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Media Offline (newbie here)
Hey everyone, I’m coming over from FCP and downloaded an Avid tutorial from Lynda.com. The tutorials are for Avid Xpress Pro 5.5 and I’m working on Media Composer 4. I found the project file, double clicked to open without a problem. All the media files are in the bins but when I open any timeline, all the media is offline. How do I reconnect media in Avid or what am I doing wrong? I have a big project to do in one month’s time using Avid so I’ve got to get up to speed ASAP. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
quinnmcguee
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5 Replies
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Reconnect is “Relink” in Avid-speak. It’s in the Clip menu.
But generally you won’t need to do that. If the media shows offline, you have to make sure that the media is residing in the right folder. Avid is very specific about where media lives.
If the media is OMF (old school), it needs to live in a folder named ‘OMFI MediaFiles’ (sic), and that folder needs to live at the root level of the drive.
If the media is MXF (current formats), it needs to live in Avid MediaFiles/MXF/n , where n can be any number (1 or 2 or 3 or 999), and the ‘Avid MediaFiles’ (sic) should live at the root level of a (media) drive or volume or partition.
If you open Tools->Media Tool, you can see what media is “visible” to the Avid.
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Further to what Job said, media files do not reside in bins, just pointers to the media.
DD
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Thanks, everything is online again. Just a couple of questions if you’d be so kind. In Final Cut terms,the Avid MediaFiles folder will serve as my Capture Scratch folder? I moved the Avid MediaFiles folder from my HD to an external video drive along with the project folder. So, as long as I create a new project in my external drive, will Avid know to place the MXF files in the Avid MediaFiles in my external? Thanks.
quinnmcguee
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In Avid, all of your media goes into a specific folder, as Job ter Burg explained. If you start Project 01 and import or capture footage, that footage will go here (let’s call your media drive M:, and assume your Media Creation settings are set to MXF media):
M:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\1
If you start Project02 and capture/import, that media will also go to:
M:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\1
In FCP, each project can have its own capture scratch folder. In Avid, they’re all dumped into one folder. Once there are about 5,000 files in the first numbered folder (1), Avid will make another folder (2) and drop additional media in there.
To determine the drive where media and renders are saved, go to your Media Creation settings (Cmd+5) and set up your render drive, capture drive, and import drive (they can all be the same drive). Also, when you render, import, or capture footage you can select the drive to send the media to, in case you want to override the drive selections in your Media Creation settings.
Where your actual Project file resides has nothing to do with where Avid stores your media. That’s all dependent on which drive you tell it to store the media to. I personally wouldn’t recommend storing your project files on an external – save them on your internal drive and store your media on external drives. And back them up often, in case of a hard drive failure.
Let us know if you have more questions as you dig deeper into Media Composer. It’s a great app, but operates rather differently than FCP and most other NLEs.
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Michael Hancock
http://www.oswaldcommunications.com -
Thank you so much. That clears up a lot of confusion. I’ll definitely take your advice about keeping projects and media on separate drives. Thanks again.
quinnmcguee
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