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Problem relinking media
Avid Media Composer 6.5.4.7 on Mac 10.9.5 (system and storage meets specs)
Problem reconnecting media
I teach Media Composer and am having the following problem.
I provide the students with video media in the form of h.264QuickTime movies (in this particular case, Standard Def 720×480, 29.97, H.264, .MOV)and audio as 48khz, 16-bit stereo, .WAV files.
The avid project is set to 30i, 4:3 and I ask them to import(Not AMA link) the media to their own, external hard drives. This means each student has the media in their Avid MediaFiles folder on their drives as MXF files (Example: External HD>Avid MediaFiles>MXF>1 with the transcoded MXF files inside). The students then edit their project assignments using this imported media.
I import using the same source files (the QT moves and audio files described above) to my hard drive (External HD>AvidMediaFiles>MXF>1).
For grading, students complete their edit, then give me their project folders for the particular project we are working on. Not the entire Avid Projects folder, just the specific folder for the project we are working on (examples: Johnson_assign1, Smith_assign1, Evans_Assign1, etc.). I place these project folders into a folder on my hard drive, such as Assignment1 Student Projects.
Of course, when I open a student project in Media Composer,the media is offline. What beats the living daylights out of me is how to get the student projects’ clips to relink to the media I have already imported into my HD without doing a Batch Import and duplicating the media on my hard drive over and over.
This makes no sense to me. What are the proper settings? I think I have tried every possible combination, read every tech support and forum, and watched every tutorial video I can find and still no luck. What am I missing?
Can someone please tell me how to do this?
I’m not sure AMA linking would be any easier (I know both Iand students would need to copy the original QT files to our external hard drives in order to do the AMA linking).
Remember, I am on Media Composer 6.5.4.7 (I hope this is easier when we upgrade to MC 8.4)
My email is re****@***il.com
Thanks.
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4 Replies
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OK…well, you can’t relink as it isn’t the same media. You see, when you import from a media source on one computer, and import the same media source on another…they create files with completely different names. And because these are H.264 files…lacking a source name (tape ID), the only thing similar is the timecode…which, guessing at this because they are h.264 files…might all start at 00:00:00:00, and be to generic.
So you are trying to reconnect with not enough information. If you want to give them media and only have them give you bins and you then open and see their work, you need to do the initial import, and then supply all the students with the AvidMediaFiles>MXF>1 folders. Then you can simply open their bins and all would link up fine.
If you want to give a lesson on how to import…that might need to be a separate lesson. And do teach to use AMA/Transcode. Direct importing of media, even QT media…is not the best way to do this. Teach the proper habits to begin with. IMPORT is the OLD way, Link is the new way (AMA).
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
Shane,
ir computer
Thanks for your quick response. So if they AMA link to files on thnee sair computers and then send me their projects, I can relink the clips in their bins to the same QT files on my computer? Seems logical, but I have had trouble doing this, too. Are there other gotchas I have to look out for in this situation, too? I guess my other choice is to import the media once myself and give all the students the exact same mxf file folders to work with. Which would you suggest? -
[reid vanvoris] “So if they AMA link to files on thnee sair computers and then send me their projects, I can relink the clips in their bins to the same QT files on my computer?”
No…that’s not what I’m saying. And you can’t do that because the file path is different. Different hard drive names and pathways…that won’t work.
What I’m saying is that YOU AMA link to the footage…YOU transcode the footage…and then YOU distribute the footage….the AvidMediafiles/MXF/1 folder to all the students. The TRANSCODED media. And then when they give you a bin, it’ll all relink like a snap to your media.
[reid vanvoris] “I guess my other choice is to import the media once myself and give all the students the exact same mxf file folders to work with. Which would you suggest?”
Yes…that. THAT is what I suggest. This is how things are done in the real world anyway…copies of the media. So get good habits started early
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
when relinking a sequence back to the original AMA QT files, i always find it useful to place all the AMA clips and the sequence you want to relink all in the same bin and then close all other bins. Then select the sequence > right click > relink and go through your relink parameters
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