Aperture and FCPX

One of the things which struck me as odd is that despite the media browser section having access to Aperture’s library, there was no sign of any video clips in the browser.  This seemed to me like a massive missed opportunity from Apple but it seems I may have been a bit harsh.  This looks like it is a bug not a missing feature as video is mentioned in the FCPX help.  As such, I hope it gets fixed soon.

You can find the knowledge base article here 

The help is a little unclear so here is what my experiments have shown:

• You have to drag the image, multi-selection or Aperture project and drop it on the FCPX’s Event title in the Event Library not into the panel that where the assets or import options are.  You should see a + or a file count where it is valid.
• If you have done a version copy in Aperture it will see that as a different  the file in Aperture then FCPX will only see the trimmed portion.
• It won’t let you use drag in smart albums but you can still use them to preselect what you want to copy.
• Can’t see any evidence of Aperture key words being carried over.

... and your point is?

If you are someone who shoots mixed stills and video on DSLRs like I do then Aperture is often your first point of call for capture.  I have already written about my workflow here.  If you are using Aperture then both stills and video are ingested and you are already making decisions about organisation.  Whilst Aperture can’t currently modify video images the way it can with stills, you still have the ability to trim, grade (stars and flags) and key word.  It also has a robust library with the vault backup option.  With no log and capture anymore, Aperture can fill some of the gap.

Even when Apple fixes the bugs, I still think they could go further with the integration.  It would be nice not to have to duplicate the primary assets and it seems a shame to lose any effort you may have put into key wording in Aperture.

Comments

[Andrew Howe]

I have been seeing an issue with some of the files I have imported from Aperture failing to transcode properly. I have posted a question on Apple support. You can see the details and any responses I get here http://discussions.apple.com/thread/3169305

[Andrew Howe]

In the recent update to FCPX, Apple seem to have sorted out some of the integration issues I mentioned in the articles:

1) Video files now appear in the picture browser when you view Aperture projects
2) You can search for Aperture keywords in the browser (they still don't come across to FCPX though)
3) There is a mini clip player in the browser for review
4) If you have trimmed clips then you get the trimmed section only
5) Just drag the clip(s) into event. Note that if you duplicate a clip to trim it then it will have the date of duplication as the creation date
6) My testing has been limited but not seen transcode issue yet.