ArrI Alexa 35 and Avid 2018

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Doug (and Sarah),

My first thought was, that if you are ending up on Davinci anyway, why not create the proxies there, and import those to your Avid?

Certainly worth a test.

And, a quick Google search shows a number of YouTubers showing how to do just that.
Although, you might still want to consider “upgrading” the Macs and the Avid software.

My search string:
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=Can+Avid+use+Davinci+proxies

This one looks like a good guide with text and pictures, without having to watch YouTubers shouting “WHAT’S UP” at you:
https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/create-ingest-proxies-avid-using-davinci-resolve/

Hope that this helps?

Atb
Mads

google.com

Google

Google

[Doug O’connor]

Thanks for Jumping in. Just to fill in the blanks a little. Our system has 15 Avids, and I reaally dont want to upgrade everything yet. As far as the DaVinci, thats the Online editors gig, though we couild probably learn in, I’m hoping ti stay in the Avid universe and have my proxies link to the OG media. Yes, Upgreading is a simple solution, but for now I am trying to avoid it, not least of which is that I would want to upgrade fully to Avid 2025, and buying 15 new machines costs a few dollars. We did have luck on a PC with 2018, so experimenting with crossing over those files, and I may load Avid 2020 onto one machine on teh system with newer OS and create Proxies on that to test…

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Doug,

Although on PC, I can run Adobe, Davinci and Avid on the same machine.

So maybe take a pun, and install Davinci (“Studio” for Arri files, I think) on one or two of your Avid machines.
Just to see where it takes you, without upgrading anything.

Atb
Mads

[Doug O’connor]

Thanks Mads,

Ultimately, if the easiest solution does not work, I like the Davinci Option, since we do have one machine with DaVinci as our online system.. Of course, complicating matters is that we are all spread out across the country, usually not too big a deal, but trying to keep the action where the media is located.

We appreciate your help!

[Doug O’connor]

As a note- The PC is 500 miles away from the main system…With Sarah

[Mads Nybo jørgensen]

Hey Doug,

Davinci will run on Mac, PC and Linux.
Obviously there will be the cost of your Avid editors training on it.
Instead designate one or two workstations to create the proxies and distribute from there, leaving the bigger pool of editors to continue as is with Avid.

Just thinking out loud.

Atb
Mads

[Glenn Sakatch]

Back to your original question, you should be able to create avid mxf media on a 2024 version of Avid, and use it on a 2018 system. You will come up with more issues if you are trying to open timelines back and forth, but the media itself should be fine.

If you want to do a workflow test, I’d be happy to convert one of your clips to mxf media and you can do a roundtrip workflow test from there.

I will also point out that i have done a few workflow videos between Avid and Resolve, including proxies and audio syncing, with a couple of “gotchas” that you have to be aware of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2flKWUgMJoI&t=9s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=201_Lh8SdIQ&t=10s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0jW9pEa760

[Doug O’connor]

Thanks all for jumping into this one. Glen, this is exactly what we did. For the record, because the system is offsite, in another state, an dthe company didn’t want to upgrade yet, we were somewhat limited. The 3rd party Plugin for the new Arri35 does not work on the level of Mac OS needed to run 2019 (it just missed) So ultimately what we did is used teh once machine that had updated OS that we run Davinci on for finishing, we loaded Avid 2024. Created our bins and proxies there, and than, as Glen suggested, sent them bacl down to the 2018 project. Try that in Adobe!!! never happen.

There isnt even much of a time penalty in this approach, other then not being able to spread the proxy cooking across multiple machines. Thanks again for your help and wisdom!!

Doug