Switching from Premiere to FCP at DVinfo.net

Jessica Gourdine · January 26th, 2008, 05:08 PM

We are going to switch from Premiere to FCP at my church and I wanted to back up our tapes to an external hard drive in preparation of the switch. Is there a particular format that I need to save the video files as? Also, the files that we have on Premiere already, what can we save that as to make it compatible with Mac?

James Brill · January 26th, 2008, 09:50 PM

The is a program called mac drive. It lets pc's read and write mac formatted drives and its around 40 bucks I think. My work and I use it and it works like a charm. Although if you don't plan on ever going back to a pc then you can scrap the idea since mac os x can read but not write ntfs.

Nick Weeks · January 26th, 2008, 11:38 PM

You could use FAT32 because mac will read and write to it, but be aware you're limited to a 4GB file size. So unless you break up your video into 4GB pieces FAT32 is not the way to go. I learned this the hard way :)

Jessica Gourdine · January 29th, 2008, 07:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by James Brill

The is a program called mac drive. It lets pc's read and write mac formatted drives and its around 40 bucks I think. My work and I use it and it works like a charm. Although if you don't plan on ever going back to a pc then you can scrap the idea since mac os x can read but not write ntfs.

I need the videos that we've already downloaded to Premiere on the PC to be read by the Mac. Also, we have a lot of videos on dv tapes; should we download them to premiere and transfer to Mac later or should we just wait until we get the Mac's to download the videos there?

Andy Mees · January 29th, 2008, 07:59 AM

the mac will be able to read the files you've already captured to the PC's disc ... it will not be able to write to the PC's disc, but will have no trouble reading from it. don't know what format you've captured as with your Premiere system but chances are that FCP will be able to read those files although it will not be optimal

to ensure better compatibility with your new NLE your best bet would be to wait for your new Mac before capturing any more of the source tapes

Dave Vaughn · January 31st, 2008, 03:31 PM

I made the same transition a couple of years ago.

FCP will read the AVI files that Premiere uses as source clips. Usually it doesn't have to render them. So unless you just want to, you don't have to convert your captured source files.

Something to keep in mind is if you ever want to work in a former Premiere project, you'll need to export an EDL for each project. You can import that into FCP, reconnect the source files to their location on the Mac and pick up where you left off.

January 26th, 2008, 05:08 PM	#1
Jessica Gourdine Regular Crew Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: South Carolina, US Posts: 35	Switching from Premiere to FCP We are going to switch from Premiere to FCP at my church and I wanted to back up our tapes to an external hard drive in preparation of the switch. Is there a particular format that I need to save the video files as? Also, the files that we have on Premiere already, what can we save that as to make it compatible with Mac?

January 26th, 2008, 09:50 PM	#2
James Brill Major Player Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: Goleta, CA Posts: 299	The is a program called mac drive. It lets pc's read and write mac formatted drives and its around 40 bucks I think. My work and I use it and it works like a charm. Although if you don't plan on ever going back to a pc then you can scrap the idea since mac os x can read but not write ntfs.

January 26th, 2008, 11:38 PM	#3
Nick Weeks Major Player Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Birmingham, AL USA Posts: 722	You could use FAT32 because mac will read and write to it, but be aware you're limited to a 4GB file size. So unless you break up your video into 4GB pieces FAT32 is not the way to go. I learned this the hard way :)

January 29th, 2008, 07:59 AM	#5
Andy Mees Major Player Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Posts: 645	the mac will be able to read the files you've already captured to the PC's disc ... it will not be able to write to the PC's disc, but will have no trouble reading from it. don't know what format you've captured as with your Premiere system but chances are that FCP will be able to read those files although it will not be optimal to ensure better compatibility with your new NLE your best bet would be to wait for your new Mac before capturing any more of the source tapes

January 31st, 2008, 03:31 PM	#6
Dave Vaughn New Boot Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Birmingham, AL Posts: 23	I made the same transition a couple of years ago. FCP will read the AVI files that Premiere uses as source clips. Usually it doesn't have to render them. So unless you just want to, you don't have to convert your captured source files. Something to keep in mind is if you ever want to work in a former Premiere project, you'll need to export an EDL for each project. You can import that into FCP, reconnect the source files to their location on the Mac and pick up where you left off.