Import from Avid Media files into a new Avid Media Files folder

[Michael Hancock]

With MXF media you don’t import – you need to place them in the Avid MediaFiles/1/ folder (or similar numbered folder), then use the Media Tool to view the masterclips to that media, and copy the masterclips to your bins. Here are the steps, assuming you’re on a PC (if you’re on a Mac, substitute the drive letter with the drive name – everything else is the same):

The MXF media is on a portable drive, let’s call it P:
You want it to be on your media drives – let’s call them M:

1. Open M:/Avid MediaFiles/MXF/1 (or any of the numbered folders – you can even make a new numbered folder if you want – say 50).

2. Copy the MXF media from drive P: into the numbered folder on M:. So you may be transferring P:/[MXFMedia] to M:/Avid MediaFiles/MXF/50

3. Start Avid. It will rescan M: and database your new files.

4. Open your project in Avid. Go to your Media Tool and open it. Choose to show Masterclips, select the M: drive, and select the project these MXF files are/were associated with (if they’re coming from another Avid and that project was called MXFProject, select MXFProject). Hit OK.

5. Your media tool will populate with the masterclilps of the MXF media you just transferred. Select these masterclips, drag them into your project bins. Sort as you like.

6. Take a coffee break and reflect on how easy it is to move media with Avid.

Let us know if you hit a roadblock somewhere or these steps aren’t clear.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Mike Jeffs]

Perfect thank you i will try it right now

Mike Jeffs
Video Coordinator
BYU-Idaho

[Mike Most]

If you just want to get at your new clips, there’s an even easier way. Do steps 1-3. Then go to the Finder (assuming you’re using a Mac, any window will do on Windows) and navigate to the folder you put the files into. After Avid indexes the material, you’ll find 2 new files in that directory. One ends in .mdb. Create a bin and drag that file into the bin. It will automatically populate the bin with all of the master clips for that folder. No need to use the Media Tool for that, although you can if you want to work a bit harder….. ;-D

[Michael Hancock]

That is brilliant. Learned something new today.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Tim Safford]

So I was trying to put this into practice today when I was unable to import xdcam footage that was viewable on my mac in avid, but not on my PC. (xdcam codec not available on pc)

I wanted to edit on my PC desktop, so I transcoded all the footage on my laptop to AVID DNxND 45. The footage worked fine on my pc.

I then transfered all my footage to my pc through my local area network.

Once the files were on my PC I had to go into the folder properties and change the permissions so that they were not only “Read Only” this was done by unchecking the box in properties and clicking apply.

First I tried copying the files into their own directory, but this didn’t work. I had to copy the files into the “1” folder in order for them to be recognized.

I also had to copy the project folder over to the root of the PC avid drive in order for it to show up as a project to click on. this was required in step 4. At first the project wasn’t even there. I may have also adjusted the permissions of this folder as I had copied everything over from a mac.

Any way, it works great now, and I am able to see the 428 clips that previously would not come into AVID in any way without outside expensive plugins.