How to Edit in FCP X with Avid Media Files

Many of you will think why on earth would you want to do this? Well it could be useful for cross NLE work, and would be so much better than having to re-ingest an already established project again, from camera rushes.

Since I’m struggling to get paid employment on X, until the penny drops with more producers, I thought I’d see if I can sort of operate in parallel with some of my Avid projects, thinking if nothing else, it, will help improve my speed and familiarity.

Here’s a few things I discovered:

Since 10.1.4 and the Proapps 2 update, you can import Avid Op1 atom MXF files.

Point the import window at an Avid Media Files folder. (This is media that has been already imported into Avid) I opt to “leave files in place” The audio legs are all separate files, so if its a big folder, put the kettle on while you wait, for FCP to process, as it takes a while, but eventually you will have an Event Browser full of files.

Now to marry the audio with vision. First discard any files you don’t need, say Audio tracks 5-8, then shift-click a bunch of files, suggest a morning’s shoot, or a certain location.

Go to the “Synchronise Clips” Command. Selecting automatic was fine for me, but its important that the clips are synced using timecode, (might be worth forcing clip properties manually, eg. 1080p 25p) You should then get a Synchronised clip, containing a string-out of your selection.

Open the clip in the Timeline and overwrite all connected vision into the Storyline “CMD OPT down arrow”, you can use the vision Role to search and select, or a range selection.

There should then be a Storyline spine of vision, with connected audio and gap clips for non contiguous timecodes.

To get rid of the gaps, open up the timeline index and search for Gaps. CMD A all those clips and press Delete. Then (hopefully) you should have a Rippled timeline, with no gaps, rather like and old fashioned “Rec Run” tape ingest.

Unfortunately the single audios are represented in the Inspector by a single mono clip, when viewing the synced clip, which might be a bug. Its not too difficult though, to enable and disable the tracks appropriately. Any panning could be achieved with “Paste Attributes”

That’s it, a bit convoluting, and duplicate timecodes would need to be managed. The power of FCP's search, and filters helps.

Perhaps not as good as, a clip for every vision file, Intelligent Assistance Sync-N-Link will give you that, and is a great piece of software. Import all clips as before, export Event XML, import to Sync-N-Link, export and re-import into FCP. If you tag the audio legs with Roles, ie. Audio 1 etc. first, they will translate.

I’ve got more testing to do, and it may be some clips won’t import, but looking promising.

Thank you for this detailed workflow layout. Please keep us updated on your tests. One of the companies I work with is investigating how they can port several of their television series that are now cut on Avid to FCP X, I'm sure they will be interested in this.

- Ronny

It's interesting to note that it's now easier to port an Avid project to FCP X than it is the other way. Could this have been part of the Hamburg acquisition reasoning?

For example, a project in FCP X that references Red media cut in proxies cannot be exported to Premiere as they haven't worked out the spanned media issue like Apple has.

This is a major bridge to halting the monopoly.

I'm very interested in this workflow too!
Thanks for posting your findings in such a detailed way, Bluebicycle!

In case you haven't read it, there is a thread in Creative Cow with some useful information about this:
forums.creativecow.net/thread/344/35664

Also, there is a thread here with related information:
www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/...es-wrong-reel-number

Like you said, Avid's media is not MXF OP1a, it is MXF OP-Atom:

OP-Atom is designed for applications where each essence track is held separately.

While this gives you added flexibility with media management (you can delete only the audio tracks of a master clip, or only the video track), I've always found it to be a bit cumbersome and impractical:

• For instance, you can only play an Avid MXF file inside Media Composer. If you want to play it in the Finder, you would have to play the video separate from the audio, which is not ideal at all...


• This makes it very difficult to collaborate with others. FCP and Premiere work with Quicktime video+audio files, which is a more "universal" container that almost any application can work with.

For me, the key here is to SEND FEEDBACK to Apple so that they support the MXF OP-Atom format. If they do, then the FCPX Import Window would understand the Avid container and display "regular clips" instead of "separate video/audio files" (like it already does with lots of complex camera folder structures).

This is not just one more format to support, is another opportunity for Apple to ease in the transition from Avid to FCPX and increase its penetration in the high end market, in both Avid's and Adobe's detriment.

ronny courtens wrote: One of the companies I work with is investigating how they can port several of their television series that are now cut on Avid to FCP X, I'm sure they will be interested in this.

Is this high-end, Ronny?
Then you should post about it in this thread that Alex4D started!:
www.fcp.co/forum/4-final-cut-pro-x-fcpx/...ures-and-high-end-tv

A bit off topic, but something regarding FCPX and AVID.

Have you noticed that the new DNxHR codecs are directly inspired in Apple ProRes?



Any time Avid introduces a new standard, it changes the nomenclature of its codecs:

- Avid Meridien SD codecs where named after a compression ratio: 1:1 (uncompressed), 2:1, 3:1, etc. With some exceptions, a few codecs named after the bandwidth: DV50, DV25, MPEG30, etc.

- Avid DNx HD codecs where named after the bandwidth: DNxHD 36, DNxHD 120, DNxHD 185, and a very long etcetera.

- Now Avid UHD codecs (DNxHR) move away from that naming scheme and embrace the Apple ProRes nomenclature based on "quality".

Where does Avid gets its inspiration from these days?

Jesús
@jesus_edits