Re: FCP to AVID – MXF Flavours?

[Hector Berrebi]

[Michael Adante] “Is MXF DnxHD?”

you ask many things 🙂

i’ll do my best to clarify, as i know its not simple to migrate to a new system. may come out a long answer…

MXF is a container, as in xxxxx.MXF, just like .MOV it can support many codecs, unlike .MOV it is much less proprietary.

for example, P2 from panasonic, and XDCAM from sony are MXF wrapped, and Avid supports their codecs and seamlessly supports working native with both.

Avid’s Codec list is long and not all codecs are relevant today or useful to you, many are there for legacy and backward compatibility issues.

on the other hand its free, cross platform, and even the DNX code is open for developers to use.

MXF is and open standard for professional video. read the wiki on it.

when you capture to MC from tape, Avid creates MXF files in the Avid Mediafiles folder. they can be written (depending on your capture hardware) in different codecs depending on your media, and needs.

if you capture DV off FW for example, Avid can write DV files wrapped in MXF (Avid DV25 420, 411) same goes for HDV.
if you capture via SDI or component, you can choose other flavors ranging from IMX to 1:1 10 bits RGB. the different MXF ratios are various levels of offline compression ratios, all comparing to 1:1 uncompressed. they are generally obsolete now that drives are large and fast and rather cheap.

DNXHD is a family of codecs (can exist in MXF or MOV) that are somewhat similar to the ProRes family, but are exclusive to HD (720 and 1080) they range from DNXHD36/45 (changes with frame rate) , similar to PR proxy (36 Mbs about 50% more drive consuming than DV) to DNX185/220 X which is 10 bits, and mastering quality. all DNX support alpha channels, all clip to the 709 luma range, and all are (still) 4:2:2.

hopefully soon there will be a better 4:4:4 option that compares to PR 4X4. recently 1:1 10bit RGB was added, for ultra high-end mastering

when you work in HD, you will rarely need to capture or transcode to 1:1 10 bits. in most cases its an overkill, and you will want to work with DNX.

avid workflows include transcoding in them and that’s the right way to go. (do not mix it with FCP L&T)

in general, working with tapless formats,
you will link via AMA,
files open in a bin
if its XDCAM or P2 you can generally just start working with no need to transcode. some limitations still occur without transcode, but there are workarounds and they will be hopefully fixed soon.
for other formats (DSLR, RED…) you will transcode all media inside Avid to a flavor of DNX (depending on your system strength, drive space available and amount of media) either 36/45 for offline/online workflow or 185/220 for online all the way (the middle flavors are for smaller HD formats, its an overkill to transcode DSLR to 220, 120/145 is largely enough in most cases etc’)

once you transcode, Avid writes the files in MXF to its media folder

now you can rename and organize them, even transcode just part of files based on needs

if you worked online, you can export same as source at the end.
if you worked offline, you can relink your final sequence to original media via AMA and then transcode only it (with handles) to a higher codec for mastering and export.

all this works very well, and like i mentioned, all that’s missing is a high-end flavor of DNX (which is a plausible near future update) , and maybe to possibility to write other resolutions, both larger and smaller than HD (less plausible)

avid media management and file linking is in most cases rock-solid comparing it to FCP

if you look back in this forum you can find many workflow answers (i know i written quite a few here) for virtually any need you may encounter.

here is a good one to start with:
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/45/878151

being a user of Avid and FCP and a trainer in both, best advice i can give you is, don’t try to make Avid behave like FCP, and get proper organized training… it will make everything much easier

hope this helps

hector

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Luigi Tadiotto]

i’m also interested in avid solution, i’d like to know if you can import xml from fcp, or only EDLs… on the other hand if it’s possibile to organize projects in single folders and not in Hard disks. We were used to create a folder of the project/client and the subfolfers for capture, external media, vfx, sound editing, color corretion, ecc… in that way we were able to backup an entire tv format only copying the main folder…
The question is, how much i have to reorganize my workflow?

[Hector Berrebi]

[luigi tadiotto] “i’m also interested in avid solution, i’d like to know if you can import xml from fcp, or only EDLs… “

You can use Automatic Duck to open FCP projects
https://www.automaticduck.com/products/pefcp/

as for workflow. You have a minimum of two folders per project, your project folder, the avid mediafiles folder and potentially, an assets folder for stuff you might link via AMA.

All the media you captured and transcoded in all of your projects in concentrated and arranged in one folder structure. When you want to move a project you have the consolidate option (similar to copy media in FCP) or other media management tools in the Media tool..

It might sound different to you at first, but it’s actually quite simple and well put together. And a sturdier media management system than FCP.

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Luigi Tadiotto]

The new fcpx thinks like this way for media structure, except that i can open my fcp 7 project with premiere cs5.5 losing only my effect editing and not the rest with xml. the problem is that i’m in love with avid composer window, the scrub responds perfectly… We own arri alexa, and really i don’t know if it is possible to link ama volume to apple prores 444, we use a raid 1+0 of 12 TB per year, and i dont want to consolidate every finished project, but i know sometimes avid dont recognize the ama volume, still is this an issue? i know there are too many question, but i only trust in editor’s experience.

Luigi Tadiotto
Dp, Director, Filmaker
wwww.liquidandsolid.it

[Job Ter burg]

No reason to go through Log & Transfer. All of those formats are natively supported in Avid. Faster, and better than in FCP (no gamma shifts).