[Andrew Mckee]

If you have thunderbolt, go thunderbolt. Avid recognises any locally connected drives. Network drives need some jigger pokery. I have always had success with G-Tech drives and they have just launched a range of thunderbolts. When you say fast, how fast do you mean it needs to be? Reading DNxHD185, or uncompressed HD, or 4k Raw?

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC6
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net
Futureworks.co.uk

[Andrew Mckee]

Yes definitely worth it if Avid is biggest part of your workflow. If there are many other apps in your worfklow that require QT then ProRes QTs can be useful.

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC6
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net
Futureworks.co.uk

[Andrew Mckee]

5000 kbps is not going to get a 5 minute video down to 20meg (and is overkill for such a small frame anyway). Do the maths. FLV may be the way forward.

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC6
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net
Futureworks.co.uk

[Andrew Mckee]

In MPEG streamclip as h.264. If you click Limit Data Rate, you can type in a number and adjust until the size comes up as under 20meg.

Hmmm…. just tried this and the lowest I could get a 5 minute video was 42meg by setting it to 10kbps. And lower and it stays the same. 20meg is damn small for a 5 minute video, even at that frame size.

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC6
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net
Futureworks.co.uk

[Andrew Mckee]

I agree with Pat. I have trained several people who have switched from one NLE to another and whilst they can usually get to a point where they find a way to edit with their new NLE on their own, they very find the best way of using that specific NLE. If you can’t get to or afford person to person training there are also good courses online.

Andy

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC6
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net

[Andrew Mckee]

AVCHD has worked for a while in media composer. In previous versions it required a traditional import (which converts files to Avid MXFs) and it wasnt too hot at recognising spanned clips. In V6 you can now AMA AVCHD footage into Avid and it works with spanned clips. Your still mostly likely going to want to convert the footage to edit it, but you can now transcode from the AMA clips which is faster than a straight import.

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC5.5
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net

[Andrew Mckee]

You could try Digital Rebellion’s corrupt clip finder.

Andy

[Andrew Mckee]

Yes.

Link via AMA to your source media.
Transcode to DNxHD.
Edit your sequence from transcoded clips.
Then select all the original AMA clips.
Right click to on your sequence and choose relink – select the option that reads “Relink to selected items in open bins”
A new sequence will be crteated that points to orginal footage.
Export AAF set to “link to current media” and make sure that the enable AAF Protocol button is ticked.

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC5.5
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net

[Andrew Mckee]

The BPAV folders can be anywhere on your media drive, they don’t have to be in the Avid MediaFiles folder. I also put them in folders called Card 01, Card 02 to keep them organised. If your working in MC4 then you don’t need to install any plugins, you should just be able to go to Link to AMA Volume and then point it to one of the folders named Card 01/02 etc. Don’t go looking for the footage within those folders, Avid will look in the folder, see the BPAV folder and automatically find all the footage for you.

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC5.5
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net

[Andrew Mckee]

In MC3 you haven’t really got much choice as there are no motion adapters. Typing ignoreQTRate True into your console and then reimporting the footage will basically speed the footage up very slightly so it becomes 25fps without a duped frame, but you may find that the footage then loses sync with any audio.

Andrew McKee
Editor/Colourist
Avid Certified Instructor – MC5.5
Apple Certified Trainer – FCPX
Pixelwizard.net