[Sal]

There's an article in the Apple Hot News section regarding how Showtime in NY uses AppleScript, Media 100, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop to automate the creation of hundreds of video menus and promos. Showtime Automation FCP lacks this ability.

My question to you is: As a FCP user, is automation of repetitive video production tasks and the ability to link to media asset systems important to you?

[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: Sal ]

[a holck]

Hi Sal, I do a lot of Video compression in Cleaner, wich involves:

1. Bach digitizing from DV tape in Final Cut Pro, from a Exel batch list.

2. Putting all Video segments into timeline.

3. Exporting every clip as a FCP reference movie.

4. Importing into cleaner.

5. Applying compression setting.

6. Compress.

It would simply rock if you could just cue the tape in FCP, then slip the Exel file onto a droplet and the system would do theese tasks automaticlly.

Please make FCP scrtiptable.....and please make a script for the above!

[King Chung Huang]

Absolutely! When Final Cut Pro 3 was announced a few days ago, one of the first things we looked for was AppleScript support. Although we don't use any sort of media asset systems, we use AppleScript quite a bit to automate many functions on our Media 100i systems. And, AppleScript isn't just for automating repetitive tasks, it's useful for rapidly building programs based on external sources, marking up programs for automatic export to reference files and compression in Cleaner, and other stuff. We'd love to see AppleScript support in FCP, just like in Media 100i.

--
King Chung Huang
<A HREF="http://www.ucalgary.ca/commons/" TARGET=_blank>Learning Commons
University of Calgary</A>

[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: King Chung Huang ]

[a holck]

I just watched the movies on the page, and it looks so awesome.
Scripting is so impressive. I would gaurentee Apple would sell more products if all Apple apps were scriptable (Any info on DVD studio pro X?), and when Applescript studio comes along.

I was also impressed when I saw your Illustrator demo, its really powerfull stuff.

Why are the Pro apps not scriptable yet?

P.S. After seeing the developer session on ADC TV about Aqua interface adobtion, its really wierd to see FCP 3 running on X with the old mixed widget interface, must be a difficult cup of tea to swallow for the lads at ui department. Hope it doesnt inspire other developer to cut corners too. I thought Apple was on the right track after doing the beutiful DVD player, and IDVD for X, but maybe they realised that white and pinstripes dont cut it in the biz...

[ 12-08-2001: Message edited by: a holck ]

[Sal]

Thank you for your responses.

If automation is important to you, I suggest adding your comments to the Final Cut Pro discussion forums, listing the actions and steps of your workflow that you'd like to automate:

FCP Discussion Boards

[ 12-12-2001: Message edited by: Sal ]

[a holck]

Consider it done!

topic is: 'Request: Applescript support'

[Cipher13]

Hmm. I'd love to have AppleScript support in FCP; but I can see the FCP teams point of view.

To date I haven't found myself doing many repetitive tasks in FCP that take all that long, and I agree with the sentiment that FCP isn't really designed for the automation of certain processes.

However, I think given scriptability, it would open new doors for Final Cut Pro...

In all I think AS support for FCP would rock

[a holck]

Please add a reply or a new topic at: Apples FCP discussion

I've made a topic called: Request: Applescript support

and wrote:

quote:
---------------------------------------------
There's an article in the Apple Hot News section regarding how Showtime in NY uses AppleScript, Media 100, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe PhotoShop to automate the creation of hundreds of video menus and promos. As it is right now FCP 3 isnt script able yet, which is a shame as it would save a lot of valuable time spent on routine jobs.

I do a lot of Video compression in Cleaner, which basically involves:

1. Batch digitizing from DV tape in Final Cut Pro, from a Excel tab batch list.

2. Putting all Video segments into timeline.

3. Exporting every clip as a FCP reference movie.

4. Importing into cleaner.

5. Applying compression setting.

6. Compress.

7. Upload to server

It would simply rock if you could just cue the tape in FCP, then slip the Exel file onto a droplet and the system would do theese tasks automaticlly.

Also scripting across the 'pro' applications would greatly enhance the roubustness of the workflow.

PLEASE make FCP scrtiptable,
---------------------------------------

Hope youll take the time to post some applescript messages, atleast to get
SAL some more work

[ 12-09-2001: Message edited by: a holck ]

[Sam Venning]

AppleScript is fantastic! Media 100 is good too. I can't say much about FCP.

I used AppleScript to automatically process graphics files into video for an animated televsision series (cartoon series). I wrote an AppleScript to look at folders on a Linux server and to "watch" when the frames had finished rendering (when the last file/frame was older than 5 minutes). The AppleScript then launched DeBabelizer, triggered a DeBabelizer script and converted the files into Media 100 codec QuickTime. The script did a bit of housekeeping and moved the processed files to another folder (thanks to the scriptable Finder!). We processed many hours of animation this way - it saved a lot of time. The processing had previously been done manually during the day. I love AppleScript!

AppleScript and Media 100 are both great products.

Only tip... don't expect one piece of software to do everything you want - be prepared to experiment a bit and you can save a both time and money.

I believe FCP to be very good too.

[Sal]

Sam and others,

Thanks again for your responses. Some interesting solutions. I'll pass your examples and comments onto the right folks.

Sal

[jimijon]

Yes we do a weekly video horoscope using Media100, Cleaner 5 and Applescript. This set up saves us a lot of time also. I wish I could standaradize on FCP but without Applescript this is not possible.

Looking forward to that day!