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Can you select the number of audio tracks to import when consolidating XDCAM media through AMA plugin
I’m dealing with XDCAM volumes copied to local storage and will be importing the media in to Avid in its native format.
I have timed the legacy XDCAM import functionality against the the consolidating an AMA volume route for ingesting this media in to Avid and found that there is a reasonably significant increase in speed via the AMA volume plugin.
Unfortunately, I’ve also discovered that with this method there is no option to choose which audio tracks to import, as a result all 8 tracks from any given XDCAM clip are imported even though only 4 are actually used on this project. This is fixable via the legacy import options but I would like to take advantage of the comparably higher speeds when bringing the media in via the plugin.
Is there anyway I can consolidate media in to Avid from an XDCAM volume via the AMA link to volume function but still choose to have only tracks 1-4 imported?
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8 Replies
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awesome thanks mate. Hopefully the time those extra couple of steps take to complete is not greater than the time saved using the AMA plugin vs the legacy XDCAM import. I can’t figure out how one is able to faster than the other anyway to be honest but glad it’s possible to be quicker even so.
I saw someone had asked this question some years ago and it was you who answered saying you’d look in to it so thanks for playing the long game.
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Hey as a heads up, I know this is from a long time ago but I just tried this method for the first time today and couldn’t get as far as relinking.
Avid refused to relink saying something about how the some of the clips were online when media database was loaded. Frankly I don’t understand why that would be an issue as that sounds like exactly what you want to happen when the media database is loaded and in any case the clips are offline now and need to be relinked. Prior to giving me this message it loaded AMA indexes too so it seemed like it was working just fine. Anyway maybe it’s just the system I’m on but unfortunately the method was unworkable. I tried altering the settings on the relink menu to tell it to relink to ‘any video’ and it crashed the application.
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Sorry to her it’s not working. At what stage were you relinking? After the edit or after removing tracks?
Michael
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After AMA linking the file, unlinking, and removing tracks. It is failing the re-link at that stage. The machine seems to be pretty flaky in general so I wouldn’t put it past the workstation.
The Avid version we’re running was recently patched because of various AMA problems, it’s currently 7.0.4 but it still seems to be pretty unstable. It’s also an HPz400 workstation which I think is one of the specific Avid qualified pre-built workstations so a bit frustrating.
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Does the unlink/relink work if you transcode first and try it on those files? Just trying to separate AMA from the process to see where the issue might lie.
Michael
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That’s an interesting thought. I’ll try that out next time I need to. The reason it had taken so long to get back to you and to notice that there was any kind of a problem with the method for me was because, the circumstances I’m in for this production are such that we’re filming on XDCAM discs. Avid seems to have the ability to deal with these clips as native files without the use of any AMA linking to begin with by way of the legacy XDCAM import functionality. The only reason we were using AMA was initially because in testing I noticed that AMA linking and then consolidating seemed to actually be marginally faster than importing despite neither method involving transcoding. I found that while the difference was minimal, over the course of a full disc and with the speed of the connection to the storage media we had, this difference added up and made it worth using AMA link. This was just fine until I noticed the irritating problem with the lack of choice in imported sound channels and when I found your solution I realised that the time it took to set that up would most likely eat up the time saved from AMA consolidation vs traditional import.
Today I found myself in a situation however where it would be advantageous to use AMA and to remove tracks to keep the number of channels manageable because I wanted the process to operate in the background while I completed some other work I was doing. Unfortunately, that’s when I ran in to the problem I’m describing now.
I mention this because I might not be in that obscure circumstance again for a little while but if I do, or if I find some spare time for testing, I’ll try out what you suggest. I didn’t actually know the process worked after ingest of AMA clips but now that you suggest I see it. When you suggest ‘transcoding’ it should also be fine to consolidate instead right? Just so long as you end up with Avid media in Avid MediaFiles rather than AMA linked?
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Actually you raise a good point and is something I did not test in my writing the workflow – I did not use XDCAM discs, but were all from file based cards. There could be a difference in the way MC wants to work between disc label and all that good fun stuff.
Michael
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