David Knaggs
October 3rd, 2011, 09:53 PM
I'm someone who really, really needs to import long and complex FCP sequences into PPro.
In the days before FCP X, I'd often be requested by clients to open up old projects (especially training videos) and update sections due to change of procedures or personnel. Some of these projects are from 90 minutes to four hours long. No sweat. Just open up FCP and it would read it, I'd film the new footage and graphics, edit it in and re-issue. Then FCP X came out and "old" FCP was discontinued (as well as the FCS suite). The message from Apple was that FCP X would NOT open old FCP projects and that they weren't looking to fix it so that it could.
Now, I didn't want to be shackled to old Operating Systems by trying to maintain my old FCP (which will likely "break" at some point in the future if I keep updating the OS), so I decided to find an NLE that will:
a) keep up with the times (and be promptly fixed if OS updates break it)
b) open my old FCP projects, and
c) give me a suite of tools (similar to my old FCS).
I read the PR statements from Adobe: "PPro can open your FCP sequences." "Adobe gets you." Plus their videos online where their execs talk about how they want to make PPro the best NLE on the market. And the final clincher for me was reading posts on DV Info saying things like, "PPro was really way too buggy back in CS4, but now it's very stable and works really well." So I made a strategic move to Production Premium CS5.5. I bought a Lynda.com subscription and started doing the PPro tutorials and also studied the 2 existing FCP Import tutorials on Adobe TV. I did note however that the Adobe TV tutorials only showed FCP sequences of less than a minute or so (and pretty simple stuff).
So, I decided to port my current FCP project over to PPro (in early August), before I commenced a very intensive amount of work to finish it off. At that stage, it was "only" about 110 minutes long and the graphics/animations were only about 15% done. I also set aside THREE FULL DAYS to fix things like color correction, keyframes, transitions, etc. which might not survive the import very well. I was prepared for all of that. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that PPro wouldn't import the sequence at all.
Here's an excerpt from the bug report which I sent to Adobe:
"BUG:
FCP Import doesn't import FCP sequences (unless they are only about 2 minutes long).
1. I exported the XML from FCP.
2. I tried to import the XML into PPro using File>Import and then selecting the XML. I get the File Import progress bar, but then it gives a window "File Import Failure" and an Error Message which says "The importer reported a generic error."
3. The sequence was about 110 minutes long. I went back into FCP and stripped off all of the animation tracks, music tracks and sound effects tracks, leaving only the base video track and the 2 base audio tracks and then exported that XML. On importing to PPro, it gave the same Import Failure messages. I then started trimming the length of the sequence in FCP and exporting those as XMLs. Down to 100 minutes, 90 minutes, 60 minutes, 50 minutes, etc. All failed to import. At 5 minutes long, I started trimming 10 seconds at a time. When it got to 2 minutes and 50 seconds, voila! The sequence then imported! It was all there in the timeline of PPro (all 2 minutes and 50 seconds of it). The clips were there and the dissolves. It was "Proof of Concept", I guess. But 100% useless, because my actual sequence, the 110 minute one, wouldn't import. The sequence was XDCAM EX 1080p25.
4. I then tried to import an old HDV 720p25 sequence (the XML from FCP) of about 90 minutes duration. This time, the import was a “success”. All of the various tracks and clips and transitions appeared on the timeline. I was momentarily thrilled. But then I noticed that none of the clips were actually connected! And when I tried to reconnect to a clip, PPro gave the message that there were “no video or audio tracks” in the QuickTime movie. Yet these are the very same QuickTimes that play perfectly in FCP or the QuickTime Player!"
Anyway, when my efforts to port my current FCP project to PPro in early August didn't work, I had to kick PPro to the kerb and spend the next 7 weeks finishing and delivering with FCP. Now I'm getting ready to shoot the next project and wondering which NLE I should use. My goal was to use just one NLE from now on. One that will open the old FCP projects plus keep up with the times. If PPro won't import the old projects, there's no particular advantage to use it going forward. (May as well use the newly updated FCP X. It can't import old FCP projects either.) If Avid is able to import longer FCP sequences, then I'd even be prepared to look at that.
I'd hoped that the new update to PPro 5.5.1 would address this FCP Import problem (I'd filed quite a number of Crash Reports to Adobe concerning this problem back in early August). But I made a new XML of that sequence this morning and PPro again failed to import it. I then opened the same XML in Color (just to check if the XML was okay) and Color opened it just fine and it played just fine too.
I found a newer tutorial this morning on Adobe TV concerning FCP Import (posted in late August) which begins with,
“I’ve put together a pretty simple sequence and that’s actually a really big point. We’ve found that this process of handing off a project from FCP to PPro generally works best at the beginning or initial stages of an edit."
Peachpit TV for Video - Importing a Final Cut Pro Project | Adobe TV (http://tv.adobe.com/watch/peachpit-tv-for-video/importing-a-final-cut-pro-project/)
So they only recommend importing "a pretty simple sequence"?
I don't particularly mind if it can't import filters and so forth. But, for longer sequences, I would expect it to at least be able to assemble the basic cuts on all of the tracks.
In the days before FCP X, I'd often be requested by clients to open up old projects (especially training videos) and update sections due to change of procedures or personnel. Some of these projects are from 90 minutes to four hours long. No sweat. Just open up FCP and it would read it, I'd film the new footage and graphics, edit it in and re-issue. Then FCP X came out and "old" FCP was discontinued (as well as the FCS suite). The message from Apple was that FCP X would NOT open old FCP projects and that they weren't looking to fix it so that it could.
Now, I didn't want to be shackled to old Operating Systems by trying to maintain my old FCP (which will likely "break" at some point in the future if I keep updating the OS), so I decided to find an NLE that will:
a) keep up with the times (and be promptly fixed if OS updates break it)
b) open my old FCP projects, and
c) give me a suite of tools (similar to my old FCS).
I read the PR statements from Adobe: "PPro can open your FCP sequences." "Adobe gets you." Plus their videos online where their execs talk about how they want to make PPro the best NLE on the market. And the final clincher for me was reading posts on DV Info saying things like, "PPro was really way too buggy back in CS4, but now it's very stable and works really well." So I made a strategic move to Production Premium CS5.5. I bought a Lynda.com subscription and started doing the PPro tutorials and also studied the 2 existing FCP Import tutorials on Adobe TV. I did note however that the Adobe TV tutorials only showed FCP sequences of less than a minute or so (and pretty simple stuff).
So, I decided to port my current FCP project over to PPro (in early August), before I commenced a very intensive amount of work to finish it off. At that stage, it was "only" about 110 minutes long and the graphics/animations were only about 15% done. I also set aside THREE FULL DAYS to fix things like color correction, keyframes, transitions, etc. which might not survive the import very well. I was prepared for all of that. What I wasn't prepared for was the fact that PPro wouldn't import the sequence at all.
Here's an excerpt from the bug report which I sent to Adobe:
"BUG:
FCP Import doesn't import FCP sequences (unless they are only about 2 minutes long).
1. I exported the XML from FCP.
2. I tried to import the XML into PPro using File>Import and then selecting the XML. I get the File Import progress bar, but then it gives a window "File Import Failure" and an Error Message which says "The importer reported a generic error."
3. The sequence was about 110 minutes long. I went back into FCP and stripped off all of the animation tracks, music tracks and sound effects tracks, leaving only the base video track and the 2 base audio tracks and then exported that XML. On importing to PPro, it gave the same Import Failure messages. I then started trimming the length of the sequence in FCP and exporting those as XMLs. Down to 100 minutes, 90 minutes, 60 minutes, 50 minutes, etc. All failed to import. At 5 minutes long, I started trimming 10 seconds at a time. When it got to 2 minutes and 50 seconds, voila! The sequence then imported! It was all there in the timeline of PPro (all 2 minutes and 50 seconds of it). The clips were there and the dissolves. It was "Proof of Concept", I guess. But 100% useless, because my actual sequence, the 110 minute one, wouldn't import. The sequence was XDCAM EX 1080p25.
4. I then tried to import an old HDV 720p25 sequence (the XML from FCP) of about 90 minutes duration. This time, the import was a “success”. All of the various tracks and clips and transitions appeared on the timeline. I was momentarily thrilled. But then I noticed that none of the clips were actually connected! And when I tried to reconnect to a clip, PPro gave the message that there were “no video or audio tracks” in the QuickTime movie. Yet these are the very same QuickTimes that play perfectly in FCP or the QuickTime Player!"
Anyway, when my efforts to port my current FCP project to PPro in early August didn't work, I had to kick PPro to the kerb and spend the next 7 weeks finishing and delivering with FCP. Now I'm getting ready to shoot the next project and wondering which NLE I should use. My goal was to use just one NLE from now on. One that will open the old FCP projects plus keep up with the times. If PPro won't import the old projects, there's no particular advantage to use it going forward. (May as well use the newly updated FCP X. It can't import old FCP projects either.) If Avid is able to import longer FCP sequences, then I'd even be prepared to look at that.
I'd hoped that the new update to PPro 5.5.1 would address this FCP Import problem (I'd filed quite a number of Crash Reports to Adobe concerning this problem back in early August). But I made a new XML of that sequence this morning and PPro again failed to import it. I then opened the same XML in Color (just to check if the XML was okay) and Color opened it just fine and it played just fine too.
I found a newer tutorial this morning on Adobe TV concerning FCP Import (posted in late August) which begins with,
“I’ve put together a pretty simple sequence and that’s actually a really big point. We’ve found that this process of handing off a project from FCP to PPro generally works best at the beginning or initial stages of an edit."
Peachpit TV for Video - Importing a Final Cut Pro Project | Adobe TV (http://tv.adobe.com/watch/peachpit-tv-for-video/importing-a-final-cut-pro-project/)
So they only recommend importing "a pretty simple sequence"?
I don't particularly mind if it can't import filters and so forth. But, for longer sequences, I would expect it to at least be able to assemble the basic cuts on all of the tracks.