Quick question:

I've just finished editing a play I filmed (for souveniers) with Final Cut Express 2. I've exported the sequences (2 approx. 55 min each) as Finl Cut Movie files. My problem is, I need to bring them to a friend who will be applying the DVD menues and burning them to disc, and he uses a PC and Adobe for both his editing and DVD menu creation. Is a FCE Movie file compatible, or should I transfer it back on to tape? If both work, is one option higher quality than the other? If I don't use tape, I may have to find a way to place it onto DVD for transport, but each file is about 10gigs a piece and mine only fit 4. Any reccomendations on the best way to either compress or break it apart enough? Or am I really just better off putting it all back on tape? (I'm not sure if all the edits, transisitions, etc go back to tape, a little new to this all).

Any help will be appreciated. Thank you guys for your time and expertise!


-Byron Huskey

I went through this with a play. I think you'll find it easiest to just export from FCE to tape and then import it from tape using Adobe. After the import, you won't have edittable transitions but they will be in the video itself. I don't see why you'd want to edit it further. It's no different than if you split up your FCE Movie and wrote it to DVD. No difference at all.

I haven't worked in FCE at all, only FCP, but if it has the option to export it as XML, most likely as Version 1 rather than Version 2. XML allows you to import the project files (not the captured media) directly into another NLE.

Printing it to tape and then importing to Adobe might be simpler though.

Hope that helps.