After Effects integration
 

I am thinking of adding After Effects to my MAC. I am particularly interested in being able to run Neat Video as allot of my footage is shot in low light and contains a degree of graininess. I have also seen a few other plug ins I like that require AE. However, I am concerned with how easily it will integrate with FCS2 and FCP. Any opinions on this route?

It doesn't have the same integration with FCS as Motion does, however there are plenty out there who do use AE with FCP. Search these forums (always remember GIYF -- Google Is Your Friend) for "FCP to AE" and you will get many threads.

Check out Automatic Duck, Inc. as well.

I use AE with FCS2 all the time. When I'm editing a long format project in FCP, I usually have my sequence settings set up for XDCAM EX 1080 30pm. So then I render out in AE as ProRes 422 HQ and drop it into FCP. This means I have to render the file in FCP but it's a fast render.

One issue I've had is that when I've tried rendering as XDCAM EX in AE (CS3), and then drop it into FCP, it won't play. The timeline shows that the file requires no rendering, but it won't play. I don't know what's up with that. But I've been rendering AE in ProRes and it looks great.

AE is much more integrated with Premiere if that's important to you.

I can't imagine doing any kind of motion graphics or VFX work in an intraframe codec, much less rendering out to one! Intraframe formats are efficient as an acquisition codec, but not a working one. I would make sure I was sending ProRes, not XDCAM footage, to AfterEffects and then ProRes back to FCP.

I think I am going to download a trial of AE and NV to make sure how well it works for me before laying down the big money.

Here's a recent blog post on the subject: The Manual Duck : SuiteTake.com