I have just put in 3 days on my first final cut pro gig, and have found a mess of file format problems and app import/export problems that I would love to untangle so we can make our deadline.

We need advice on FCP and Flash interchange.

This project was shot on DVcam, footage was logged and captured in iMovie, "plates" for surrounding the video were constructed in Flash with the video sized and placed within the "plate" in Flash as well. Then the movies are being brought into FCP 4 to paste the original sync sound back on the Flash .mov since they could not find a way to get the video audio in and out of Flash (Is there a way to do this?). Flash is also being used to size and "marry" three simultaneous DVcam clips from three different cameras into one "plate". All this has been done without careful consideration of app settings for setup, import and export to and from the various apps.

FCP Users - From what I have seen of FCP 4, it seems to me that ALL of this could probably be done within FCP.

What file format, frame rate, bit depth etc.. would we want to export our Flash plates in, in order to use them as a layer in FCP? In FCP 4 what steps would be necessary to make this a mask and size the video to be seen within the "plate"? Is this something FCP can do using the mask as a video layer? A step by step explanation would be terrific.

I don't know the intricacies of how it works, but it seems to me that in the FCP viewer, under the "Motion" tab, it would be possible to size and put next to each other 3 clips within one screen (they need to actually butt up against each other on the frame line) is this possible? If so please give me the steps involved in an easy to follow way.

All of this is going to DVD for viewing on computers and NTSC monitors.

Thanks for your time and attention.

spiceyjeff