Free ducks (Automatic duck withdraws)

I’m sure you’re all at least familiar with this popular timeline interchange software. For those who are not, it is enough to say that the “automatic duck” allows us to carry sequences between Avid, FCP, FCPX, After effects, Smoke, Protools, Quantel and more software. It has been until now the standard in production companies for the exchange of sequences for conforming.

Much more than an EDL, with the duck we can carry much more metadata (multitrack, rescaling effects, speed changes, transitions) and the program that receives the sequence (usually the exchange is done through an AAF, OMF or XML) understands that metadata and translates it to its own effects. Basically we have many of the effects that we have done offline in the online machine and we can manipulate them in the online machine as if we had created them there.

In addition (and this is one of its great advantages over competitors such as Boris) it is capable of carrying media, applying QT references such as translators for the transition from Avid to FCP (for example) without the need for more software such as Calibrated MXF.

Well, nice but not cheap, each translator (only in one direction) cost around 300$, which made it accessible only to certain levels. But that last has changed since a few days ago, Wes Plate, co-founder of the duck, has announced that after joining Adobe as a worker he stops developing his famous plugins for not being able to devote time to support.

However, unlike companies that start with Ap and end with ple, instead of discontinuing its products that are completely useful for the professional industry, it now allows them to be downloaded free of charge. It is true that in the current landscape, with FCP and Color out of the market, they are not THAT practical anymore. But there are still many workflows (with Protools, AE, Smoke, etc) where they can still be very practical.

In any case, we must be grateful for the initiative of Wes and his father to generously allow his product to continue to be used professionally, who knows, maybe the user community itself will start to support and develop it.