Dennis Kutchera
Forum Replies Created
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I hope you have a video I/O card and a real HD video monitor that can play all frame rates. Working off a computer screen with a mix of interlaced and progressive formats in any editing application is a bad idea because you cannot see field and cadence issues properly.
Media Composer is excellent at mixing frame rates and playing them smoothly. If some clips don’t play well, you can always alter the profile of the time warp effect that is doing the conversion on that clip to get a better conversion.
If you AMA link and transcode, you should maintain the native framerate and frame size and let the frame flex and sequence take care of the conversion. If you import directly into the project, it will convert (poorly) to the frame rate of the project. This is one of those times you would want that broadcast monitor to play back on rather than a computer screen, so you can see if such a mistake occurred. If you have to import rather than link and transcode, then create a project for each frame rate and import into that project and then open the bin in your master project.
One more thing. If you created a sequence in say 29.97p and changed your mind and made the project 59.94i, your sequence will still be 29.97p. I can’t recall sitting at home if you can convert it or not, but you can certainly copy and paste from the old sequence to a 59.94i sequence. Then use the update sequence function to remove all the invalid frame flex modifiers that remain. If you don’t remove them, they will degrade the picture and consume one effect stream from your real time performance. It will only remove the invalid ones.
One more thing, correct me if I am wrong, but Premiere will create preview files on the time line for mixed formats, won’t it? So this is not a whole lot different than transcoding linked files in Avid, except in Premiere, you can break your preview renders. In Avid, the transcodes are forever.
Dennis
Dennis Kutchera
Online Editor / Colourist
Halifax, Canada -
It should work fine for the most part. You might have to do more rendering than if you had a raid, but I can even play a single stream of UHD off a single drive. But I am also not usually dealing with a lot of audio tracks, since I have been doing mostly online work since using the newer Mac Pros. Audio is more taxing on drive performance than video because it is lots of small files that all need to be accessed quickly. That is much harder for a drive to do than play a huge continuous video file.
Dennis
Dennis Kutchera
Online Editor / Colourist
Halifax, Canada -
Hey Jason,
Avid runs really well on the Trash Can Mac Pros. We’ve tried everything up to and including the 12 core with dual D700 GPUs and 32 gb of RAM. Sadly, the top configuration does not work well with DaVinci Resolve. if that is a consideration.
A lot of people find the 8 core with the D500 GPUs to be the sweet spot.Generally Avid is not too fussy with the computer you are running, but they rigourously test specific models and that is a good bet to go with because if something goes wrong, Avid can exactly duplicate your support scenario. Here is the config for the 2013 Mac Pros – https://resources.avid.com/supportfiles/config_guides/AVIDMacProIvyBridgeConfigguideRevG.pdf
I hope this helps.
Dennis
Dennis Kutchera
Online Editor / Colourist
Halifax, Canada -
It is important that you offer more details when you are looking for help because there are a lot of variables at play. it could be hardware, it could be specific combinations of software or it could be…?
What Mac Pro are you using, what OS, what is your graphics card and how much RAM is installed ? I’ve had numerous problems rendering on the 2013 Mac Pro with 12 cores 32 gb RAM and dual AMD D700 graphics cards. The problem was more pronounced before Yosemite and with older versions of Resolve. The dual AMD 700 cards are not up to the task of 4K in Resolve. Some people have had better luck with the D500 gpus. Are you on at least Yosemite and the latest version of Resolve?
Dennis
Dennis Kutchera
Online Editor / Colourist
Halifax, Canada -
You could try one of the Newertech headless accelerators, which are kind of like a monitor dongle that fools the card into believing a monitor is attached.
Also, if you want the best card that works with your 5.1 Mac Pro, consider the Nvidia Titan X with 12 gb of video memory. You can use a PC version with no problems. I’m doing this with another PC Nvidia card along with a GT120 for the GUI.
Dennis
Dennis Kutchera
Online Editor / Colourist
Halifax, Canada -
I am exporting tons of stuff in Prores HQ in 7.04 all the time with no problems. See if you have Perian installed in your system preferences. If it is installed, that is the source of all your problems. Perien is a bunch of consumer codec hacks that insists everything in Quicktime is RGB. It cannot be installed on a professional video editing workstation. Uninstall and remove it completely. otherwise it will bite you again.
Dennis
Dennis Kutchera
Online Editor / Colourist
Halifax, Canada -
I’ve never used one, but I think one of the products on this page will solve your problem quite nicely. https://www.hdfury.com/
Dennis
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I have a Matrox MXO 2 mini on my Mac Pro at home. I have been using it since the day Avid approved it for Media Composer. At the time, it was the only option. But today, I would not recommend it. I recently switched to a Black Magic Design Intensity Pro and couldn’t be happier. The Intensity Pro works with Avid, Final Cut Studio and Adobe CS 6, with no problems. That is not the case with any of the Matrox MXO 2 products. They have one driver for Avid, one driver each for FInal Cut Pro 7 and 10 and another driver for Adobe CS 6, so pick one. Previously drivers were universal, but only sort of. It would work with Avid, but not so well with other software, but it did work somewhat. So I was faced with creating a multi-boot nightmare to accommodate each driver or find a plan B.
I have had a history using Matrox video products starting with the ill-fated Matrox Studio and in more recent years with the original MXO with Final Cut Pro and finally the MXO2 mini for the past 2 years. My observation is that drivers are always late by 6 months to never. Matrox seemed to just grow quiet about MXO and anything past Leopard and my experience with MXO2 was anywhere from 6 months to almost a year waiting for drivers. Eventually users would try their own combinations of software, OS and drivers and report what works. So right now, you can only use Symphony 6 with Matrox driver XXXX and XXXX requires Lion. No Snow Leopard Support. If you want SL. you can only go to Media Composer 5.5 and no Symphony. Check out all the happy customers at https://forum.matrox.com/mxo/
If you really want an MXO2, I have one for sale that includes both the laptop and desktop I/O card. Thunderbolt interface is also available from Matrox. Otherwise, if all you need is HDMI, a BMD Intensity Pro card at $199 can’t be beaten!
And the upgrade to Symphony is worth it. The colour grading is not DaVinci, but it is good for a lot of work and in some cases, faster than a dedicated colour grading system.I have fixed so many shots that just would not be usable with the stripped down corrector in Media Composer.
Dennis Kutchera
EggStudios.ca -
Kona 3 is one of the best supported cards. Look here – https://cdn.pinnaclesys.com/supportfiles/attach/openio/AJA-Capabilities_v1.0.pdf
I am fairly certain the Kona card can co-exist with the Nitris DX if you have the slots available. It is not Avid supported, but I saw discussion of this on Avid’s support forums for another card. Apparently Avid will favour the Avid hardware and ignore the third party if both are present. Look here – https://community.avid.com/forums/t/107841.aspx
Dennis
Dennis Kutchera
EggStudios.ca -
Actually, you might find the Symphony colour correction to be sufficient for a lot of jobs that don’t need an elaborate look applied, just some balancing and matching. A correction done on one clip from a tape, file, or whatever you specify, can then be automatically applied to other clips in your sequence from the same source. Even if you never go deeper than the colour tools from Media Composer, this is a biggie. I have been able to, for example, set up an elaborate grade on the A shot of a studio show and apply it throughout on every A shot in under 15 minutes. When there is no budget or time, Symphony I can be amazing. That being said, the Symphony colour tools are desperately in need of a refresh.
Boris Continuum Compete 8 is included with Symphony as well. I think the $999 price is cheaper than an upgrade to MC 6 and BCC separately. MC/Symphony 6 is 64 bit and the difference is noticeable, even if you ignored any new features.
Dennis
Dennis Kutchera
EggStudios.ca