

along with the essence o the fle. The actual media is

usually encoded to a number o dierent native Avid

ormats, including DNxHD (at various data rates),

uncompressed, DV25, DV50, 15:1s, 2:1, and many

other ormat choices.


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This powerul media management eature means

that media remains linked and doesnt irreversibly

lose its link due to a minor fle system update or fle

modifcation changes. Its also exible when working

in an oine to online scenario, where you want to

unlink the low-resolution clips and quickly relink to the

high-resolution material.

Final Cut Pro users do not have the option o choosing

a managed media system. All fles imported by Final

Cut Pro remain in their original location rom when

they were imported. Media can span across drives

and be located in various older levels throughout the

fle system. Media fles can accidentally be moved,

renamed, and deleted without you knowing how many

projects reerence the media fle. Updating a media fle

in one project may also break the links to a dierent

project using the same media fle.

Using AMA (Avid Media Access)

Final Cut Pro users who wish to continue to link

to media fles will fnd that AMA gives them that

capability. In many ways, AMA replicates the fle

linking ound in Final Cut Pro, and goes a step urther

by providing a conduit or broad ormat support.

AMA is a technology based on sotware plug-ins.

This means that plug-ins are required to provide

support or various fle ormats. When you install

Media Composer, a QuickTime plug-in is installed.

This enables you to link to all QuickTime wrapped fle

ormats or use in Media Composer.

Its up to the appropriate vendor to develop the AMA

plug-in that enables their hardware to be used with

Media Composer. This allows each manuacturer to

keep their plug-in up-to-date, without waiting or the

next release o Media Composer to take advantage

o the manuacturers updates. You can install and

uninstall AMA plug-ins as desired.

To download AMA plug-ins, go to the AMA webpage

(www.avid.com/ama), select the Plug-ins tab, and

fnd links to the various AMA plug-ins.

When using AMA, fles, olders, and volumes can

be linked and imported. No media is createdit

is practically identical in nature to what you are

accustomed to in Final Cut Pro when importing media

into a project.

One o the major benefts o AMA is that it supports

more ormats than Final Cut Pro. The Log and

Transer utility, built into Final Cut Pro, was created

to mount non-native media in the application. Aterselecting a clip or part o a clip, the Log and Transer

tool wraps the media into a QuickTime ormat, oten

transcoding to Apple ProRes along the way. With

AMA, many o the ormats that require QuickTime

wrapping or transcoding in Final Cut Pro have native

support in Media Composer. AMA also gives you the

ability to quickly view and play media, mark ins and

outs, and transcode to various ormats or editorial.


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Continuing with your ProRes workfow

Along with Avid DNxHD, Apple ProRes has become a

staple codec in the industry. Many acilities use ProRes

as their shooting codec, editorial, and mezzanine

archival ormat. With the introduction o Media

Composer 6, Apple ProRes has become much more

tightly integrated into the application than ever beore.

You can now choose to capture directly to all versions

o ProResincluding ProRes 444. You can set

timelines to render in ProResfnal exports to ProRes

take much less time since there is no transcoding

upon output. Youll fnd ProRes capture options in the

same lists in which you choose your normal DNxHD

codec settings.

When importing ProRes fles, Media Composer can

either AMA link, or do a ast import. During a ast

import, the media is copied without a conversion, and

the container is rewrapped rom QuickTime to MXF.

Final Cut Pro editors will fnd that these two methods

o importing provide or a very exible workow.

Storage your bits and bytes

You can easily use local storage devices, such as

USB, FireWire, Thunderbolt, and others, with both

Final Cut Pro and Media Composer systems or

media storage.

For larger installations, Final Cut Pro users have the

option o using the Apple Xsan centralized storage

fle system. This technology, based on Quantums

StorNext fle system, was once supported by Apple

hardware, including Xserve RAID and Xserve servers.

Apple has discontinued its proessional line o servers

and storage, and has opted to certiy a third-party

company or its storage needs.

I youre transitioning to Media Composer in

inrastructures using Xsan, you will fnd that AMA

enables you to read media on the volume without

issue. Native fle use with multiple Media Composer

systems, however, will require some storage

manipulation or the use o a third-party product due to

dierences in metadata and fle management.


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True collaboration and bin sharing

Apple Xsan provides Final Cut Pro 7 users with

fle-level locking centralized storage. This means

that permissions are based on a per-fle basis, so

you can read and write fles, provided youve been

given permission to do so. Since Final Cut Pro 7

doesnt have project sharing capabilities built into

the application, no simultaneous sharing o actual

projects or bins is possible. Only reading o media by

multiple users is possible with its current limitations.

For true collaboration across multiple Media Composer

systems, Avid solutions such as ISIS 5000 and 7000

provide high-availability, ample bandwidth, and one o

the easiest storage setups in the industry.

With Media Composer on ISIS, you can concurrently

share projects and bins with other editors, and workin a truly collaborative editorial environment.

I you need to connect non-Avid systems to ISIS, Avid

has certifed both Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere

or use on ISIS storage systems. This gives you the

best o both worldstrue collaborative workows

using Media Composer along with Final Cut Pro

compatibility or centralized media storage.

Opening Final Cut Pro projects inMedia Composer

I youd like to open Final Cut Pro projects in Media

Composer, you can choose rom two applications

or the translationBoris Transer FCP or Automatic

Ducks Pro Export FCP. These applications enable

you to export a Final Cut Pro timeline as an AAF or

OMF fle, and allow the media to be external to the

fle or exibility.

Along with timeline video and audio, Boris plug-in

users on both Final Cut Pro and Media Composer

will fnd that flters and transitions applied to clips in

one system retain all o their settings and keyramed

changes during the translation.

Timeline editing

Final Cut Pro users are amiliar with the mouse-driven

editing and trimming, and Media Composer oers

similar unctionality with the Smart Tool.


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Built-in audio toolset

I you use Final Cut Pros built-in audio tools,

migrating to Media Composer will give you an even

broader arsenal o audio tools.

Unlike Final Cut Prowhich only supports clip-

based audio eectsMedia Composer supports

both clip-based and track-based audio eects in thetimeline. This means you can place an RTAS (Real-

Time AudioSuite) plug-in on an entire track and aect

all clips you place on that track. This is useul with

dialog tracks, or example, in which a compressor or

equalizer is necessary to smooth out dialog on the

entire track. Multiple RTAS plug-ins can be added to

a single track, and settings can be saved and recalled

or later use.

Additional audio capabilities that Final Cut Pro userswill appreciate include multichannel 5.1 and 7.1 audio

tracks, with support or interleaved fles, surround

panning, and automation or all audio tracks.

Integration with Pro Tools

In a typical audio fnishing workow, you might export

Final Cut Pro timelines as an OMF or AAF fle or

use in Pro Tools. Along with the audio media, audio

keyrame data, as well as panning inormation, istranslated and imported into the Pro Tools session.

Due to the tight integration between Avid products,

Media Composer to Pro Tools fnishing workows

contain much more data than simple volume and

panning inormation.

The ollowing eatures are translated to Pro Tools:

Markers created in the timeline

Volume automation (rubber banding)

Clip gain

Clip pan

Pan automaton (including surround panning)

Avid EQ

AudioSuite plug-ins

RTAS plug-in assignments and settings

This gives the Pro Tools editor a much greater head

start when working with projects in which the video

editor set volume, panning, and plug-in assignments

or their temp mix.

The power o integrated phonetics

Final Cut Pro editors have the ability to use Boris

Soundbite, a third-party phonetic search application

based on Nexidia dialog search technology. This

separate application indexes media fles and enables

you to fnd clips with particular words or phrases

based on phonetic characteristics.

Similarly, PhraseFind is an option powered by Nexidia,

but diers in the act that it is completely integrated

into Media Composer. It oers the same phonetic

audio indexing, and enables you to quickly pull up all

relevant clips by searching on a key word or phrase.

Because its integrated into the Media Composer Find

tool, you can use PhraseFind to search additional

felds and flter their results, so searches are more

precise. Boris Soundbite users will easily be able to

migrate to PhraseFind and take ull advantage o the

built-in integration with Media Composer.


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For script-based projects, the ScriptSync option,

powered by Nexidia, phonetically indexes all clip

dialog in your project and then syncs all relevant clips

to your scriptautomaticallyso you can fnd the

best takes ast.

Final export and conorm

For workows involving oine to online relinking, Final

Cut Pro and Media Composer are very similar in their

approaches. The dierences are in the additional

metadata that Media Composer tracks and catalogs,

as well as its robust and powerul Media Tool.

Final Cut Pro fnds and relinks by basic Finder flename,

reel name, and timecode values. Media Composer

uses a much more powerul set o criteria or relinking,

and has many options or setting the size and codec

or fles being relinked.

Conclusion

I youre a Final Cut Pro editor whos looking to

migrate elsewhere, youll fnd that Media Composer

oers a powerul and easy-to-use set o proessional

tools. For a successul migration, editors should

understand that many o the eatures ound in Final

Cut Pro are also included in Media Composer.

Features such as Avid Open I/O, AMA, native ProRes

support, audio interoperability with Pro Tools, and

the ability to work with many third-party sotware

applications makes migrating an easy decision.


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2012 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Product eatures, specifcations, system requirements and availability are subject to change

without notice. Avid, the Avid logo, Avid DNxHD, ISIS, Media Composer, OMF, Pro Tools and RTAS are either registered trademarks or

trademarks o Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the

property o their respective companies.

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Migrating Final Cut Pro