Automatic Duck news

October 28, 2011

If you missed our mail last month you should check it out as it got a lot of people talking. Today we have a follow-up.

Our web site has relaunched* and while the overall look of the site is similar there is a dramatic difference in how we are distributing our plug-ins.

Starting today Pro Import AE, Pro Import FCP and Pro Export FCP (both versions, for FCP7 and FCPX) are available at no charge. You read this right. Free.

We are unable to provide support at the same level as we have over the years, but we didn't want these plug-ins to go away while they remain useful. So if you can make use of these plug-ins in your projects, enjoy!

Thank you to all of our users, working with you for the last 10 1/2 years was a truly wonderful experience.

- Wes and Harry

Click here to download FREE Automatic Duck plug-ins!

As many of you know I used to be a professional Avid editor, often working between Media Composer and After Effects before the cool kids were doing it. By 1999 I had grown tired of the tedious timeline rebuilding process and started to investigate with Harry Plate (my Dad) how we could make a solution to import Avid OMF files into Adobe After Effects.

Harry and I started working diligently on what became Automatic Duck in late 2000 and by NAB 2001 we had our first product. Before we knew it we were celebrating 10 years of enabling integrated workflows.

Over the years we've enjoyed improving the interchange between Avid, Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Pro Tools, Smoke, Quantel and other AAF and OMF-friendly apps. We have enjoyed helping users improve their workflows and finish their productions more easily, and we've even enjoyed working with users to fix the occasional challenging bug and odd misbehavior. Not to mention at every trade show we had a great time meeting our many users from around the world.

We are very proud of the company we created and the products we lovingly crafted. But after 10 1/2 years the time has come for us to embark on new challenges and begin a new chapter in our lives. To that end Automatic Duck has partnered with Adobe Systems and will be working towards some excellent technology integration. I have joined Adobe as a full-time employee and Harry will be focusing on the technology integration as well as supporting other Automatic Duck partners.

Because we are so busy with these new projects we cannot provide the same level of support for our plug-ins that we used to, therefore we can't in good conscience charge money for them. But we don't want our popular tools to go unused if they are still useful to people. Therefore we have decided to make them available at no charge. Enjoy!

Thank you for the memories, we'll see you around.

- Wes Plate & Harry Plate, co-founders of Automatic Duck