Automatic duck
| Automatic duck | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Private company |
| founding | 2001 |
| resolution | 2011 |
| Reason for dissolution | Change of team to Adobe |
| Seat | Snohomish, Washington, USA |
| Number of employees | 4th |
| Branch | Software industry |
| Website | www.automaticduck.com |
| As of June 15, 2014 | |
Automatic Duck was a software company located near Seattle . The company was known for its plug-ins that translate edited sequences between Final Cut Pro , Avid , After Effects , Quantel, Pro Tools and other professional digital video editing services.
history
Automatic Duck was founded in 2001 by Harry Plate and Wes Plate, father and son. Prior to that, Wes Plate was a film editor and often needed the ability to translate Avid sequences into After Effects. Wes was thoroughly familiar with the OMFI data format and knew that if After Effects could be made to read OMF, it would open up many opportunities for editors around the world. Harry's career as a software engineer led him to work with Texas Instruments , Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies .
Ideas for a plug-in for After Effects were discussed in early 1999, but it was not until October 2000 that development began.
Automatic Duck's first product, an After Effects import plug-in that could read Avid OMF exports, was called Automatic Composition Import and was released just ahead of the National Association of Broadcasters' exhibition in April 2001.
In December 2001, Automatic Duck began poaching the growing Final Cut Pro user community by announcing an Automatic Composition Import FCP plug-in set that would allow Final Cut Pro sequences to be translated into After Effects.
Automatic Duck began exchanges between Final Cut Pro and Avid in July 2002 using Automatic Sequence Export Pro. A plug-in that could export an OMF composition for import into an Avid editing system. In February 2003, Automatic Sequence Export PRO 4.5 was awarded 4.5 stars by MacWorld magazine .
A software tool that imports Avid sequences into Final Cut Pro was released in December 2003 along with a plug-in called Pro Import FCP that reads OMF data for Final Cut Pro.
In 2004, Automatic Duck Pro released Import C3. This plug-in for Autodesk's Combustion Compositing software was later renamed Pro Import Cmb.
Finally, the After Effects import plug-in was renamed Pro Import AE and the Final Cut OMF export plug-in Pro Export FCP. The plug-ins have helped to increase the amount of information that is translated, as well as to improve support for new data formats such as AAF , MXF and XML .
In September 2011, Automatic Duck announced a close collaboration with Adobe Systems. Wes Plate joined the Adobe product marketing team, while Harry Plate helped with technology integration. The company later announced that because of Wes and Harry's move to Adobe, all Automatic Duck products will be offered for free. This was justified by the statement that they were unable to maintain a level of customer service that justified charging their products.
Community participation
Automatic Duck has been an advocate of user-group editing since its inception. They made this felt by promoting After Effects, Final Cut Pro, and Avid user groups in the United States and Canada.
Automatic Duck President Wes Plate has a long history in online community support. He has been a member of Avid-L since 1996 and was head of WWUG and Creative COW. He is also active on many mailing lists and discussion forums.
Automatic Duck was also a leader in standards development, as an associate member of the Advanced Media Workflow Association helped develop the AAF data format.
Products
Current products
- Pro import AE 4.0
- Pro Export FCP 4.0
- Pro Import FCP 2.0
- Media Copy 2.0
- ProDate DV
Discontinued products
- Per import PPro
- Per export PPro
- Pro Import Cmb 1.0
credentials
- ^ NAB 2001 - An Editor's Report
- ↑ Automatic Composition Import FCP announcement press release , December 5, 2001
- ↑ Automatic Sequence Export Pro announcement , July 1, 2002
- ^ MacWorld magazine review , February 1, 2003
- ↑ Pro Import FCP announcement ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , December 8, 2003
- ↑ Pro Import C3 announcement , June 28, 2004
- ↑ Interview with Wes Plate, President, Automatic Duck ( Memento of the original from February 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Moving Pictures Collective Meeting Report , June 18, 2008
