What Are Media Files?
Media files are the raw materials you use to create your movie. A media file is a video,
audio, or graphics file on your hard disk that contains footage captured from videotape
or originally created on your computer. Since media files—especially video files—tend
to be quite large, projects that use a lot of footage require one or more high-capacity
hard disks.
Many media files contain multiple tracks. For example, a typical DV media file has a
video track, audio track, and timecode track. In a Final Cut Pro sequence, you can work
with each of these media tracks as separate items, either in sync or separately.
Before you can edit in Final Cut Pro, you need to capture media files from a video deck
or camcorder to your hard disk. For more information about capturing media files, see
Chapter 15, “
Overview of Logging and Capturing
,” on page 235.
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Part I
An Introduction to Final Cut Pro