Final Cut 6.0.4 to Avid Media Composer with Mojo

[Paul Cronin]

How to I give a client footage from my FC time line so then can edit on their Avid Media Composer with Mojo time line? I was surprised they could not import full size Quicktime files.

[Christopher Drews]

Export an image sequence or buy automatic duck.

Keep in mind, Avid creates OMF of all sources (ie recompresses material) - this is usually unwanted. Whenever I use motion or mission critical stuff from final cut, I export an image sequence at the native resolution and pick 1:1 on the avid side (or DNxHD if its HD content).

Hope this helps,
-C

[Paul Cronin]

Christopher thanks for the help. What format do you pick after picking image sequence under options?

[James Brill]

Originally Posted by Christopher Drews

Export an image sequence or buy automatic duck.

Keep in mind, Avid creates OMF of all sources (ie recompresses material)

MXF if it is HD. TIFF sequences are usually the way to go for your image sequence, TARGA will work too. I"m not too sure on the difference. Avid can pick up on the sequential naming of the files and turn them into video. When we get graphics from our graphics house we usually just send same as source quicktimes back and forth. We were going from a symphony nitris to After Effects or Smoke and back to the symphony. It all looks great. Avid in the past usually doesn't support quicktimes that well but you definitely can take in a quicktime as long as it is uncompressed or DV. You will run into issues when it is in pro res or h.264.

[Christopher Drews]

Yeah - James is right on - the format I would suggest out of FCP is SGI. Although, keep in mind this is an 8 bit image codec. I'm not sure what content you're trying to get over is but SGI is clean. Once in Avid, again as James said, under import settings, check the "detected sequential images" box and select your desired resolution (if it's SD, I always choose 1:1 because hard drives are cheap).
-C

[Paul Cronin]

Thanks Chris and James I will give it a go in the morning. The footage is XDCAM EX1 HQ 1080p 30P in EX1 codec.

[Paul Cronin]

Gave this a go and it worked but HUGE files.

So the client purchased calibratedsoftware dot com XDDecodeQ and he said it worked link a charm. Did not want to put the link since they are not a sponsor.

Thank you both for your help.

[Paul Cronin]

Well I ran into the same problem with another edit house not being able to read my full size QuickTime even since this is what they asked me to send. They do not want to buy XDDecodeQ oh well.

I am sure this is old news but I have found that I can export a sequence to XDcam from FC and it makes it a .MXF. Have any of the Avid users found that this will work on there systems? I know .MXF is HD in Avid and the files run fine in XDCAM Transfer window full size.