Re: Premiere project to FCP

Hi Anne,

I have been looking for an answer to this question for years, and today I finally received some good news. The bad and easy option is in fact exporting EDL in PPRO and importing it in FCP. I tried it and don't consider it a proper solution, but it maybe, depending on the complexity of your project. EDL does not preserve master clips, but rather creates new clips from every item in the sequences. I also found reel-naming issues with it, as well as time code problems, and it does not migrate any effects or transitions.

I have also heard rumos, ever so often, that Premiere would incorporate export-to-xml capabilities in a future version. Maybe it will happen, maybe in the day Adobe establishes itself in the market in a way that it is not worried about users starting projects in PPRO and moving on into Final Cut. I wouldn't wait for it, though.

Finally, the only proper solution seems to be a non-advertised feature of Automatic Duck's "Pro Import FCP 2.0" plug-in for Final Cut Pro. I don't have it, but I sent a test Premiere Pro 2.0 project file to the person at Automatic Duck, Wes Plate, and he promptly resent a sample back converted, and it is perfect. Master clips and sequences. The serious limitation with Automatic Duck used for this is that it doesn't seem to work with versions later than Premiere Pro 2.0 (CS3 or CS4). For me it would be great, as the files I need to convert are PPRO2.0, from before switching to Fial Cut Pro, but the plug-in also costs $500, which is a big problem. Right now I am actually thinking about finding someone who may have the plugin and maybe pay them to do this 5min task (so, if someone has this plugin out there and would like to help me on this, please contact me!).

I hope this helps,

Ernesto.