getting FCP XML to "talk" to other App's

Hi
I'm new round here. I've rather many years experience as a "Film" Editor [sprockets, then tape & now NLE, including FCP for sure] + much work in sound recording & Audio Post.

And I'm now spending loads of time beta testing & developing a program to convert DAW & NLE session data from one format to another.
[www.aatranslator.com.au]

This is way more complex than I ever imagined, but I reckon even if it makes no sense commercially (IE no-way will I get rich doing this) as a "user" I know (ok well, believe) it is a dam fine idea to be able to use whatever "tools" are out there. I'm equally aware that many DAW/NLE selling Corporations spend loads of time & effort making this as difficult as they possibly can.

A digression; way back various Companies had developed ways to use the capabilities of affordable Computers to aid Music composition. But they all had mutually incompatible ways of achieving the same aims.

But what happened was rather than investing in the idea of wiping out all the competing systems (as for sure Avid/digidesign are intent on doing right now) they decided to go with a common shared standard called MIDI, and the market exploded. Sales were phenomenal, almost everyone was a winner.

I wish this desirability of a common standards to both increase creative possibilities & sales were true for for Audio & Video editing programs. But IMO this is far from true.

Now in term of Pro quality or broadcast capable & viable NLE's the list is quite small.

But when it comes to Audio Post for Film/TV, there are loads of viable DAW's. Ok Pro-Tools is one of them, but there are many viable & to be honest way better app's available.
We, [www.aatranslator.com.au] are dedicated to open the possibility to convert between as many session/project formats as possible.

At the moment we are working hard to include Apple FCP XML as one of the many formats we "do".
Now clearly there are differences between various versions of FCP, so please, it would be Very useful if we could get our hands on as many FCP, XML exports as possible.

So please, please send us some XML exports from FCP, pref with details as to what vers is used. A screen grab/pic would be very handy too. And as many Audio DAW's can only handle 1 video file, Audio intensive FCP XML's are best for us.

We can learn loads from just the XML files, sure the Audio/Video content is useful too [and we will will for sure respect this content is (c) so will for sure not pass it to anyone else].

Please send any contributions to
[www.aatranslator.com.au]

Hey and if anyone is up for beta testing what we can output. please let us know.


BTW (we already can read FCP OMF rather well).
OMF is so far from being standardised to be a joke, and as it happens Avid OMF's are the most deviant (like they change massively between versions & very hard to de-code). FCP OMF's make far more sense, but we are still working hard to make Avid OMF's make sense.
John L

I'll drop you an xml, but xmls are pointless without the media. In other words, you need to use to either use it on the same machine or media manage your sequence onto a hard drive. And that means ProTools/Logic or whatever DAW you use, needs to be able to read quicktime files.

OMFs on the other hand, contain uncompressed audio within the file.



www.strypesinpost.com

strypes Wrote:
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> I'll drop you an xml, but xmls are pointless
> without the media.
Well ultimately this is true of course but is fine for our beta testing needs; all the structure of what media element goes where including the physical location of where the media is to be found on your system is contained within the XML. The media will simply be off-line during our testing.

So yes please some FCP XML's would be very useful. And if at all poss some screen grabs of how the project should look in FCP.

> OMFs on the other hand, contain uncompressed audio
> within the file.
A few more OMF's could be handy too, which will have embedded audio of course, because that's only type of OMF FCP does.
John L

Am I just stupid, or is this basically Automatic Duck?

(No disrespect intended; I'm sincerely curious.)

I was thinking it sounded interesting until I hit the second link to the same webpage in the same message ... at which point my spam filter kicked in.

Jeff Harrell Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Am I just stupid, or is this basically Automatic
> Duck?
>
> (No disrespect intended; I'm sincerely curious.)

It is a session/project conversion app, so has some slight similarities, but AAtranslator is no way as Video orientated and tightly focused on doing what AD does so well.
We concentrate on audio conversion, many DAW's do have video capabilities which we cover, but this is often just a single rendered file.
John L

Here's your competition.

This is the current state of the art in audio project format conversion

[www.solid-state-logic.com]

Interestingly, it was originally developed by an Australian company years ago, then bought by Solid State Logic almost immediately after Peter Gabriel took over SSL.

I see that Pro-convert is now available in a Mac version. I've only used the PC version and it kicks ass. Converts anything to anything, & does a better job at converting OMF that ProTools or Nuendo do natively. Keeps everything intact & in sync with very little bizarreness.

Reid C

ReidCAULFIELD Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here's your competition.
>
> This is the current state of the art in audio
> project format conversion
>
> [www.solid-state-logic.com]
> index.asp
>
> Interestingly, it was originally developed by an
> Australian company years ago, then bought by Solid
> State Logic almost immediately after Peter Gabriel
> took over SSL.

I'm a great fan & user of Pro-Convert and previously EDL Convert, BTW it's of German origin. I think you may thinking of AV Transfer which is Australian and rather wonderful too.

The reason AATranslator was developed is I wanted to be able to swap session data using the latest versions of applications like V3 Adobe Audition (hence the name AATranslator) which Pro Convert can't read or write. Pro Convert and even more so AVT have had very little development in the last few years.

Now Pro-Convert did add Pro-Tools V7 ptf format an amazing achievement considering digidesign have encrypted their session format post ver5.

Unfortunately PT8 has a modified format that ProConvert can't read. I don't know how well the new Mac vers fairs here but there have been no updates to the PC ver for over a year.

Our program has been in constant development for over a year with the programmer in Australia & I in the UK working at least 5hrs a day each, on it.

The focus at the moment is to get Apple XML capabilities, at the moment we seem to be able to read a rather wider range of FCP XML's than ProConvert say, but still have a way to go in writing them.

So please any help with some specimen XML's or feed back as to how well our Apple XML's read would be very helpful.

We are a couple of crazy people whose aim is to free creative folk from being locked into a very limited range of software. It is a labour of love, certainly there is little money to be made at the price we charge.

I can quite understand why Proconvert has not felt the need to keep all the formats they inherited up to date, it is a monstrously time consuming job.

John L

Please people,
help us make AATranslator a useful file conversion program for FCP users. Or for sound post /designers receiving projects cut in FCP, to give them a better translation of your cut than OMF could possibly do.

We think FCP- XML support is important to have, loads of us sound guys are getting stuff edited in FCP, but we know there are additions variations between vers of FCP. So to do a good job we need as many FCP XML export files to test as possible.

We are happy to have just the XML's, yes having the audio & Video data is great to confirm what we have done makes sense. And if you can send this fine.

But i know I would not like to send my, or my clients data to a 3rd party, and though I assure you I will not pass on, steal or be other than 100% aware what you may send is not my "property", I'm far happier just having XML's.

Come on, give us a break
Send us some Apple FCP XML's

To here
AATranslator <info@aatranslator.com.au>

John L

This isn't the right forum to be asking this I'm afraid. Need to move this thread to news and announcements

Michael Horton
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