Dino
Forum Replies Created
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I think everyone sees it essentially the way I see it. That is, movies are about telling stories and the tools used are just that, tools. If the end result is something that can engage, entertain, and enrich the viewer, it is a successful movie.
That said, the same criteria can be applied to any story telling. Nobody cares if a book was written on a $6000 computer with two 30″ screens or scrawled on the back of used placemats with a dull pencil. If the book is good, it’s good. Now if the book is bad photocopies of that illegible, grease-stained scrawl, the story is effected buy the fact that I can’t make out a third of the words and a feeling that I should wash my hands every time I touch the book. Proof reading, spell checking, type setting, layout, are all parts of the idea of a book. Leaving these out reduces the value of the best story. That is what we have with this movie. It is not an attempt to re-evaluate the tools. It is a disrespect of the craft.
I will never waste the time or money to see this movie in a theater. I did watch an online trailer in high res. The images looked over processed and abused as if from an attempt to compensate for the poor results of what was shot. Yes, that is my opinion. The thing is, as much as story, writing, acting, directing, editing, music all play a part in a successful movie, at the end of the day, film is a visual medium. We should expect a treat for our eyes as much as we expect compelling catchphrases or gratuitous violence.
There have always been financial limits that come into play in the creation of a movie. Nobody storms out of a theater in a rage because some self-financed independent didn’t have an explosive train crash or an accurate recreation of ancient Rome. The filmmaker just has to be honest with the story that can be told based on the limits of their situation.
“Crank” is not art. That is fine. It’s disposable pop, meant to titillate. 14 year old boys will love this movie. No one though should treat this as legitimate invalidation of a tried and true craft. Crank is not a subversive blow at some impenetrable industry aristocracy. It is a cheat of the audience that should expect a certain minimum standard of respect for our willingness to hand over our money in exchange for a visual experience.
We as image makers/manipulators should always strive to create the best possible visual experience we can. Don’t ever let, what you can get away with, stand in for, what you should do.
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You would be very well served by upgrading to 3.5. I realize telling you to spend $300 is not the answer you were looking for. Unfortunately, this is the first version of the software that really addresses XDCam EX.
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Proxies are only for the disk based version of XDCam. What version MC do you have? By the way, software version, computer model and operating system version should be part of any question asked. Cuts out some of the guess work for the people trying to help you.
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Beginning with Media Composer and Symphony 3.5, XDCam EX support is native to the application. You can work directly from the cards or from a copy on a hard drive or disk. The feature is called AMA (Avid Media Access).
https://www.avid.com/xdcam/
The page workflow guide are currently obsolete. they do reference possible workflows for pre 3.5 versions of the software starting on I believe page 37.The Sony web page you listed has a driver for the SxS cards at the bottom.
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Isn’t the real question, why is there the Mojo DX? Like the first two Mojos, this really feels like a product Avid really didn’t want to offer: overpriced, under-featured, awkwardly implemented, and oddly limited. As if they said, “fine, have your cheap hardware”.
Avid reminds me a lot of Apple in a key way. They each have one really great piece of software and you just accept the rest if you want to use that program. Avid has the Symphony. Apple has OS X. I am happy that I can now use them together. I am not happy with the idea that Avid and Apple still think they are a hardware companies. Apple obviously relies more and more on 3rd parties to design and manufacture their hardware yet they maintain a strict lock on what they offer and artificially limit the options in some illusion of clarity. If Avid still maintains all R&D and manufacturing in house, they are fools. Hardware is a commodity. Software and the CPU are the stars. If Avid does work with 3rd parties, they are doing a lousy job of it. The features and possibilities offered and lost going back through the generations to the Meridien set makes me sad.
That Avid first dropped the price of the Mojo DX and is now offering this trade means one (or all) of three things: 1, nobody is buying it. 2, people are begrudgingly hanging onto their old hardware due the cost of updating. 3, people are complaining about the hardware cost structure, a lot.
Now I don’t want Avid to give up on hardware completely. I think the possibilities with Avid are greater than the Final Cut model where folks such as AJA and Blackmagic are constantly playing catchup with the whims of Apple. They do however need to change what they are doing. Having said that, Avid is definitely working with AJA. The Xena is the hardware for the DS. I guess it keeps the price down. I do miss having a definitive piece of hardware with lots of connections rather than a board and 6 cables hanging off the back of the computer. Avid, please, make us proud to be users of your offerings.
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Bringing audio CD files into the Avid (or most any system for that matter) is simply a bit for bit transfer. CDs are just mastered that hot (loudest peak is generally set to hit the maximum possible).
Media composer now allows for volume adjustments as part of the import process.
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What tape format? Analog or digital have different rules.
Digital levels are all negative numbers that reach their maximum at 0. Dan, you keep mentioning “8”. What is this in reference to? If you mean -8, that still doesn’t in itself create distortion.
All my experience delivering for broadcast has -20 as the reference level (tone) with program peaks allowed up to -10.
A QC report will generally mention program level in relation to tone. A program could be rejected for having invalid tone or program to high or low in reference to tone or in reference to an absolute defined in the spec. Distortion is usually just that, distortion. Levels have nothing to do with it unless the distortion was created by mastering to the saturation point (or beyond) of the tape (in the digital world, 0).
Are there no timecodes listed for the instances of distortion? If the entirety of their comment was literally just “audio distortion”, I would ask for some detailed clarification. having a bunch of people on a forum guess, wont get you an answer.
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RedRushes working fine on a new Dual 2.26 Quad. A little faster that an older Dual 3.0 Quad. Your 2.66 should be even faster. The only way to really make it much faster is using multiple machines. Easier if you have a SAN to tie everything together.
Haven’t tried Media Composer on the new machines yet.
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Sounds like the file is corrupt rather than it being a codec issue. Quicktime generally opens files for which it has no codec. It just displays the picture as all white or all black. Try with a new file.
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Yes. Avid is a closed system. You have to use their hardware. The Mojo DX is supposed to be their cheap product. The Nitris DX is the premium box. The only cheaper, but less reliable (and constrained) option is to find a used Adrenaline box that has the DNxcell board.
While the hardware is generally considered to be wildly overpriced, it is definitely significantly more cost effective than any previous Avid effort. I am however hopeful that this is a short term issue. Avid has already dropped the price of the Mojo DX and should be taking a close look at what they will be offering next. Almost no one is pleased with the prices of these units.
Media Composer does off the ability to use a second (or third) computer monitor as a program monitor. there have been anecdotal reports of using an MXO off of the monitor out to feed a real video monitor or using the ability of say a Decklink board to act as a desktop extension. These are both essentially tricks and not supported by Avid. I cant speak to the color accuracy of the outputs in these situations. I will soon be in a position to test both of these propositions and will certainly post my results here.
I doubt Avid will be able to completely open up to third party vendors. However there is some precedent. The Avid DS now ships with the AJA Xena as its hardware set. Hopefully we will see some concession to reasonability by the time Media Composer 4 ships (next year?).