Who makes it
fcp2aaf is an independent software project, built and run from Mexico by one developer, and used by editors and mixers wherever the work is. There is no company behind it, no investor, and no support department: the person who reads your email is the person who fixes the bug.
That is a limitation as much as a promise. It is why there is no Windows build and no Intel build, why support is an email address rather than a chat widget, and why the roadmap is short, public and honest about what has not been done.
Why it exists
Final Cut Pro cannot export AAF. It exports FCPXML, a document describing the edit, and no DAW opens one. Between the picture edit and the mix there is a step that gets solved by hand: tracks rebuilt, levels retyped, fades redrawn, and an afternoon spent doing something a computer should have done in a minute.
That step is what this application is. It reads what Final Cut wrote, cuts from your original material exactly the regions the edit uses, and delivers a session with the clips where the editor put them — with their levels, their fades and their markers.
It was built because the work needed doing and doing it by hand was the wrong answer. Everything since has come from people using it on real deliveries and saying what was missing.
How it is built and tested
It is a native Mac application for Apple Silicon, running on macOS 14 or later: an interface written for the Mac over a conversion engine that does the reading and the writing. Both run on your machine, and neither of them needs a server to do the work.
The engine has a test suite that runs on every change, and the tests are written from real documents rather than from invented ones — the awkward timeline somebody sent in is the test that stops that fault returning.
The test that counts, though, is the last one: every release has its deliveries opened in the DAWs named on this site and looked at, clip by clip. A file that validates and opens wrong has passed nothing.
How this works, and how it will keep working
- Your work stays on your machine. No upload, no cloud step, no account to create.
- One payment, not a subscription. This is a tool you reach for on delivery day and then not again for a month.
- Nothing is lost quietly. Every delivery ships with a report of what travelled, what did not, and what was delivered a particular way on purpose.
- Standard AAF by default. The output opens beyond Pro Tools. The one non-standard option is opt-in and off.
- Prices published before there is a shop. Nobody should have to reach a checkout to find out what something costs.
An independent product
fcp2aaf is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Apple, Avid, Blackmagic Design, Steinberg, Cockos or anybody else whose software it writes files for. Their product names appear on this site to say what it is compatible with, and for no other reason. They belong to their owners.
Contact
One address for everything — a bug, a question before buying, an invoice, a beta application, a press question, a legal notice: support@cesareho.com. Answered in a couple of working days, by the person who wrote the thing you are writing about.