[Erik Pontius]

Either way will work. You can leave your comp at SQ pixels as well if you want, Avid will import it fine and correct aspect using the “601/709 non-square” import settings.
You can download the avid codecs from Avid’s website. Using them will speed up the import into avid considerably over using the animation codec. You will need to use 720×486 if you choose to use the Avid codec.
I tend to export using the QT animation codec so that I can choose my res (dv25, dv50, 1:1) on import depending on my needs.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

The built in Avid media tool is great for locating and cleaning up files associated with a project when you need to remove the files.
There are also free media tools like MediaSift and MDV that can read your OMFI database files, find all the media associated with a project and copy the files to another location.
I use them for copying media for certain projects from a MC/adrenaline desktop to a firewire external drive for editing from a notebook when I’m out of the office.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

For the most part these are all deliverable formats, and not usually suitable for editing. Avid doesn’t support importing them.
You’ll need to convert them to format that Avid understands using another utility.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

I’ve been using Avid systems for a while now. The media files themselves are always around a 2gb size…the capture shouldn’t stop, it just continues to create additional 2gb media files.

You might check your “media creation” settings since you can limit captures to time and file size if I remember correctly. The default capture time is somewhere around 30 mins I think…First time I ran across that I was trying to capture an hour long event and the capture would always stop in the same place…no error…nothing. I’d recapture it again and same thing…took me a while to discover that the capture limit was set.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

If I remember correctly, I think it was around 1000 files in the OMFI media folder and the OMFI database starts to freak out.
MXF projects uses a different folder structure that will create subfolders to keep it more manageable.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

This is usually caused by the WMV file not being properly indexed. Ordinarily on a Win PC this can be resolved by using the Windows Media File Editor, which can simply re-index the file. Not sure what you’d do on the Mac.

Here’s some info on the problem:
https://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/mediaadvice/0064.mspx#EKG

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Corrupt database files could cause a variety of different “media offline” kinds of problems. Deleting the msmMMOB.mdb and msmFMID.pmr files from the OMFI Mediafiles folder (or Avid MediaFiles if your dealing with MXF) on the drive and starting up Avid again so it can rebuild the index could help.
Also, did they originally edit using this drive or copy the media from a different drive? Often Avid may place pre-computes for rendered effects in a different location and they may not have been copied over with the rest of the media.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Here’s a good write up by the Avid folks that explains the procedure:

https://www.avid.com/onlineSupport/supportcontent.asp?contentID=7486

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

So silly me, I forgot that there is an entire write up on Children of Men in the July issue of Cinefex magazine.
In it they have a quote from the VFX Supervisor Frazer Churchill talking about the advertisements.
“We had greenscreens on buses…but no greenscreens on the buildings, which would have been too big too erect. We matchmoved the street and tracked in the ads with a little bit of translucency, revealing structures through the screens, light reflecting and layers of dirt…”

What I find amazing is that that coffee shop/street explosion scene is actually two scenes and not one long take. According to the article they spent a lot of time matchmoving the two scenes together which were filmed on different days.

Interesting read.

Erik

[Erik Pontius]

Film Magic Pro is available for download, after purchase of course, nothing quicker than that… In the time it took to type your reply you could have bought it, downloaded and been on your way. The presets are amazingly complex but very easy to implement and tweak to get the right look.

Erik