Automatic Duck is a

software developer Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development inv ...

based near Seattle known for their plug-ins that translate edited sequences between

Final Cut Pro Final Cut Pro is a series of non-linear editing, non-linear video editing software programs first developed by Macromedia, Macromedia Inc. and later Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro 10.6.4, runs on Macintosh, Mac computers power ...

, Avid,

After Effects Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc., and used in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Among other things, After Eff ...

Quantel Quantel was a company based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1973 that designed and manufactured digital production equipment for the broadcast television, video production and motion picture industries. They were headquartered in Newbury, ...

Pro Tools Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture ( sound design, audio post-prod ...

and other professional digital video editing tools.

History

Automatic Duck was founded in 2001 by Harry Plate and Wes Plate, father and son respectively. Before this time the junior Plate has been working as a video editor and frequently needed the ability to translate Avid sequences into After Effects.AE and Avid, Strategic Lessons for Success
, tutorial that originally appeared on the WWUG website Wes was quite familiar with the

OMFI Open Media Framework (OMF) or Open Media Framework Interchange (OMFI) is a platform-independent file format intended for transfer of digital media between different software applications. OMFI is a file format that aids in exchange of digital medi ...

file format and knew if After Effects could be made to read OMF it would open many possibilities for editors around the world. Harry's career was as a software engineer, having worked for

Texas Instruments Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American technology company headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that designs and manufactures semiconductors and various integrated circuits, which it sells to electronics designers and manufacturers globa ...

Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...

and

Agilent Technologies Agilent Technologies, Inc. is an American life sciences company that provides instruments, software, services, and consumables for the entire laboratory workflow. Its global headquarters is located in Santa Clara, California. Agilent was establ ...

. Ideas for a plug-in for After Effects were discussed as early as 1999, but it wouldn't be until October 2000 that development would begin in earnest. Automatic Duck's first product, an After Effects import plug-in that could read Avid OMF exports, was called Automatic Composition Import and shipped just before the

National Association of Broadcasters The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) is a trade association and lobby group representing the interests of commercial and non-commercial over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States. The NAB represents more tha ...

exposition in April 2001.Automatic Composition Import press release
February 26, 2001NAB 2001 -- An Editor's Report
/ref> In December 2001 Automatic Duck began courting the growing Final Cut Pro user community with the announcement of Automatic Composition Import FCP,
December 5, 2001 a plug-in set that would allow Final Cut Pro sequences to be translated into After Effects. Automatic Duck started offering interchange between Final Cut Pro and Avid in July 2002 with Automatic Sequence Export Pro,Automatic Sequence Export Pro announcement
July 1, 2002 a plug-in that could export an OMF composition for import into an Avid editing system. In February 2003

MacWorld ''Macworld'' is a website dedicated to products and software of Apple Inc., published by Foundry, a subsidiary of IDG Inc. It started life as a print magazine in 1984 and had the largest audited circulation (both total and newsstand) of Macin ...

magazine awarded Automatic Sequence Export PRO 4.5 stars.MacWorld magazine review
February 1, 2003 A tool to import Avid sequences into Final Cut Pro was released in December 2003 with a plug-in called Pro Import FCP,Pro Import FCP announcement
December 8, 2003 a plug-in for Final Cut Pro that read OMF files. In 2004 Automatic Duck released Pro Import C3, a plug-in for Discreet's

Combustion Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combust ...

compositing software.Pro Import C3 announcement
June 28, 2004 Pro Import C3 was later renamed Pro Import Cmb. Eventually the After Effects import plug-in was renamed Pro Import AE and the Final Cut OMF export plug-in was renamed Pro Export FCP. The plug-ins have improved in the amount of information translated as well as adding support for newer file formats such as

AAF AAF may refer to: Aviation * Aigle Azur (ICAO code), a French airline * Apalachicola Regional Airport (IATA code), in Apalachicola, Florida Corporations * American Air Filter, today a part of HVAC-equipment-maker Daikin Military * Albanian Arm ...

, MXF and

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

. Pro Import AE is now at version 4.0, Pro Import FCP at version 2.0 and Pro Export FCP at version 4.0. In September 2011 Automatic Duck announced a close partnership with Adobe Systems to bring that same interchange functionality to Premiere Pro. Wes Plate joined the Adobe Product Marketing team while Harry Plate will be assisting with the technology integration. The company later announced that due to Wes and Harry relocating to Adobe all Automatic Duck products would be offered free of charge, stating that they will not be able to offer a level of customer support that justifies charging for their products.

Community involvement

Since the beginning, Automatic Duck has been a supporter of editing user groups,Interview with Wes Plate, President, Automatic Duck
sponsoring After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Avid user groups around the United States and Canada.
June 18, 2008 Automatic Duck President Wes Plate has a long history with online community support, having been a member of the Avid-L since 1996 and having in the past been a leader on the WWUG and

Creative COW ''Creative COW'' bills itself as "Support communities for digital video, video editing, and media production professionals in broadcasting, motion graphics, special FX and film." As well as publishing a trade magazine, it provides over 200 online ...

as well as being active on other listservs and discussion forums. Automatic Duck is also a leader in standards development, being an Associate Member of the Advanced Media Workflow Association helping to guide the development of the AAF file format.

Products

Current products

*Pro Import AE 4.0 *Pro Export FCP 4.0 *Pro Import FCP 2.0 *Media Copy 4.3.0 *ProDate DV

Discontinued products

*Pro Import PPro *Pro Export PPro *Pro Import Cmb 1.0

References

{{Reflist

External links

Automatic Duck official site
Software companies established in 2001 Software companies based in Washington (state) Software companies of the United States