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Final Cut Pro with Avid Unity
I did a search before posting this but my situation is kind of specific. I work for a news station and our entire newsroom has a tapeless P2 workflow and uses Avid Newscutters. They have a Unity system for storing all their footage and interact with it through Interplay. I work in the commercial/promo production department and periodically need to pull footage from news. To get their footage, they dump it onto tape because we use Media 100’s to edit on. We are in the process of upgrading to new systems, whether or not those will be Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer, we don’t know yet. We’re pulling for FCP because we know that software better than Avid and for what we do, it’s what we need. Now I know the MC will have no problem connecting to the Unity and Interplay but how would FCP interact with the Unity system? Is it possible? I know Avid just certified FCP work on their ISIS storage and Unity Media Network. I just want to know if anyone has done this yet?
We wouldn’t be using it for our storage purposes, we have our own storage system. We just need to connect to it grab footage from our news department.
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8 Replies
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You are much better off going with Avid for this. Avid and FCP use different media. Avid is not Quicktime based and FCP is. You can work around it with Automatic Duck (sequences only), but if your whole workflow is based on being able to pull media easily, you are really much better off with Avid.
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Avid has now qualified FCP to run on Unity.
https://www.avid.com/us/pressroom/fcp-qualified-unity.aspx
Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
To FCP the Unity is ONLY storage. It doesn’t interact with Interplay, it doesn’t read the Avid media (although a third party is working on that, MXF4QT)…mixing FCP and AVID Interplay and Unity is not wise here. When the Unity is mounted, all FCP can do with it is capture to it…use it as storage.
You are much better off going with Avid Media Composers. They will integrate VERY well and they aren’t all that expensive as they used to be. And Avid isn’t difficult to figure out….it’s just different.
Don’t struggle trying to get FCP to work here…like trying to shove a square peg into a circular hole. Get what works and works well and learn how to use it. Avid and Interplay are SLICK.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Kevin Monahan] “Avid has now qualified FCP to run on Unity. “
But only as a storage solution…nothing more.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Right on, Shane. Thanks for that.
Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro -
We don’t need to pull the sequences from what the newsroom does on their newscutters, we just need to pull the footage they shot with their P2 cameras that they ingest into the Unity server. I know that Media Composer would work best but our department, while we’ve worked on Media 100’s, we all still have an extensive background with FCP. What I’m curious to know is exactly how FCP interacts with Unity. Does it just show up on the desktop like a standard drive or does it require specific software for FCP to access it? Really, I’m looking to hear if anyone has used this setup yet and what or if any success they’re having with it.
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[Eric Nicastro] “we just need to pull the footage they shot with their P2 cameras that they ingest into the Unity server.”
Well, FCP doesn’t work with Avid media. Avid QUICKTIMES, yes, if you install the Avid codecs. But if they injest the P2 footage into the Avid, it converts the MXF file structure of the card into Avid media files…a special MXF format…and FCP cannot read those files. So using FCP in an Avid environment trying to access Avid media will not work. Not until the support for this comes to a third party software company called MXF4QT.
[Eric Nicastro] “What I’m curious to know is exactly how FCP interacts with Unity. Does it just show up on the desktop like a standard drive or does it require specific software for FCP to access it?”
It just shows up as a desktop drive. Storage only.
[Eric Nicastro] “Really, I’m looking to hear if anyone has used this setup yet and what or if any success they’re having with it.”
I have used this setup…well, not COMPLETELY. We had an Avid Unity on a 6 station FCP setup…FCP only. FCP and Unity with Interplay and newscutters…they will not play together well.
POSSIBLY with the use of Automatic Duck…but that is something you need to ask the Duck people.
Shane
GETTING ORGANIZED WITH FINAL CUT PRO DVD…don’t miss it.
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
FCP will connect to the Unity server, but will only see it as a drive. You can probably figure out a method to convert the Avid media in some way that FCP will read it, but it won’t be efficient, and it will probably be hard to find the clips you want, as Avid organises it’s media very differently to FCP, it’s not going to be easy to locate a clip from simply browsing the file system.
I’m going to third or fourth the ‘use Avid’ suggestion. In the scenario you describe it’s going to be much much more efficient for you. Without knowing the specifics of your work, there’s not really anything in FCP that’s inherantly better for promos than in Media Composer. We produce dozens of on-air promos every week with Avid Xpress Pro and Media Composer.
However I will add this – I’ve had remarkable sucess in taking a AAF from Avid (with embedded media) and importing it into FCP with the media attached.
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