Old FCP4 project to Premiere Pro CS6

[Shane Ross]

[Richard Angle] “Hi all. First off, is it possible to open an old FCP4 project in FCP7?”

Yes. It might say that the file needs to be updated, but it’ll open fine.

SCSI DRIVE? Good luck finding a way to connect that to anything…wow. Might need to use an older computer that it will connect to, and then transfer the footage to…hmmm…a current drive that cannot connect to the older computer. I’ve been in this pickle before…

I suggest recapturing the footage. Either in FCP 7, or hopefully the XML will transfer enough of the footage metadata to allow recapture in CS6. Mac to PC conversion won’t matter.

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Richard Angle]

Thanks Shane. So its good to know that if the project data file is recoverable, then the project should be possible to resurrect into Premiere on a PC.

Just to clarify, the drive is not only a SCSI, but a super dead SCSI. So plugging into an old G4 MAC really isn’t an option. But perhaps a data recovery service could salvage the project file and I could do a re-capture. The originally captured footage data is long gone on as it is on a secondary media drive that is also dead. But a recapture from tape shouldn’t really be an issue here. All I would need from the old system is the single .fcp project data file for the conversion and conform, correct?

Can you foresee any issues with the following path…
– Recovery of FCP4 project data file from damaged SCSI drive
– Open FCP 4 data file in FCP 7
– Export offline project to whatever is necessary to convert to the Premiere Pro CS6 file (XML?)
– Convert to Premiere Pro CS6 project file
– Batch capture old mini dvd footage into Premiere Pro and get back to chopping a long-neglected decade old project

Do you happen to know what is needed to do the conversion to Premiere? And is it an XML file from FCP7 that is needed as the source?

Thanks,
Richard

[Ryan Holmes]

[Richard Angle] “Do you happen to know what is needed to do the conversion to Premiere? And is it an XML file from FCP7 that is needed as the source?”

It’s just a XML file. Premiere Pro reads FCP7 XML….nothing special about it. In FCP7 just use a File/Export/XML and then import that XML into Premiere. It’s really that easy! 🙂

Ryan Holmes
http://www.ryanholmes.me
@CutColorPost

[Richard Angle]

Thanks, Ryan. Just never done it before. Just covering my tracks before taking a dead drive into data recovery services.

Thanks,
Richard Angle