HD workflow question. Offline on AVID, online on FCP

[Markus Etter]

Hi everyone

I absolutely agree with everyone saying: I might get the AVID captured HD footage to run somehow on a FCP Mac, but it is a patchwork after all and will come back to bite me.

I have found a solution now. It is somewhat of a logistical nightmare, but I will end up with 100% working HD footage for the online.

– I will do the offline from cloned miniDV tapes on an AVID here in the UK.
– export the locked timeline as EDL
– import the EDL in my own FCP6.
– check that the edits and the project files are all properly recognized and available as offline clips (red), then save as Final Cut Pro project file.
– send the original HDCAM tapes plus the new Final Cut project to a facility in Switzerland. They have an HDCAM player on a FCP suite and they still owe me a huge favour.
– They recapture the FCP project in full prores Quicktime and copy the data on a firewire drive.
– send it back to me
– voila

Well, this can hardly be called a workflow, but having run out of budget for the project and not being very well connected here in London, it seems to be the only way to solve this properly.

Markus

[Dylan Reeve]

That’s actually not a bad workflow at all. Assuming you don’t have immediate time pressure, that should be fine.

If you have time it might even be worth batch capturing your transferred sequence from the DV clones into FCP first just to make sure the EDL has come through as you expect and there aren’t any weird timecode errors or other gotchas that will be a lot harder to fix when it’s all in Geneva.

Also, given you have only one shot at the capture it might be worth subclipping out any extra bits and pieces you think you might need. It’ll only be a matter of a little more capture time, and a few more GB of files, but could be totally worth it if you realise you want to add a cutaway or something later.

My experience with Avid to FCP also leads me to believe the optimal method of moving the sequence is to setup and ‘decompose’ it in Avid, then export an AAF of the decomposed sequence and import to FCP with Automatic Duck. This is because Avid seems to have a much better method of breaking down clips for recapture than FCP does. If you want to go that route, I’m sure there are a bunch of us here who’d be happy to take an AAF and send you back an FCP project file from it.

[Markus Etter]

Hey Dylan

Thanks for your reply. That sounds like a very reasonable approach. I will definitely export not only an EDL but also an AAF and just to be sure an OMF from AVID then.
Also the test capturing of the DV tapes if a very good idea. Thanks man.

So lets hope this all goes as planed 🙂

Markus