FCP EDL into V6.0 etc.

farss wrote on 1/8/2006, 11:29 PM
Client has latest FCP and I have latest Vegas.
He doesn't have anyway to ingest native digibetacam and he's not having much joy with ingesting it as DV from the J30, client doesn't like the look of DV and the chroma keys are not to flash either.

So he wants me to ingest as 4:2:2. No problems there, have all the gear. However there's many hours of material so the plan is to only ingest what's in his EDL, sounds reasonable, just lots of tape shuffing.

So question one, what can FCP export that Vegas will digest, bear in mind I don't need to rebuild the project, just get the tape names and in/out points, so far I've got a text EDL and an XML file of some form, and a few other odd looking files, I suggested to them that AAF would be the go, I assume the latest FCP supports this but he cannot see how to do. I guess if all else fails I can read his text EDL in and massage it in my own code into a .Veg and take it from there.

Now the second question and this one could be a deal breaker. Vegas will capture the tapes as Sony YUV AVIs, somehow I'm thinking FCP will not digest this. Alternative is to render them out as QT files, hm, that raises two issues, how to preserve the source TC and what to render the QT as to preserve the 4:2:2, i.e. which QT codec.

The other option I guess would be to use the BMD deck control utility to capture QT files and hope that works out however I'm far from certain that'll read any form of EDL so I'll have to key all the in/outs by hand, yikes!

Bob.

Comments

farss wrote on 1/9/2006, 2:55 PM
OK,
no one seems to know the answer to this, so I'll ask a really simple question.
Does anyone know of a SD 4:2:2 codec that's supported by both Vegas and FCP?
DVCPro 50 seems to be be the choice of the FCP set but that means I've got to get it from Matrox, I guess it's doable but I'm hoping for something Vegas native.

Bob.
ForumAdmin wrote on 1/9/2006, 5:30 PM
Files:
Quicktime, & by extension FCP, can open/convert a Vegas YUV .avi- it'll turn it into a Quicktime file that can be read by FCP if the Decklink QT codecs are installed on the Mac. (Vegas 4:2:2 YUV files can be read by BMD 4:2:2 YUV, close level match all around, just let QT import/convert).

Project interchange:
Automatic Duck (cool product, cool guys) provides an AAF interchange tool for FCP 5 (plus some legacy versions of FCP). This will let you transfer an n-track project to/from Vegas, Premiere Pro, Avid (all), PT (all modern w/ digitranslator), and lots of other platforms. As of today AAF is the best project interchange method in terms of broad app compatibility. Save out the AAF with media, import into Vegas, when done, save out the AAF with media, send to the Duck, open in FCP.

A trouble spot might likely be preserving metadata (like timecode) during the file conversion between avi & QT. To solve this I'd print to tape and recapture in both directions- not painless but it should work.

farss wrote on 1/10/2006, 12:29 AM
Thanks,
original FCP project is 1 track cuts only. All I have is CMX EDL from FCP but that's OK, with a little VB code I can get Vegas to make sense of it. XML export from FCP didn't work, the XML import script in Vegas falls over but not to worry, I don't need that level of complexity anyway.
Stumbling block is even after I build the project in Vegas I cannot get Vegas to do a batch recapture, that's a bit of a pain.
I can recapture the entire tapes and replace the media in the media pool and rebuild the project. Problem is the client wants a HDD with the 4:2:2 clips ONLY on it, that way he can replace the clips in FCP withoT needing huge amounts of disk space.
The alternative is to build a Vegas project for each clip and render that out, I'd need to do that to preserve the source tapes TC.
This all sounded so easy at first, lesson learnt the hard way I guess.
Bob.
ForumAdmin wrote on 1/10/2006, 7:49 AM
Log a few clips in Vegas internal capture app, save the .xml file, replace the info with the FCP tape/tc info, save, re-open in Vegas' internal capture, batch capture.

Here's what a capture log looks like: (save as <mylist>.xml):

- <Clips>
- <Clip>
<Name>C:\clip1.avi</Name>
<Tape>Master shots</Tape>
<Comment>mcu</Comment>
<Rating>good</Rating>
<TimecodeFormat>SmpteDrop</TimecodeFormat>
<In>00:09:53;09</In>
<Out>00:09:56;14</Out>
<Length>00:00:03;05</Length>
</Clip>
- <Clip>
<Name>C:\clip2.avi</Name>
<Tape>Master shots</Tape>
<Comment>mcu</Comment>
<Rating>good</Rating>
<TimecodeFormat>SmpteDrop</TimecodeFormat>
<In>00:10:42;14</In>
<Out>00:10:44;11</Out>
<Length>00:00:01;27</Length>
</Clip>
- <Clip>
<Name>C:\clip3.avi</Name>
<Tape>Master shots</Tape>
<Comment>mcu</Comment>
<Rating>good</Rating>
<TimecodeFormat>SmpteDrop</TimecodeFormat>
<In>00:10:49;19</In>
<Out>00:10:50;27</Out>
<Length>00:00:01;08</Length>
</Clip>
</Clips>
farss wrote on 1/10/2006, 12:33 PM
A million thanks!
As I was dozing off last night it started to occur to me that I was approaching this totally the wrong way by trying to build the EDL as a project. I'll give this approach a spin today.
Bob.