Exported clips from AVID Media Composer taken into AVID Xpress Pro — problems?

[Michael Hancock]

There’s no reason to export your clips at all, and working on your project in Xpress Pro shouldn’t be a problem. Here’s what you need to do:

Copy all of your media from your MC system to your Xpress Pro system. You can use Media Mover, MediaSift, or MDV. The links to each are here:

MediaSift(FREE)
https://www.senkou.com/

MDV(FREE: It’s a Russian site, but the program is supposed to be in English)
https://fiool.nm.ru/progz/

Media Mover(NOT FREE but you down download a fully functioning demo)
https://www.randomvideo.com/Product%20Info.htm

Transfer your entire project to the OMFI MediaFiles folder of your Xpress Pro’s media drives. Copy the bins from your MC to your Xpress Pro machine. Make a new project by the same name and import the bins (you may be able to transfer the project but will likely run into problems. Transferring the bins won’t give you problems). Delete the database files your OMFI MediaFiles folder of your Xpress Pro system, start the Avid–it will scan the drives and relink everything.

Here’s the bummer–Xpress Pro doesn’t work in 2:1 so you’ll have to transcode all the media once it’s transferred. It isn’t hard to do, just a pain. I’d suggest the DV50 codec (you could do 1:1 but it won’t improve quality…only take up more disk space. DV50 may compress it a little more, so it’s your choice. I think DV50 is more like 3:1, but I’m not sure). Now you can edit.

You may have to recreate any titles rendered at 2:1 (do these at 1:1 for best quality), and batch import any imported graphics, but that can be done easily enough.

Good luck, and post back if you have any questions about the workflow or if you run into issues.

Mike.

P.S. I forgot to answer the screen size issue–you can go into your media settings and change your Xpress Pro from 720×480 to 720×486. I can’t remember exactly what setting it’s under–if you can’t find it let me know and I’ll look it up for you (not in front of the system right now).

[Jason Brown]

Thanks for the ideas…a couple of problems on workflow with that proposal.

The Xpress Pro system is not even in the same building or interconnected at all to the Media Composer.

The major reason I’m doing this is because the Edit suite is going to be busy all weekend and I need to continue to edit for a Monday deadline…so I’ve already exported same as source clips and that’s what I have to work with.

There is no GFX treatment…just stringing Sound bytes together with music. I just find AVID easier to work in than After Effects for doing *editing* work.

So my real pressing issue is quality…will I suffer going to the Xpress codec, coming from 2:1 Meridien codec? Would I be better served to work all in AFX to retain the quality? The quality is going to be a key issue…I can’t afford a bunch of compression, my boss wanted to do it at 1:1 but we don’t have the drive space.

Also, you mentioned DV50 and then also 1:1. Are those both selectable on the Xpress Pro system? I’ve never worked on the Xpress Pro, only the Xpress DV — which doesn’t allow for a selection of quality. Simply DV.

-JB

[Michael Hancock]

Xpress Pro does 1:1 (with Mojo–forgot to mention that), DV50, DV25 411 NTSC, 420 PAL, and 15:1s (offline resolution). If you do 1:1 you’ll need a Mojo and a lot of drive space, and fast drives.

Speaking of which, what’s your setup on your Xpress system? What kind of storage, what version, and do you have a Mojo?

If you have the drive space and a Mojo do 1:1. It won’t improve the quality but it don’t hurt it either. And how big of a project are you working on? How many hours of footage?

As far as transferring goes, get an external drive if you don’t already have one, and you could consolidate all of your clips to that, transcode them to DV25 or 15:1s and edit offline on the Xpress system, then transfer the bin with the finished sequence back to the Media Composer on Monday, relink to your 2:1 clips and lay to tape. Or are your media files going to be deleted from the Media Composer? If they aren’t, will you have the option to jump back on to the MC to output from it?

I guess I was a little premature on my advice–I should have gotten a better a feel for what you’re workflow and final delivery is going to be.

I would definitely avoid editing in AE–painful, at best. Give us a better idea of what’s going to happen to your media on the Media Composer, whether you’re going to be able to get back on it Monday with a finished product, and what type of Xpress Pro system you’ll be working on. We’ll find something that works for you.

Mike.

[Jason Brown]

The Xpress system DOES have MOJO. And I don’t believe there is a storage issue for how little content I’ll be bringing over. All the exported clips total about 4.5 GB of disk space at 2:1. (audio and video)

The whole workflow is this:

Content:

Shot 16:9 SD footage on beta. (Digitized and exported from MC at 2:1)
High-res still images to do moves on while interviewers talk. (AFX…or AVID Pan and Scan)

Delivery:

7 total pieces about 1:30 each.

My initial thought is to do a rough edit with smooth audio fades, music and sound bytes in order fading up and out…in a 1:30 piece. (all done in AVID)

Take that edited QT ref movie over to AFX and do the moves on top of it to cover black holes with moves on the high res images.

Render out of AFX with 2:1 compression in the AVID Meridien Codec.

That was my initial thought on the best workflow…I just want to make sure the media will hold up the quality throughout all of this.

-JB

PS Thanks for your quick help!!!

[Michael Hancock]

Ok, now we’re rockin’. Dealing with such a small amount of footage, import everything into your Xpress Pro system at 1:1. It will take up more space than necessary but you won’t lose quality. Do your edit, export a Qtime Reference to AE, do your stuff in there, and render it out to Meridien 2:1 codec. Better yet, since each piece will be self contained after rendering out of AE, do it to the Meridien Uncompressed so you aren’t compressing the graphics you add in AE. Then you can import your rendered quicktimes into your Media Composer at work or your Xpress Pro with Mojo (whichever you’ll be outputting from) at 1:1 and lay to tape.

Sounds like defintely you know what you’re doing and were on the right track all along. Best of luck and let us know how it turns out!

Mike.

[Jason Brown]

Great…thanks for the advice.

As I was talking it out with you, I thought of another option which might slightly simplify things.

Instead of working with AFX to do the moves on the images (they are simple zoom and pan movements). Could I work with the effect *Pan and Scan* in AVID? 1) Can it work in 16:9 mode? 2) Is the quality of the Pan and scan feature in AVID good quality to compare with After Effects? 3) Can I composite moves with the Pan and Scan over top of the interviews?

I’ve used Pan and Scan once or twice…and I know its limited, but it might be easier than trying to work in 2 programs and increase my render/import times.

-Jason

[Michael Hancock]

You probably could get away with Pan and Scan–I’m not sure if it works in 16:9 mode–but I personally hate it. I’ve never been able to get really nice moves with it and my image often has a bad case of the jitters. If you had the Moving Picture plugin by Stage Tools you’d be all set–it does beautiful moves on high-res pictures and works within the Avid. For the best control, however, and for guaranteed great quality I’d go with After Effects. It’s a bit of pain going between two programs, I know, but exporting a Quicktime Reference won’t take long and rendering in AE–if you’re only doing simple moves on 2D images–will be pretty fast as well.
Plus, rending out of AE in an Avid codec will mean incredibly fast import times. I think the trade off of working in two programs would be worth it given the quality of AE.

Best of luck!

Mike.

[Jason Brown]

Thanks for the GREAT info and help…I really appreciate it!

I didn’t like AVID’s pan and scan either when I worked with it…I’m going to do some tests in the morning and see what I like best and get to work!

I LOVE this forum! Thanks again!

-Jason

[Jason Brown]

Mike,

Thanks so much for devoting so much time to help me…I wanted to fill you in on what happened with the project.

Well, it is finished, and worked well…the client ended up wanting some significant animation (moving masks with varying transparencies and more). So it was a good thing I worked in AFX!

Bottom line though, after my first significant 16:9 project. I’m still not completely clear exactly what happened with the clips.

I exported from Media Composer as Same as source. It gave me the option of choosing the Pixel Aspect Ratio; Square / 4:3 non-square / 16:9 non-square. — I chose the 16:9 non-square.

When I imported into Xpress…there weren’t any settings to work in 720 x 486 (as opposed to 480). So I did the standard 601 non-square import setting at 1:1.

I then did my editing, and exported a QT Ref. The settings in that allowed the Pixel Dimensions as: Native Dimensions / 4:3 Square / 16:9 square.

I chose native and took them into AFX. The clip info in AFX said they were 720 x 486 (.9 PAR) When dropped into a widescreen comp (720 x 486 1.2 PAR) I had to scale them up 133% horizontally.

I did some tests and if I choose the 16:9 square from the output for QT ref, they are 864 x 486 at 1.0 PAR.

Also, one question on the rendering. I had to make them 720 x 486 so the Meriden codec would accept them. I had 2 options, drop them into a 720 x 486 comp and scale down. Or Scale in the rendering settings. Is there a preffered method? Is one better than the other?

All in all, I learned that:

Non-square pixels suck! — I was working with square pixel images in a non-square comp…so I had to disproportionately (sp?) scale them horizontally to match the 1.2 PAR of my comp! And if I wanted to do any rotation on them, they would go out of perspective.

My final decision on the best workflow in this situation is to use square pixels…either scale up the video clips or export them at square pixels. So the pictures that I used a ton of and animated pretty heavily were in their native PAR.

Just wanted to give you the low-down on what happened with me…if you have any advice or ideas, I’d love to hear them!

-Jason