-
Media offline after moving MXF files to a new folder
I am new to Avid and still trying to master a workflow that works for the reality TV work that I do. I am trying to come up with the best way to sort all of my media, so I have a few media management questions. I am on a mac with Avid 8.8.4
At our office we are working from a Qnap raid that stores all of our Avid media, but I also need to be able to make drives with a single project and it’s media for editors to work from home. I have been struggling to find a reliable way to do this. So far I have been copying the entire Avid MediaFiles folder, but once we get further into shooting, our 6 TB G-Drives will no longer be able to fit all the media from every episode. I got the company to purchase Automatic Duck Media Copy, but I have a bunch of media that will not come online after transferring the project and media to a drive. After talking with some Avid experienced friends, I decided to try to keep all of the media for each project organized in it’s own folder instead of having multiple projects media all scrambled together in the Avid MediaFiles folder.
So I started by creating a partition on the raid for each project/show that we are working on to keep the media separated. Each partition will have an Avid project for each episode of that show. I didn’t want to make 20+ partitions on my raid for each episode, so now I need a way to organize the media for each episode into it’s own folder. That way if an editor needs to take an episode home to work on, I can copy over one folder inside the Avid MediaFiles folder along with the project folder and I’m done.
So inside Avid MediaFiles>MXF, I created new folders and named them to match each episode number (101, 102, 103 ect.) Every time I transcode or consolidate new media to my raid, I locate it in the finder and move it from the default 1 folder to the corresponding episode folder that i created. I make sure Media Composer is not running when I move the files. This is where I start running into problems.
I was told that after I move the .mxf files to the new folder they will be offline, and I have to delete the .pmr and .mdb database files in each media folder to force Avid to re-index the folder. So I trash all of them and reopen Media Composer, but I don’t get the little box that says indexing with a progress bar. All of the media I moved is still offline, and looking in the media folder, it is not creating the new database files. So I guess it is not indexing?
Strange thing is, yesterday I left my computer sitting with Avid running for about 30 minutes and I came back and all the media was online and the database files were created. So I need to know why is Avid not indexing the folder immediately when I launch Media Composer? And is there any way I can command it to index the drive so I don’t have to sit and wait 30 minutes for it to magically take place?
And then today I ingested more media and did the same exact process and the media is not coming back online after hours of waiting. And no new database files are being made in the folder that I moved the media to?
Anybody know why this is? And is this a common method of organizing media or am I doing something wrong?
Also would like to know if the folders containing the mxf files have to be just numbers or can I name them with any characters I want. Seems to only work when the folder is named with just numbers? -
7 Replies
-
You can force Avid database to bless them but the structure is important.
Basically its:Avid MediaFiles
MXFThe trick is that each folder has to have the “msm…” files intact.
It forces Avid to create a database for each folder.
Just copy and paste the two “msm…” files in each . -
Hey Eric thanks for the response
It shouldn’t be a problem with my folder structure. All my media is in Avid MediaFiles>MXF, and since I am working from a shared storage system with multiple computers, the MXF folder contains a folder named 1, and also folders with the name of each computer on my system with a .1 behind it.
I am simply trying to create new folders inside the MXF folder to move my media into to keep it more organized. So when I transcode media on the computer named Avid1, it ends up in the Avid MediaFiles>MXF>Avid1.1 folder. I then move it to the new folder I created named 101, which I will do for all the media for the episode # 101 project.
But after I move the mxf files, the media goes offline instead of Avid indexing the folder and finding it. So I delete the database files, and now Avid is not recreating the database files or locating the media files.
Are you saying that when I move the mxf files from one folder to another, I have to move the 2 database files with it?
-
[Ryan Dundas] “So when I transcode media on the computer named Avid1, it ends up in the Avid MediaFiles>MXF>Avid1.1 folder. I then move it to the new folder I created named 101, which I will do for all the media for the episode # 101 project.”
Ahhh…yeah, you can’t do that. WHen it comes to UNITY or ISIS (nexis)…numbered folders inside the MXF folder won’t be seen by Avid. They need to be named after the Avid station that made them, or have an Avid station name. From what i can tell on my system. Even the drive that contains our MUSIC and SFX aren’t in numbered folders, but the folders of the edit stations.
You really can’t organize things on the finder level when dealing with ISIS or UNITY or NEXIS…
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
What if you were to try Avid1.101 instead of just 101.
\”MY MEDIA/PROJECT MOTTO: If you think three copies of your media or project are enough.
Take a moment to place a value on them and then maybe add two more.
Hard Drives are now stupidly cheap. A RE-SHOOT AND YOUR TIME AREN\’T.\” -
Hey Shane thanks for the info. Not sure what I am going to do to get this media back online that I already moved.
If you remember, I was telling you in one of my other posts that we are using a Qnap raid with a program called Mimiq that basically fools Avid into seeing it as an Avid storage system (ISIS or UNITY or NEXIS) This was the work of Bob Zelin. So I wondered if this setup was playing a factor in the issues I’m having.
But I was able to find out that the folders with the computer name followed by .1 are normal when you are working on an Avid shared storage system. If you have a single system working from a drive, you just get the 1 folder, and when that folder reaches the max file limit it creates 2 then 3 and so on. So I guess having numbered folders is possible, but the media in those folders won’t be indexed if you are connected to shared storage?
I was confused because one day I moved the mxf files to the folder I made and they eventually relinked after I let Avid sit open for a while. Then the next day I did the same exact thing and the media will not relink and Avid will not recreate those database files. I realized the only difference in my process was on day 1, all of the media was transcoded by a single computer. On the second day I used a second computer to expedite the transcoding time. I will have so much footage coming in that I have to use multiple computers to transcode.
I have read and been told that you can organize the mxf files manually by changing the 1 folder to another number, but I guess when using a shared storage system this is not possible?
-
[Ryan Dundas] “I have read and been told that you can organize the mxf files manually by changing the 1 folder to another number, but I guess when using a shared storage system this is not possible?”
Correct, when it comes to Avid style shared storage set up for shared projects, you can’t do that. Need to let Avid organize the media in the folders and you need to do all the file moving inside Avid
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Thank you Brent!
With your guys help I was able to figure out that when I am connected to shared storage, Avid is only recognizing media in the folders that start with the name of one of my connected systems. I renamed the folder Avid1.101 like Brent suggested and Avid immediately indexed when I opened it up, and all of my media came back online.
And this also solved my issue of copying a project to a drive with Automatic Duck Media Copy!
When working from the drive I created rather than on our server, Avid doesn’t recognize the folders with the system names at the beginning. It only recognizes folders that are named with numbers.
So after I copy the media to the drive with the same file path, I just have to go into the MXF folder and change the name of all the folders that begin with a system name to just a number and everything comes online when I open the project!
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up