Overview of the Final Cut Pro XML Interchange Format
The Final Cut Pro XML Interchange Format was designed to describe every element in a
Final Cut Pro project in a human-readable, XML-based format. Final Cut Pro can import
and export this format, opening a world of possibilities limited only by your ability to
generate and process XML documents.
Because Final Cut Pro supports XML, you are no longer limited to creating clips, bins,
and sequences within Final Cut Pro. You can create your own Final Cut Pro projects
outside of Final Cut Pro, using any software or platform you want, as long as you
generate a valid Final Cut Pro XML file. Even if you don’t want to create Final Cut Pro
XML from scratch, you can practice working with Final Cut Pro XML by exporting a clip
or sequence to an XML file, opening it in a text editing application, making minor
modifications, and then importing the modified XML file back into Final Cut Pro.
For example, if you have 100 clips that all have “Koffee House” in the name, and you
want to change the names to “Coffee House,” you can export the clips to Final Cut Pro
XML, open the XML file in a text editing application, find “Koffee” and replace with
“Coffee,” and then import the resulting XML file back into Final Cut Pro.
You may also want to use XML when working with text generators or superimposed
graphics. Suppose you have a sequence with hundreds of subtitle text generators, and
you want to subtly change the color or position of each subtitle. Manually moving each
subtitle in Final Cut Pro would be extremely time-consuming. Instead, you can export
the sequence as XML and then find and replace all of the positional parameters or
color settings at once.
These examples are only the beginning. You can also change clip In and Out points, change
the order of clips in sequences, or modify effect parameters. The more you experiment, the
more potential you will discover for modifying Final Cut Pro elements using XML.