Avid versions etc

[Michael Hancock]

If you’re on Avid Xpress 5.5 or 5.6, there is a $50 upgrade fee to 5.7. You can buy it here:

https://www.avidstore.com/us/index.cfm?page=templates/product_grp_index&categoryid=69

As far as fixing Qtime export problems and DVD making–not sure, I don’t make DVDs. However, if you’re having dropouts after conversion it’s likely your third party DVD or compression program and not Avid. Have you tried doing a mixdown before exporting a Qtime reference? It’s a nuisance, but common practice for best quality and to solve a lot of issues.

Michael

[Seanski44]

Yes, I’ve done mixdowns before export – it helps, the first problem was finding a third party application that did everything I wanted (in terms of menu authoring) and ‘understood’ the QT ref file. I think I’m there with that, and I’m certain that the problem is outside Avid, but was wondering about using 5.7’s ‘send to’ option (does 5.5 have this?! Am not at home at the mo)

The problem is definitely not Avid as my direct playout is fine. I can output to tape and re-capture through a third party, but would prefer to be able to do it through file transfers instead – potentially less time consuming and in theory better qual!

Otherwise will start a new topic to collate experiences of different third party apps. I can send to a DV tape and record using a DVD recorder, but this is terrible quality.

Again, 3min pieces are fine, its the longer form that seem to suffer.

[Geo Cohn]

What codec does your media use? If it is DVCProHD (DV100) then your problem may be due to a glitch in Avid’s codec. There is a thread about it in Avid’s forum https://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/thread/139627.aspx

You could try downloading Avid’s latest codec package and see if it makes your problem go away.

[Seanski44]

thanks, but am using DVCam and domestic DV at SD, so 25 I think. various audio bit rates though. However, the playout to tape is fine, its just the transcoding. The thing is that its not always repeatable and therefore unpredictable, could be something stupid like not enough RAM, but I don’t know…

[Rhewitt]

I’ve been having problems with Sorenson Squeeze V4.5. Regardless of whether I use a QT reference or self-contained, the MPEG settings fail to create audio under any of the DVD project types. The QT’s play fine in QuickTime and Windows Media Player. All other codecs work fine.

I’ve been in contact with Sorenson about this and they’re looking at the issue. My current work around is to add the DVD_PAL_lg setting twice to the QT file. Delete the audio setting from one and the video setting from the other. The output is the expected .m2v and.m2a files that seemed to work fine in V4.0.

DVDs are working fine. Source material is DVCam with titles produced at 1:1. Durations 30-45-mins.

[Seanski44]

what do you use to produce the DVDs though?

if its not supposed to move use gaffa tape. If its supposed to move and it doesn’t use WD40

[Rhewitt]

I used to use Adobe Encore but since moving to Media Composer I thought I’d give DVDit a try. Seems to work but like Encore it takes some figuring out.

[Seanski44]

cheers, I’m only on the trial of Encore, and only downloaded the trial because I read a ‘how to’ from a university on how to make a DVD in Encore from an Avid QT ref.

To be honest, Roxio MyDVD does a fair job, but there’s one thing that it doesn’t do, and that’s get the aspect ratio right!

does DVDit get this right? – Judging by the majority of posts, people on this forum tend to be in the US, is aspect ratio a problem you have in the States? Most domestic SD camcorders here are 16:9 now and the majority of people have 16:9 TVs, or at least 4:3 TVs with the capability to detect 16:9 material and switch to a widescreen view.

[Rhewitt]

In Europe the majority of domestic cameras are still 4:3 but the number of 16:9 cameras and flat-screen TVs are increasing rapidly.

For a broadast picture, the broadcaster sends the aspect ratio switch details, which, if detected correctly, switches the TV to the correct aspect ration – assumming that the person watching hasn’t set the TV to manual switch. It’s amazing just how many people watch in the wrong aspect ration and don’t seem to notice!

If you TV/Monitor has the auto-switch enabled it should be able to detect the aspect ratio set. I’m not certain however, which editing/DVD writing applications specifically set the switch from data embedded in the DVD.

[Seanski44]

Yes, I know, I work at the BBC. Seemingly most people in the UK have either a 16:9 TV or at least a 4:3 with the facility to automatically switch to a 16:9 viewing mode!

The problem is that my DVD authoring SW (Roxio Creative Suite 9 MyDVD) definitely embeds the AFD code (Active Format Descriptor) as if you choose 16:9 menu or 4:3 menu it will flag the TV to switch, but always switched the TV back to 4:3 for the video, which is actually 16:9! (and the occasional glitch)

anyway, I’m exporting from Avid as 16:9 but I think that the information is either being stripped off at the export stage or during the transcode to Mpeg2 in MyDVD.

Will do some tests, but current thinking (among some colleagues here) is to try to get Avid to do the MPEG2 export (though there is a residual bug in Avid which can break the MP2 codec). After this if the problem remains, I can use a freeware util called ‘restream’ to check whether the MP2 has the 16:9 info in its stream, if not apparently this app will let you change it.

Thanks for the help, will keep you posted!