[Dan Warvi]

I’ve had tons of issues with stuff that started DV25, imported into After Effects, and rendered out again regardless of resolution. That version was MC 2.5.3.

In the end, I installed a seat of Quicktime Pro on the Avid, and rendered out of After Effects to either a DVCPro, Animation or H264 codec – which took a long time to import, but looked fine.

[Dan Warvi]

…but I guess since the check cleared, we’re on our own….

The project manager at Avid has promptly answered all of my emails with bounce passes to Sony, ignoring my long and detailed descriptions of the problem.

After several other suggestions (which rated in intelligence with “Did you reboot?”) said project manager told me he as NOT a technical guy, and told me to call the Avid 1-800 number for support.

The Avid Sales Posse will be here sometime in the next few days, and I intend to corner them in a very public place, and grill them about this. In the meantime, I’m getting all of our HD projects done in Final Cut Pro.

[Dan Warvi]

First off, any and all suggestions on this are welcome. Troubleshooting an Avid is not a scientific process…and at this point, I’m ready to glue a picture of the Virgin Mary on the side of the CPU, and put a statue of Saint Clare of Assisi on the Media Drives….

The XDCAM deck is NOT on the main CPU Firewire bus, but plugged into a PCI FireWire card in Slot 5 of the xw8400 CPU. The card is either a ADS or SIIG FireWire card, since that’s the only two cleared by Avid. (I don’t remember which one I bought.)

We’re nuking the system Friday, and reinstalling the OS, PDZ1 softwarem, seeing if the deck works, and then installing MC Software, starting with 2.7.2, and then 2.7.5.

[Dan Warvi]

We use XDCAM via the FireWire import process, rather than as a traditional deck. This method allows for faster-than-realtime ingest.

I neglected to mention – the PDW-F70 is set to FAM mode in the iLink menu. This is the normal setup on a NewsCutter XP Adrenaline and a FCP station, and they both work perfectly.

We also installed an older PDZ-1 version on a new XP station, and it works fine. My new guess is the newest version of Media Composer, so we’re now going to uninstall both the Sony and Avid software, install the PDZ-1 software, see if that works, and then install Media Composer 2.7.2 IF that works, we’ll then upgrade it to 2.7.5, and if it still works, we’ll call it a day.

[Dan Warvi]

Ben:

Can you respond to me off-line about your consulting rates? I’m involved in a project to stream video to mobile devices, and there’s some issues with how to get one clip of full-sized broadcast video to batch process to 3GPP, Real, WMV, & MV4.

Thanks!

[Dan Warvi]

>>>It would be nice if you could post some pointers from your meeting here, like the top 10 list w/answers.>>>

Hopefully, once we decide on a better name and semi-permanent venue, we’ll also get a website up. I plan to ruthlessly imitate my old User Group, Motion Graphics Los Angeles (www.mgla.org)

[Dan Warvi]

>>>Any chance of having a meeting in the south part of Denver at some point? >>>

I’ve been delaying the launch by searching for the perfect venue – but until I know how many people will show up, it’s been a losing guessing game.

I also want to avoid using a VAR’s space for the meetings, so as to keep control over the agenda. (since VAR’s want to sell stuff, they tend to be…”persuasive”…in “requesting” certain things be shown.)

I’m going to use the next few meetings as a benchmarch, and from there start casting about for a good location. South-Southeast Denver is tough for all of us in TVLand, as well as the other post houses in Denver (Post Modern, Crosspoint, Base2), but (for example) The Wildlife Experience gave us some space for free or nearly free, then that might change things…

[Dan Warvi]

>>>I did try this using the settings on apples website>>

Where is this at?

Dan Warvi
After Effects, Avid, Motion, Broadcast Systems & PC as nec

[Dan Warvi]

I actually have already responded to Brenda about this, and expressed my interest in running the User Group. There’s one drawback in that I don’t think there’s enough Users (MC, XPress & D|S) to support JUST an Avid User Group.

However, starting a Motion Graphics Group that focuses on EDITING and GRAPHICS, independent from a particular app would probably draw enough interest and industry support to be feasible. I’d definitely focus a segment per meeting on “All things Avid”, but I’d also bring in some motion graphic and 3D tools, as well as “art and craft” segments.

When I proposed this to Brenda, here’s the response:

“That sounds like a great idea. We often participate in groups that are not strictly Avid User Groups. One is the Editor

[Dan Warvi]

These started out as After Effects Plugins, but they are rock-solid AVX plugins, and they give you color-correction tools on par with Symphony and the Discreet line:

55mm is the definitive set of digital optical filters meant to simulate popular glass camera filters, specialized lenses, optical lab processes, film grain, matte generation, exacting color correction as well as natural light and photographic effects–all in a controlled digital environment with either 8 or 16 bits per channel processing.

https://www.digitalfilmtools.com/55mm/index.htm

Digital Film Lab simulates a variety of color and black and white photographic looks, diffusion and color grad camera filters, lighting gels, film stocks and optical lab processes. The power of the plug-in lies in its presets which can be loaded to achieve a variety of different effects. There are over 135 useful presets organized into black and white looks, color looks, diffusion, grain and temperature. Feel free to use our presets, modify them or create your own.

https://www.digitalfilmtools.com/dfl-2/dfl2.htm

Composite Suite includes 28 visual effects plug-ins that were, until recently, only available in-house at Digital FilmWorks, a Los Angeles based film effects facility. Tested in the rigors of everyday production, the Composite Suite plug-ins provide all that is needed to combine multiple images including in house compositing tricks and techniques, color correction, blur, grain, matte manipulation and edge blending using 16 bit processing even if your system is limited to 8 bits.

https://www.digitalfilmtools.com/cs-3/cs.htm

Hope that helps!

Dan Warvi
After Effects, Avid, Motion, Broadcast Systems & PC as nec