IMPORTING FOOTAGE INTO FCE AND MERGING FILES WITH FINAL CUT STUDIO

Question

So I recently purchased Final Cut Express to create off-line, rough cut projects...to be completed by more qualified editors other than myself. But I want to make sure that Final Cut Express is the right system for me.
Here are my questions:
1.) I will be using a variety of video formats for this system, and will be ingesting primarily through a shared media drive. Should I be concerned by the fact that it says I can only use "HDV, AVCHD, and DV" for simultaneous edit? What if I originate my material on Beta or DVCPro and want to import using firewire?
2.) Will my timelines be compatible to other (higher-end) Final Cut programs?
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Chip

Answer 1

Welcome to the forum!
1.) If the video you plan to use is not HDV, DV, or AVCHD then it will not be able to be ingested by FCE. The best way to get your media into FCE would be to capture it, but if it originates somewhere else you can still import it into FCE provided it is one of the formats cited above. If your media is not one of these three, you will have to use a convertor to make it "readable" by FCE. If you want to keep the full resolution of another format, you are better off directly going to Final Cut Pro, as it can handle these formats.
2.) Final Cut Pro will be able to open your Final Cut Express timelines, but you will not be able to go back the other way around. So only let your editors open the project in FCPro once you are done using it in FCE.
If you are planning to shoot professional videos, FCE transcodes into Apple Intermediate Codec, usually giving you lower quality then if you were to ingest the media in FCPro, which uses ProRes for higher quality yet larger file sizes. If you are not worried about the mentioned drawbacks to using FCE as a first-cut before FCP, then you should be fine.
-skalicki