Picture is locked in Final Cut, the mix happens in Pro Tools. The two share no format — the hand-off runs through AAF, and someone has to write it.
File → Export XML from Final Cut Pro and convert it to .aaf. Separate combined channels is already on — that is the shape Pro Tools recombines into stereo tracks. Collect the media, and read the report that sits next to the AAF before the turnover leaves.Pro Tools has read AAF for two decades and does not read FCPXML at all. Final Cut Pro writes FCPXML and has no AAF import or export in any version — Apple’s own documentation lists XML as the interchange format and does not mention AAF. So the format both sides can hold is the AAF, and someone has to write it.
The gap runs the other way too: should an AAF ever land on your desk — from a picture department, an assistant, another facility — Final Cut cannot open that either. Converting it is AAF back into Final Cut.
Clip → Break Apart Clip Items. These clips do not expose their contents to any converter. Nesting is followed three container levels deep — on a deeply nested project that can cost most of the timeline. The report counts every clip that fell out, but fixing it in Final Cut is the only way to get the material back.
File → Export XML. A single .fcpxml or the .fcpxmld bundle — drop either one in.
.aaf with per-channel mediaDrop the file in and pick .aaf. On the first page of Check and convert, Separate combined channels is already on: every channel is written as its own mono file while the tracks stay stereo. That is the form Pro Tools recombines — it does not read multichannel file references, so an interleaved stereo file inside the AAF is the one shape to avoid here. You only switch it off when the AAF goes to another NLE instead of a mix.
Collect next to output puts the AAF and every referenced file into one folder — Name/Name.aaf plus Name/Media/ — that the mix can take as a whole. MXF-wrapped audio becomes WAV on the way.
File → Import → Session Data. Next to the AAF sits a plain-text report — it is a loss list, not a clean bill: read it before the turnover leaves the building.
What does not come along: pan — we do not read Final Cut’s panner settings, so no pan is handed over on this route and the report says so. Exact track names give way to Final Cut roles on the way back, and empty tracks are not representable in FCPXML at all. Track and clip colours ride in a private comment inside the AAF that only this converter reads back — Pro Tools ignores it.
We open the AAFs we write in Pro Tools ourselves. AAF dialects differ between applications, though, so convert one reel with the demo and open it on your own system before a delivery depends on it — and if a real timeline breaks it, we genuinely want the file.
Because of how the channels are written. Pro Tools builds a stereo track from per-channel mono files belonging to one track, and it does not read multichannel file references at all. Switch on Separate combined channels and the tracks stay stereo while the media is written one file per channel.
No. The conversion reads and writes the files directly; neither application has to be running or even installed.
A synchronised A/V clip from Final Cut lands in the AAF as an audio clip; picture tracks come along only where the export keeps picture and sound separate. For an audio turnover that is the normal case and usually what you want — the report counts how many picture clips were placed.
Yes — hand it a batch of project files and they convert to one target together, each with its own status and its own report. Existing files are never overwritten.
The demo is the complete app with unlimited conversions — each output covers the first 120 seconds with the full track layout. If your file converts the way you need, buy a license.
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