• Avid Media Composer

  AVID transcode walkaround

  Posted by Nicolas Servide on March 28, 2012 at 4:21 pm

  Hello,

  I am working in a long documentary. I am importing the raw files (straight from the canon C300) using AMA, and then transcoding into DNxHD 36 AVID codec.

  But it takes for ever!

  How necessary is it to transcode all the material?
  I heard that playback will suffer if I just link everything with AMA (about 50 hours or more)

  Thanks!

  Nicolas Servide replied 14 years, 4 months ago 4 Members · 6 Replies
• 6 Replies

• 

  Michael Hancock

  March 28, 2012 at 4:28 pm

  Why are you transcoding? You should be able to consolidate (which is essentially a file copy with a checksum). The C300 footage shouldn’t be that heavy on your system.

  Dylan Reeve has a nice video on how to bring C300 footage into Avid:

  https://vimeo.com/groups/c300/videos/38909217

  —————-
  Michael Hancock
  Editor
• 

  Nicolas Servide

  March 28, 2012 at 4:46 pm

  Thanks Michael!

  But wouldn’t consolidate take as much time as transcoding?

  I will check that video.

  Best!
• 

  Shane Ross

  March 28, 2012 at 4:49 pm

  Consolidating is copying, transcoding is recompressing.

  Shane
  Little Frog Post
  Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def
• 

  Daniel Frome

  March 30, 2012 at 12:25 pm

  We’re doing a show that shoots 15 hours of C300 footage per day. We consolidate (not transcode) with relative ease. We can consolidate 1 shooting block (40-50 hours of footage) in one day.

  Don’t transcode… DNx36 isn’t that much smaller than the full rez (50mbps) material. Waste of time.
• 

  Nicolas Servide

  March 30, 2012 at 12:30 pm

  Thanks guys!

  Great help 🙂
• 

  Nicolas Servide

  April 3, 2012 at 11:06 am

  Thanks for the tip, Daniel.
  It’s indeed much faster.
  But sometimes I have issues to link back to the original “camera files”, and I am afraid that this will cause problems in the online.
  What I do:

  1. Import/link with AMA
  2. ALT+Drag files to a new BIN
  3. Consolidate to my Avid MediaFiles

  But when both bins are open, some files links to different locations.

  Is this normal? Would you suggest a different workflow?

  Thanks!

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