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AE Pro Import from AVID MC7 Badly Degrading Clips
I posted just yesterday about some trouble I was having getting clips from Avid MC7.0.2 into AE via the Pro Import option or what was Automatic Duck, now integrated into AE as standard.
I worked out where I was going wrong but I have 2 initial questions:
1: It says in the dialogue box on Pro Import that you can link directly to Avid media files. This does not work, no matter what you do it says the MXF files are damaged or unsupported. Seeing as they work fine in Avid I’m going with unsupported.
2. So the with the only option you have being making Quick times from them, why don’t you have any control over what it’s doing to them? (codec, bit depth etc)
So this leads me to the actual niggle, well more major misery! All day I’ve been trying to work out what artefacts I have in my shots. I used a Phantom HD Gold so I know the material is sweet and clean. Captured as DNXHD 10 bit direct to file. There are blocks and lines and as I’m keying all the shots, I’m noticing lots of noise in areas and on closer inspection there is actually green lines in the material! Of course when keying this is going too and making a right mess. So I went back to the source material and found the exact clip and dropped that in with the same Keylight settings and it was absolutely clean and noise free.
So this ‘Pro Import’ has not only destroyed my footage but also introduced a significant luma shift. I’m not getting what I had in Avid in AE, far from it and as I can’t access the MXF’s it yet another 2 stages of compression to get it in and out of AE and yet another for delivery.
This is not what I’m expecting from several thousand pounds worth of software. I’ve attached some screen grabs so you can see what the Pro Import has done to the material. I’m not really after a solution since I know that the pro import is doing it and without any way of controlling what it does, it looks like I’m back to rendering every clip out and rebuilding the edit in AE, just like the old days.
https://www.mediafire.com/download/n942okgk8idy9rq/pro_import_clips.zip
Senior Technician, Moving Image Department – Kingston University London.
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3 Replies
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Those MXF OPatom files don’t work anywhere except on another Avid. CC should support Phantom .cine files natively. Have you tried using the originals?
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[Ken Evans] “Captured as DNXHD 10 bit direct to file. There are blocks and lines and as I’m keying all the shots, I’m noticing lots of noise in areas and on closer inspection there is actually green lines in the material! Of course when keying this is going too and making a right mess. So I went back to the source material and found the exact clip and dropped that in with the same Keylight settings and it was absolutely clean and noise free.
So this ‘Pro Import’ has not only destroyed my footage but also introduced a significant luma shift. I’m not getting what I had in Avid in AE, far from it and as I can’t access the MXF’s it yet another 2 stages of compression to get it in and out of AE and yet another for delivery.”
Sorry I don’t have a solution for you, but I can help you identify a part of the problem.
I remain extremely unimpressed with the Avid DNxHD QuickTime codecs. All apps using Avid’s QuickTime codec suffer from these highlight errors and are prone to levels shifts.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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Thanks, my solution was just to revisit the original clips and rebuild the edit in AE. I had hope to use this pro import app to be able to add 2 second handles to each clip for some rejigging once the shots were effected. It’s really piss poor and I’ve raised a ticket with Adobe. I think the fact that it’s 3rd party software will mean they wash their hands of it.
Senior Technician, Moving Image Department – Kingston University London.
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