[Danielle Warren]

Hey Nick, I’m with you! Trust me, this is the last thing I want to be doing but my producer told me to look as we don’t have anything to do until the client gets back to us.

But yes, I feel it is a pointless effort. Anything completely free is absolutely awful.

Thanks for the links to those sites. If I can manage to tell him there is no free music available, then hopefully they will pony up or just take what we give them!

[Danielle Warren]

I think this is why this is so confusing. I’m used to doing and understanding things one way and this just makes no sense to me. But I’m trying. I appreciate your explanations and I’m sorry I’m just not understanding very well.

“Here’s how it works. You shoot your fantastic footage onto your tapeless camera. You back up that tapeless media onto a hard drive. Then, you use AMA to access that media and populate a bin with all the clip. This is how you point Avid to…”hey, this is all my source media.” Then you immediately transcode the footage and when you do that, set the target drive for this media…your media drive. The AMA bin will now have the original files, and a bunch that say ‘.new.’ Take those new files, organize them into new bins. THAT is the media you will work with. Take the card backup drive offline and work with the masters.”

That’s fine, I definitely understand that. But then didn’t someone else say that when you work this way, you can’t export?

“If you want to relink to the masters when you are done…then have the bin with the cut in it open…open all of your AMA bins…connect the drive with the backup card footage…then select the sequence, choose RELINK TO AMA and it will then make a new sequence that links to the master files. ANd it knows where they are because you used AMA to point to them before you imported.”

This is good to know, but I never re-link anything. So hopefully I won’t have to worry about that.

“IF YOU NEVER PLAN ON RELINKING TO THE MASTERS…and just want to import and edit full res…you can set your MEDIA CREATION settings to the codec you want…point it to the media drive of your choice…and drag and drop. Avid will convert the media to the codec you chose, and move the converted media into the Avid file structure. ”

So you’re saying to use import here, correct? As I won’t be needing to re-link anything. And when I say I don’t know what codec I want, it’s because I thought Avid has specific ones you need to use. The MXF and the other one. So why would you choose another codec in the settings?

And again, I just don’t understand the difference between using AMA and importing. I wish it was a really simple answer, but I’m still having trouble understand the core difference between them when they both transcode.

“At the last LAFCPUG meeting here in LA, all the questions we got for the tech support section were Adobe PPro related. It’s being used on small side projects just like FCP started out. It’s coming. But yes, if you work in LA, you need to learn Avid. BUT, if you just have clients who want a finished product…it doesn’t matter what you use to edit it. IT only matters when employers dictate what you need to edit on, or if networks want project files from the show.”

I’m from LA, but live and work in NY now. I do work on projects on my own system, but also at different companies, so I’d want to learn something that is more universal. So far, I don’t know anyone who uses FCP that’s making the switch to Premiere. Seems most want to eventually go back to Avid. Having to learn Avid is a time consuming headache all on it’s own, I don’t know if I can possibly even think about trying to learn another piece of software just yet!

BTW, to give some background, I am a trailer/commercial editor. I never work in online, and everything I work on is short form. THis is why the ease and simplicity of FCP has been the best choice for trailer houses. There is no need for certain things that Avid offers, and for me, it just overcomplicates what I am trying to do because I’m not cutting features or shows, or doing any of the finishing myself. Does that help to understand why I’m not really understanding this stuff? If not, then I’ll admit I’m just thick!

Thanks again for your patience. I really appreciate it.

[Danielle Warren]

“[Danielle Warren] “All I want to do is work with what is transcoded already. So is that better to do with import or AMA?”

Transcoded with what? Into what format? Are they MXF files in the Avid media format? Or say DNxHD Quicktime files? Or ProRes files?”

I don’t know! You’re supposed to tell me!

I have some QT files for a project. I want to work with them in Avid. What is the best way to get those files (whatever format they are other than Avid media) into Avid and work? They could be Prores files, h264, camera specific files, whatever. How do I bring them into Avid and work with them, transcoded and ready to go?

“AMA is Avid’s way of tracking where the masters are. So if you ever wanted to reconnect to them, you could easily. This is done if people want to edit in an offline, low res, low space requirement, format. Then relink to the masters later. Or, if they work with say RED which was shot 4K, and they want a 4K finish. Avid doesn’t do 4K. So you bring in your footage as say DNxHD 36 for offline editing, and then output an EDL for Resolve…Resolve will link to the Red originals.

AMA is basically a form of Log and Transfer.”

I always work offline, so being able to re-link stuff later is not necessary for the editing I do. Does that mean import would just be a better option than AMA?

On a side note, I thought log and transfer was just a way to transcode from raw camera files. That’s all I’ve ever used it for.

“[Danielle Warren] “And no offense to Premiere, but I have no interest in learning another piece of software that almost no one uses, lol!”

Premiere is VERY close to the way FCP works. So close it’s amazing. You can even choose teh FCP keyboard setup and be all set. People dub it “the FCP 8 we were waiting for.”

I’ve heard that too, but I don’t know anywhere that uses it so it seems a waste to use if no vendors use it. I suppose if they started to like they did with FCP years ago, maybe I’d look into it. But everyone tells me Avid needs to be learned.

I’m still holding out hope that Apple will wake up and go back to updating FCP 7.

[Danielle Warren]

“AMA will put all of the clips into a bin. Call this the AMA BIN for the given media (I organize this by card name, or reel). Highlight all the footage you want transcoded…then go CLIP>TRANSCODE. Or, if you want to make selection…only parts of clips…then put what you want in a sequence and transcode the clips in the sequence. Put the newly transcoded clips in a new master bin.”

Besides being able to grab parts of clips that you want transcoded, I’m still not understanding how this is different to Import, which I thought brings the footage in and transcodes it immediately. What is the difference?

All I want to do is work with what is transcoded already. So is that better to do with import or AMA?

[Danielle Warren]

“Avid doesn’t work that way. Sorry. Avid needs the footage to be transcoded to DNxHD…and then IT will organize it where it wants it to go…into the Avid MediaFiles>MXF>1 folder. And it keeps a database in there to track it all. All the media organization is done inside the Avid software.”

That’s fine. So how do I do that? I thought I understood this but now it seems more confusing than before!

Do I just use import then? So that any files brought in can be transcoded first within avid? This is why I don’t understand the purpose of AMA if everything needs to be transcoded to work properly in Avid and AMA essentially skips over that step.

And no offense to Premiere, but I have no interest in learning another piece of software that almost no one uses, lol!

[Danielle Warren]

Ok I’m lost again!

“From there you can view and pick and choose what you want to transcode…or transcode everything. It is a way for Avid to track where your originals are. But you really must transcode before you edit.”

So if you need to transcode before editing, which is what I want to do, how does that work with AMA? How do you pick and choose what you want to transcode?

Because here you then say “Accessing via AMA and editing native needs to be avoided.” But you’re saying you should link via AMA? I’m definitely confused now.

All I want is to keep my workflow the same as I do now, which is transcode the footage, then bring into Avid to work with it. How is it best to do that?

[Danielle Warren]

Hi Neil,
Not sure I follow you. I thought linking to AMA meant not transcoding before you start? So why would you link to AMA, then transcode and edit? Thought the whole purpose of AMA was to start editing and transcode later.

[Danielle Warren]

Wow! I can’t thank you guys enough. It’s one thing to read something in a book, but it’s another to ask specific questions and receive information that creates a much better understanding, which I now have thanks to these replies.

My preferred workflow (with FCP) is to organize the project materials I have on the finder level, then transcode to prores, then set up a new FCP project. I’m quite comfortable with this, and it makes the editing, exporting, and rendering so much easier throughout when everything is uniform from the start. When I said I liked to drag and drop in the project, I meant AFTER I had transcoded footage, and also bringing in things like music, SFX, and GFX is much easier that way. Because I learned to edit by first organizing at the finder level, I would drag those organized files straight into my FCP project and then things stayed organized within and outside FCP. I’d like to essentially keep the same workflow as it’s very quick for me and how I like to work for the things I edit.

So as I now understand it, it would be best to “import” rather than link to AMA even if that takes longer to start. It sounds like what I’ve been doing anyway, but the transcode now takes place within Avid as opposed to something like Compressor or Adobe Media Encoder. Or can you use those as well for the Avid preferred format, DNxHD ?

Thanks again fellas, it is much appreciated! I have been using FCP since 2001 and am struggling to adapt to Avid. But trying to understand one piece at a time. I know many people say try to forget what you’ve learned and approach it totally new, but that’s not really that easy when you’ve learned and spent hours upon hours on another NLE system. But I’m getting there! This was actually a huge piece I was missing an understanding about.

[Danielle Warren]

I know. I tend to learn so much better when someone is teaching me, but most courses are so expensive I just don’t know if it would be worth it to me. I totally understand why they are, it’s just not really something I can afford to do at the moment.

When I get the chance, I’d love to!

[Danielle Warren]

Good to know Pat.

I’m actually in US, although the course ‘Avid for FCP’ users is perfect for me. It seems there are a lot of materials and courses for FCP for Avid users for some reason, but not the other way around.

I’d love to take a course, but think cutting a project in it is always the best way to learn. And if you don’t mind, I’m sure I will be posting more questions here!