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Tearing it all down and rebuilding – Avid the answer?
I’ve worked on Avid, FCP, and gasp Premiere with Matrox Axio so I’m kind of platform agnostic and I’m tasked with creating an complete production department for a public attraction.
We are educational in nature and my department is reponsible for feeding content to nearly 30 flat screens.
There are a number of 50 inch HD plasma’s kicking around and a series of projection screens in one area.
These are all fed windows media at whatever resolution the PC driving them can handle.
This is by way of background for what I’m doing. Basically I’ll be pushing windows media, in HD resolution to a number of screens so that is my main output. On top of that our footage is valuable and is used for promotion and stock.
Currently there is a sony HDV ZIU being cut on a stand-alone FCP system that’s fairly old.
At this point I’m assuming my acquisition is going to remain HDV (though the HVX200 is very tempting). Money is there but not huge and I’m thinking either ramp up the FCP setup or start-over with Avid xpress pro.
Avid appeals because of the avid codec. It seems to me, like in old days with the composer codec, I could just install the codec on a compression machine and the quickly export files as source from avid and compress them on a different system. Same goes for working in AE.
So that is good. Does it still work that way?
How do I store my fine cuts? Is digital the best way? Roll them back off to HDV?
I get one edit system now, maybe another down the line so I need to make the most of it.
My workflow is shoot HDV. Capture HDV. Edit (add graphic elements from AE and possibly some 3d and green screen). Export source file for compression offline. Store fine cut on tape. Burn fine cut to dvd. Archive project for rebuilding and retrofitting (inevitable logo change)
Is Avid xpress Pro or Studio Pro the answer?
I know that with those systems you can use a 2nd monitor for full screen display, but for some reason we have another 50 inch plasma getting installed in our production area, what would I need to display from avid, onto that?
whew, any input is appreciated.
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4 Replies
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I would recommend Avid Studio Pro
-Integrated with Boris FX, Pro Tools, Avid 3D, etc.
(Can pull an avid xpress pro timline right into one of the programs, make changes and its automatically added right in to the xpress pro timeline. no importing, exporting, importing again, Big time saver.)-For the 50 inch plasma, just use it for, as you said, a full screen display
-I would recommend backing your fine cuts onto tape. I like a physical copy of the final product to keep for archiving. No risk of deletion. Nor wasted disc space.
Hope these suggestions were helpful.
-Josh Lynch
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Looks like using Compressor in finalcut studio and network render might be a sexy solution. You might asking in the Finalcut forum as well as you might reach more people with your question.. Good luck with your choice whatever it will be
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I will repost there. There’s a lot of different options because this is a new start. I want to get us off on the right foot.
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Avid Studio is probably your best bet – if not Media Composer software only.
With Studio, all of what you explained in your workflow, are tied together – DVD, graphics, etc.
You can export WMV 9 from XPro/Media composer itself. Or you can use Sorenson Squeeze (which comes free) to give you more flexibility for compression (including web and HD distribution). WMV is an additional cost with FCP.
Most of FCP’s codec (it is actually Mac QT codecs) are supported on the PC. However, some are not – including their DV50 and AFAIK their intermediate codec for HDV. I don’t have the complete list but you should test it if you planning that route.
It is also a good idea to stay in one platform if you can in a collaborative environment. It is not absolutely necessary, dual or even triple platforms are the norm for many. But if you are a one man shop or do-everything editor/tech, you can minimize conflicts if you are in one platform.
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