DLSR “Highest” Resolution / Workflow

[Andrew Mckee]

This question depends on what version of Media Composer you are using. On version 5, if you imported QT files then you could not then link back to them via AMA and if you linked via AMA then you could not then import them. However, this was fixed in V5.5 (I think). So, assuming you are on 5.5 or 6, what I reccomend you do is this;

Link to all your QT media in one bin via AMA then select all the footage in that bin. Then right click on your sequence in it’s bin, chooes relink and select “relink to selected items in open bins”. Based on the source file name and timecode (in this case they will all start at 00:00:00:00), it should relink to your original files. The you can transcode your sequence.

I doubt you will see a visible difference between the 115 and 175 when coming from low bitrate media. However, uncompressing and recompressing media ALWAYS results in a loss of some data and the less compressed the target codec is, the less data you will loose. I would say this will only make a difference if you are planning on doing compositing later or have many more steps of uncompression and recompression later in you’re workflow.

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC5.5
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net

[Jason Honeycutt]

Awesome… thanks for the detailed explanation, I’m going to give that a try.

With what I did… I originally brought them into 5.5 (since I have Magic Bullet, and it doesn’t run on 6 yet). On my other computer, I have 6, so I figured I’d try to highlight the reference media, then right click, then “Relink to AMA” but that’s greyed out, only “Link to AMA”, which obviously creates new, unreferenced clips.

I’m definitely going to give your way a shot and let you know. Thanks again, I appreciate the reply.

[Jason Honeycutt]

Shoot, I tried that, no luck. I even put all of the new AMA clips to the project into one the same bin (only bin open) and it didn’t do anything. I brought some new media in with the “correct” workflow, those clips relinked, although one did it incorrectly. I clicked on and off of the various options to the ‘open bin’ relink way, nothing. Just to make sure I’ve covered my based, I relink the sequence to the regular media and that worked no problem.

I wish there was an easy way to say, “Avid, disregard that other media, link to this stuff here… the AMA stuff. Or, to unlink the original footage and “batch import/link” to AMA files. Makes no sense why you can’t.