Finishing in FCP 7 with an offline in FCP 6

My studio has a small finishing department and a large offline editorial side. In order to upgrade all of our computers to FCP 7, there are still a number of machines that need to be upgraded from G5s to Intels. While this is in the works, it remains a few months off. I was wondering if anyone saw any drawbacks to upgrading the smaller finishing department (all intel machines already) while keeping the rest of the studio in FCP 6. Projects rarely have to go back to the offline side, but when they do, I figured XML can be used to go backward. The upsides of the finishing department going to FCP 7 are obvious between the background export, improved render management, and other improvements. Please let me know if you guys see any downsides. Thanks a lot.

Nope, don't think so. Even in the worst-possible-case scenario, it'd be no different from offlining on Final Cut and onlining on Smoke or DS or any other finishing system. In fact, just to keep things simple, I'd probably choose to adopt a standard offline-online workflow in that situation. No project sharing at all; just use EDLs or XMLs to move timelines from offline to online, using the normal Final Cut conforming tools (unfortunately not really any aside from batch capture) to do your overcut. I'd have more confidence doing things that way than trying to project-share, at least until I'd done about a zillion workflow tests and dry runs.

Nothing wrong with it as far as I can see, just that the new speed ramp tool in FCP 7 may be something to pay attention to when you're shifting the project files to the finishing stations.



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