Final Cut Pro® Portable Genius

Chapter 3. How Do I Ingest Media into Final Cut Pro?

There are two basic ways to get footage into Final Cut Pro: capturing from a video playback deck or camera, or transferring files that have already been recorded to a hard drive or solid-state memory card. The newest forms of tapeless recording can cost less but have additional backup requirements. Cameras being developed now use a tapeless recording method. You can also import still image files, CD audio files, DVD files, and media files obtained from the Internet into Final Cut Pro.

• Capturing Media

• Importing Media

• Managing Media

• Storage Requirements

Capturing Media

Capturing Is the process used to transfer footage into Final Cut Pro. Each time you capture a clip, Final Cut Pro creates a clip that points to a mediafile. Clips and mediafiles are two separate entities.

A clip appears in the Browser window each time you capture media. It's important to note that the clip doesn't contain the actual media. It is simply a reference to a mediafile that is located on a physical hard drive (see figure 3.1). To keep things organized, Final Cut Pro automatically creates a mediafile based on the name that you give to a clip.

Figure 3.1. Clips in the Browser window reference media files on a hard drive.

Unless you've changed the scratch disk preferences ...