Automatic Duck is a software developer

Software developer

A software developer is a person concerned with facets of the software development process. Their work includes researching, designing, developing, and testing software. A software developer may take part in design, computer programming, or software project management...

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

Final Cut Pro

Final Cut Pro is a non-linear video editing software developed by Macromedia Inc. and then Apple Inc. The most recent version, Final Cut Pro X, runs on Mac personal computers powered by Mac OS X version 10.6.7 or later and using Intel processors...

, Avid

AVID

AVID stands for:* Advancement Via Individual Determination, a college-readiness system designed to increase the number of students who enroll in four-year colleges in the U.S....

, After Effects, Quantel

Quantel

Quantel is a company based in the United Kingdom and founded in 1973 that designs and manufactures digital production equipment for the broadcast television, video production and motion picture industries...

, Pro Tools

Pro Tools

Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed and manufactured by Avid Technology. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film, and television...

 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. Wes was quite familiar with the OMFI 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

Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...

, Hewlett Packard and Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies , or Agilent, is a company that designs and manufactures electronic and bio-analytical measurement instruments and equipment for measurement and evaluation...

.

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

National Association of Broadcasters

The National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association, workers union, and lobby group representing the interests of for-profit, over-the-air radio and television broadcasters in the United States...

 exposition in April 2001.

In December 2001 Automatic Duck began courting the growing Final Cut Pro user community with the announcement of Automatic Composition Import FCP, 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 of 2002 with Automatic Sequence Export Pro,, a plug-in that could export an OMF composition for import into an Avid editing system. In February of 2003 MacWorld

Macworld

Macworld is a web site and monthly computer magazine dedicated to Apple Macintosh products. It is published by Mac Publishing, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California...

 magazine awarded Automatic Sequence Export PRO 4.5 stars.

A tool to import Avid sequences into Final Cut Pro was released in December 2003 with a plug-in called Pro Import FCP, 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

Autodesk Media and Entertainment

Autodesk Media and Entertainment, formerly Discreet, is based in Montreal, Quebec as the entertainment division of Autodesk. This division produces software used in feature films, television commercials and computer games. It also provides products for management and distribution to complement its...

 Combustion compositing software. 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

Advanced Authoring Format

The Advanced Authoring Format is a professional file interchange format designed for the video post production and authoring environment. The AAF was created by the Advanced Media Workflow Association . The AMWA develops specifications and technologies to facilitate the deployment and operation...

, MXF

MXF

Material eXchange Format is a container format for professional digital video and audio media defined by a set of SMPTE standards.- A brief summary of MXF :...

 and XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

. 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, sponsoring After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Avid user groups around the United States and Canada.

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 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.

Current products

• Pro Import AE 4.0
• Pro Export FCP 4.0
• Pro Import FCP 2.0
• Media Copy 2.0
• ProDate DV