Bill Russell
Forum Replies Created
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Doh! Funny, as I’m getting the hang of Avid, in the last few days I’ve been advising people on this forum to toggle the format in the format tab — one person couldn’t view out firewire, another couldn’t select the desired import format. But once again, format setting has duped an Avid user. I found that if I toggle to the native format, then relink is able to find and connect to DNxHD. If I toggle to DV25, then relink is able to find and connect to DV25 or 14:1 etc. Uhn, that format setting. Gotta watch that.
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If you want to export a half-second clip, I’ll try importing it into my Avid (PC). Post it somewhere and let me know or send it to eyecolor at iname com (and alert me, that’s an email address I don’t normally use).
Yes, as long as it is a DVCPro HD timeline, it should work. What version of FCP are you using? Maybe then make sure you are not working in Apple Intermediary, or a hardware specific codec like Blackmagic (though that often is compatible anyway). Look in Sequence settings. If you are using something other than straight DVCPro HD, you may have to try exporting “Using Quicktime Conversion”, go to options, choose DVCPro HD or DV100 as your codec, set your 720p dimensions correctly, set your audio to uncompressed 48kHz stereo. Of course it would be better not to recompress. You can send me more than one type if you like. Make ’em tiny, please, for my poor little email quota.
Also, what Avid are they using?
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Cool, thank you. (That happens in the bins / media tool? Okay, I’m going to look for some sample media…)
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If the avid is on PC, be sure to name the file on the mac something like “My_movie_DV.mov” — the “.mov” extension being the key — so that the PC recognizes a QT movie.
In regards to “straightforward”, is the 720P HD DVCPro HD, or is it HDV or HDCAM?
If DVCPro HD then you should be able to import and rewrap the file as OMF in Avid. No need to recompress it. If it is another HD format, Avid may need to convert it — recompress it — as it’s proprietary DNxHD. I’m not familiar with how Avid handles HDV. If your HD is uncompressed 4:2:2 or 4:4:4, then DNxHD is excellent intermediary.
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Are asking if you need a firewire 800 port for the Mojo? No, my mojo uses firewire 400. You’re plan should work — and yes, keep the Mojo on its own port, as per your plan — certainly never daisychain with a drive or deck, but you know that. I THINK all main box inputs on the G5 are unique firewire buses, but I don’t know for sure.
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Yes, I’ve noticed that too. Seems you need to toggle the project format to DV mode. If you need to import and cut in HD material, you need to toggle back to HD mode where you get no preview. FCP with Decklink plays all formats on the timeline out DV firewire, no matter what the project setup (and you can capture HD with the Decklink too). I look forward to a similarly priced Mojo SDI type product.
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Have you tried toggling the HD/DV format of the project (in the “format” tab)?
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I online other people’s feature length documentaries on FCP. The biggest nightmare is, you can’t force (and shouldn’t need to) the filmmakers to do the four thousand constrictive work arounds on stills, speed changes, file naming, on and on (which, by the way STILL don’t guarantee success), especially since the process of editing a complex story documentary can involve hundreds of hours of varied media and months or often years of editing, re-editing, finessing, changing, the same project — an long, fluid, painful artistic process — before it comes in for online.
I have onlined projects for HBO, PBS, Arte, BBC, Discovery, History Channel, more…. and NEVER once have I had a project come in that does not have at least a few time-consuming MM issues that need to be addressed. I’m not being dramatic. I. have. never. seen. a. successful. media. management. of. a. feature. documentary. (And only a half to third of the time, something like that, on every other type of project that comes in.) A problematic part is trying to sell the idea of onlining the native show, but being unable to predict how long it may take thanks to FCP MM.
But to get back to the point, it is apparent that the problem is database level. For instance…
I was on a tight deadline for an indy documentary to air on PBS.
Chapter One: The media managed show came in unusable. There was simply no way to swap in all the correct shots, fix all the graphics and speed changes, even working side by side with the editor. It was hundreds of problems, just too much. So….
Chapter Two: At 1 AM I drove from Santa Monica to Highland Park, awakened the filmmaker, raided her office and brought in all the original hard drives, a chain of about five firewire drives plus two internal drives, also copied over all the music and photos stored on the Desktop. No sleeping that night. I copied all the media to a Huge and commenced with an hour long re-linking process (good God, “all files in relative path” is only good downward, and only good for the moment FCP is in that directory. I’ve seen this many times: when FCP leaves — and it leaves after the one file it is looking for at the moment — then returns to that directory, it has forgotten it was there. VERY annoying, my Apple friends. Oh yeah, and of course, how come *I* can often find files using Finder’s search, yet FCP cannot seem to locate them?) And guess what? The re-linking was messed up in all kinds of new ways. Clips were simply wrong, others had edit points moved, the whole show knocked out of sync, a big mess. Not fixable — this was a complex, nearly two hour show, no time to laboriously repair. Anyway, without the editor anymore, I wouldn’t know where to begin. So…
Chapter Three: I hooked up all the original drives to my system, revisted relinking hell. No better. Interestingly enough, different again (why? I dunno, but its a bad sign). Unusable. I’m running out of time.
Chapter Four: So…. I returned to the filmmaker’s house. I took her computer. I restored the internal and firewire drives, installed our SDI hardware. Painfully slow machine, but thank God, I finally had the original show. I color corrected that, dumped to digibeta, delivered and passed tech. A very long expensive sleepless week that was.
Post Script. Yes, FCP 5 is better. But the fix seems to be a kluge. So many of MM’s errors in 4.x had to do with FCP not knowing how to handle keyframes when full media extents changed. In 4.x you could reliably expect a two hour movie (of picture only, audio tracks still often didn’t consolidate correctly, as FCP MM copied the associated picture of the audio used) to MM down to around 20 GB. Not so in FCP5. FCP5 seems to error on the side of keeping media extents. Shows can be three or four times or more the inherent size of actual media used in the edit, depending. Errors do occur sometimes. Much less, but not THAT much less. Geeez.
I love FCP. I accomplish grand feats with it. However, I feel about FCP5 the way I feel about 21st century Democrats. They have all the advantages; they reliably squander them. For all that grey matter the other side lacks, Democrats haven’t an ounce of common sense. Sure, Avid is an expensive, closed, awkward, proprietary, mobby, snobby system. But guess what…. I’m currently editing a DV25 down-convert of an HD narrative theatrical feature. No way I’d leave it in the hands of FCP MM — I’m just too tired. I’m cutting it on my Avid Mojo. If you don’t need to capture or output SDI (there’s big ol’ gotcha), a PC-based Avid system can be cheap, predictable, real-time, rock solid. Don’t ask me how I’m voting next year. But here’s a clue: it’ll be Sisyphean.
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Well, good to know. Vital to know, in fact. Curious – what is one “duplicating” when one duplicate’s timecode to reverse it?
The online upgrade to Xpress HD is astonishingly cheap. Is there a disadvantage (besides the books and CDs) to online update versus box update versus full new 5.2?
As always, Michael, thank you…
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