Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 36)

Final Cut Pro uses QuickTime technology, allowing you to use almost any digital video
format available. This flexibility ensures that your Final Cut Pro editing system always
works with the latest video formats.
• DV editing: Final Cut Pro supports DV video natively, using your computer’s built-in
FireWire port for capture and output. DVCAM, DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50, and DVCPRO HD
are also natively supported. Therefore, your system requires no additional hardware to
edit DV material on your computer. You can capture, edit, and output exactly the same
data that is recorded on tape, resulting in no quality loss.
• Broadcast, high definition (HD), and digital cinema video formats: Final Cut Pro supports
the latest broadcast, HD, and digital cinema formats. With appropriate equipment, you
can ingest, edit, and output standard definition (SD), HD, and digital cinema formats
such as Digital Betacam, HDV, D-5 HD, HDCAM, MPEG IMX (D-10), XDCAM HD/EX/HD422,
AVC-Intra, Apple ProRes, and DPX image sequences. Final Cut Pro also supports ingest
and editing of the REDCODE and AVC-Intra formats, and output from those formats as
Apple ProRes and DPX image sequences.
• Project interchange: Support for project interchange formats allows Final Cut Pro to
integrate into existing broadcast and post-production systems. Final Cut Pro is
compatible with formats such as EDL, OMF, and the Final Cut Pro XML Interchange
Format. For more information, see
“Importing and Exporting EDLs.” You can also refer
to “Exporting Audio for Mixing in Other Applications.” For information on the
Final Cut Pro XML Interchange Format, see “Using Final Cut Pro XML and QuickTime
Metadata.”
• QuickTime-compatible files: Because Final Cut Pro uses QuickTime technology, almost
any QuickTime-compatible file format can be imported and exported. This allows you
to import files created in video editing, motion graphics, and photo editing applications.
For a list of all formats that you can import, see
“Learning About QuickTime.”
Using Multiple Video Formats in a Sequence
A mixed-format sequence is a sequence containing clips whose media files don’t match
the sequence format. For example, a DV sequence containing HDV footage is a
mixed-format sequence. Final Cut Pro can play sequence clips in real time even when the
clips’ settings don’t match those of the sequence. Any number of formats can be combined
together in a single sequence. For more information, see
“Working with Mixed-Format
Sequences.”
Offline and Online Editing
Final Cut Pro allows you to edit low-resolution copies of your media until you are ready
to finish at high quality. For example, you can edit your movie on a portable computer
using low-resolution footage and then reconnect your project clips to high-resolution
media for finishing and output. For more information, see
“Offline and Online Editing.”
36 Chapter 2 Video Formats and Timecode