.m4a and Final Cut

[Tilpots]

I've done my research and know I must convert Apple Lossless files to AIFF to import into Final Cut. What I don't understand is why. Shouldn't an Apple product be able to import another file from an Apple product? It doesn't make sense that I must spend time and HDD space to get two Apple products to talk to each other. I'm hoping somebody out there can explain this to me. Thanks for any knowledge you can lend.

 

[bigbossbmb]

it isn't that you need to convert it in order to work... an AAC or MP3 will work in final cut, but you just need to render every time you change something. The reason is the same as why you shouldn't mix different format video in the same sequence and you don't import divx files or h.264. You want the sequence settings to match the video you import and the audio. For audio, this is 48khz PCM, which means aif and wav.

 

[killmoms]

It has nothing to do with "Apple product" and everything to do with the application of the codecs you're talking about. Apple Lossless is not an editing format, and isn't easily scrubbable. PCM audio is still the standard for editing—less CPU usage, no decompression to do on the fly.

Use editing formats for editing, delivery formats for delivery. End of story.