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Final Cut Express compatibility with FCP
Hello, I apologise in advance if someone’s raised this before, but I can’t find it listed. I’m a professional broadcast documentary editor with a good clutch of FCP projects under my belt. I occasionally advise charities on filmmaking projects, and I’d presently like to train a couple of amateurs in editing skills using Final Cut Express, so they could achieve a fair level of finish before bringing their work to me to finesse and output using Final Cut Studio. Aside from filters, customisable keyboard and so on, the workspace in Express seems identical to FCP, but here’s the hitch: there are no means to export a project edl. My Apple store tells me that’s because there are no timecodes in Express, but colleagues’ advice is that they’re just hiding, and I should be able to take an Express project and open it within FCP and proceed as usual. Does anyone have experience of this, or another solution to the problem? Many thanks, Steve
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17 Replies
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There is no EDL or XML export from FCE. You can however open an FCE project in FCP, assuming the FCP version is the equivalent or newer version than the FCE version. Once it’s saved in FCP however it may not open again in FCP. There may be ways around in this in some circumstances, but it’s not recognized or supported by Apple. Most of the filters are the same in both applications, BTW.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop” -
Thanks very much Tom. I assume when you say “may not open again in FCP” you mean FCE. Presumably the new FCP version will have timecode references: will these be arbitrary or will they relate to the source material in the FCE project do you know? It’s unlikely I’ll need to reconform, but it would be good to know if I can track back to the rushes.
Best
Steve
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Sorry, yes, will not be able to open again in FCE.
The TC will be from the media files as captured from the tape, unless you’re working in HDV. No TC is captured from HDV only DV.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop” -
Fantastic – problem solved! Thanks very much for your prompt response.
Best
Steve
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I have the same circumstance coming up and wonder if there is a workflow which would allow my client to go back to FCE and work on their project at a later time, and still be able to open up the project on my FCP system to finish.
I am fairly new to FCP (coming from a M100) and wonder if there is a way my client can “save a sequence as” for me, and still be able to open their sequence later. This could be a deal breaker for me as I would not want to render their FCE program useless on their system.
Thanks!
David Decker
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hi there, following on from this forum, i want to import a final cut express 3.5 project filmed in HDV into Final cut pro 6. Do i simply open the final cut express file as if it were a final cut pro file? will it pick up all my sequences, bins, log comments? I didn’t get the bit about time code not being imported from HDV. I’d appreciate any advice. Cheers
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Everyone says a FCE project will open fine in FCP, but I am now having a lot of trouble with this as I have a project in FCE 4 that needs to be handled in FCP 6 and simply won’t open as FCE 4 is newer than FCP 6! My original project was actually in FCP 6. I got it to open in FCE 4 and now can’t go back to Pro in order to export edls and omfs, so it’s really the other way around, beware! I will now have to manually re-edit my sequence from FCE in FCP using a quicktime as reference… Big trouble!
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Exactly what version of FCP are you using, 6, 6.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.0.4.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop” -
Hi Tom,
I’ve tried opening my FCE project using versions 6.0 and 6.0.1 of FCP and none of them worked out. So today I spent the whole day re-editing my sequence in FCP. But if there may still be any hope left in recovering the original sequence in FCP, if you know which version might do this, please let me know. It would still save me alot of time and work!
Tks!
Brgds,
Silvia -
There was a bug in early versions of 6. This was corrected in 6.0.4. However, I don’t know if this applies to cross application work as the bug has never been corrected in FCE. You really should be running the latest version of FCP. The updates are incremental for bug fixes. It might work for you.
All the best,
Tom
Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 4 Editing Workshop”
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