[Dylan Reeve]

If he’s got it off tape and you’re sending a file there’s various point at which the colours could become a little different.

In the Avid codec settings there is also settings for Input levels (601 or RGB) and the same goes for the import in Avid. If at first one option doesn’t work try the other – I have successfully exported from FCP to Avid with Avid codecs, so it is possible, but I can’t recall what settings were necessary to get it correct.

[Dylan Reeve]

Now square pixels do tend to look a bit crappy, especially in 16:9 – it’s simply the fact you have quite reduced horizontal resolution that does it. Square pixels will look sharper (take a look at Photoshop CS and up, with it’s pixel aspect correction, turn on and off and look at the difference).

The problem is that square pixels aren’t actually what ends up on the tape. If you work in non-square pixels, what you see is what you get (it’s pixel-for-pixel with what actually goes in the video frame). Working with square pixels there needs to be a scaling conversion at some point which can actually soften some details (especially fine vertical detail).

So while square pixels will look better on the computer screen and non-square pixels go through less manipulation between your creation and the tape.

I personally prefer to go non-square at all opportunities.

[Dylan Reeve]

1027×576 is 16:9 Square Pix – I find it easier to then resize to 720×576 in Photoshop before importing to Avid as I presume Photoshop has better scaling abilities than Avid.

I always ensure that any media (image or quicktime movie for example) is the correct pixel size (so 720×576 non-square for PAL) just to eliminate any little quirks on the resizing on import.

[Dylan Reeve]

I find holding a pen with a tablet to really hurt my hand after 4-5 hours. I also find the slight impreciseness with clicking and releasing to be a problem (especially in FCP where I almost always end up move a clip slight in the timeline when I try to select it).

There is a funky 3M ergonomic mouse that I used for a while and quite liked, I don’t think I ever used it for editing, but it would probably be pretty good.

I think shuttle controllers are probably a waste of time. We’re not cutting tape to tape here, how much mousing do you really do in getting around the clip? I know I don’t do a lot.

I wonder if it wouldn’t be worth getting a couple of different mice to swap beween during the day? Would probably help.

[Dylan Reeve]

There are two approaches that I’d use.

If I know I just want the still the size it is and don’t want to scale or pan it, then I’d create a Photoshop document that is 1024×576, paste the image into it and resize to an appropriate size to fit within the confines of the frame. Then I’d resize the image to 720×576 and import that into Avid as a 601-size image.

Otherwise, if I want to move around or scale the image in Avid, I use the ‘Avid Pan and Zoom’ plugin. You can simply cut filler and apply the effect, then use the properties button in the Effect Editor to point it at the large source image. But I prefer to import the image as a clip (not really caring to much about aspect ratio) and then applying the Pan and Zoom effect to that clip on the timeline, as it provides a second reference to what it meant to go there if the image gets unlinked for any reason.

With the Pan and Zoom effect the image will fill the frame properly, and you have good control over the movement and scaling of the image. Look at the various scaling technique options to find what works best for you.

[Dylan Reeve]

I suppose so. But if the source file of a clip changes then all clips referencing that source file will reflect that change (in theory, in practice I see that can sometimes be a little quirky). That’s how I’d expect the nesting to work.

In our case we’re dealing with each program part as a separate sequence (as we have to do that for Color and just carry on that way). So when all is said and done (in theory) we put the parts in another sequence as the finished ep. Then, if when we’re reviewing that episode we see something that needs attention, we would go to that part’s sequence (as that’s the master for that part of the episode) and make a change. That change however isn’t reflected in our output master. The other option is that we edit the part by double-clicking the nest in the episode sequence, but the limitation there is that the change we make there exists only there. If that output sequence were to be deleted, or we were to come back later (to make DVDs for example) and look just at the parts, we’d have lost any changes we made in the nested part.

Given what a nested sequence is, this functionality doesn’t make sense to me, even given the clip independence thing. The sequence is more akin to the actual video content (file) than the clip as it exists in the bin.

Coming from Avid, this functionality doesn’t even exist (although given the non-relative nature of it, I suppose it does, in the form of editing one sequence into another and collapsing it).

[Dylan Reeve]

That is counter-intuitive.

I expect whatever is in the Browser to be the authoritative collection of what exists in the project. At least generally.

So if I’m using the sequence called ‘Ep 1 – Part 1’ as a nest in another sequence, I would expect that changes to the sequence in the Browser (the source essentially) would be reflected. Instead as soon as I create that nest I essentially obsolete original sequence, as no changes I make will be reflected in my nested uses of the sequence. If I wanted that result, I would duplicate the sequence before I nested it.

[Dylan Reeve]

We were dubbing from EX to DVCPRO HD (crash recording SDI out from the camera into HD1400 deck). This was easy obviously and was very easy to manage in an offline/online workflow.

[Dylan Reeve]

It’s a FAT32 thing – FAT32 is often used on disks needing to be accessed across Mac and Windows systems as it’s the most widely supported format.

However NTFS in Windows has no 2GB file limit and should work with Editshare I’d have thought.

[Dylan Reeve]

Well, I am definitely not using copy and paste, and yet I am not getting the expected results with nesting consistently (I believe a couple of the nests work as I want, but most don’t).