[Glenn Sakatch]

This is probably one of the few composites Avid can do.

With the exception of the crops animating, this is pretty straight forward.

For things like this, no matter where you build them, build it backwards.

put your 4 clips on your 4 video tracks
add a pic n pic to each clip (from the blend tab)
make each pic in pic 100 width and height.
Now you’ll have to fiddle with the cropping to decide how much to crop each picture. Turn off all video tracks but the lowest one, and leave its bottom crop at 0, and adjust the top crop to how wide you want the pieces to be. Then turn on so you can see the lowest 2 video tracks. Adjust the bottom crop upwards until you can see it coming in above the lower track. Then adjust the upper crop to make this frame as wide as track 1. Continue with the next two tracks.

When you reach the top track, its crop will be the reverse of the lower track.

Then mark keyframes at each track about halfway down your timeline to give yourself a lock of what these positions should be. Next you can build the slide on. That’s a simple position either left or right. Go back 10 or 15 frames from your lock keyframe, and set another keyframe on each track. Then slide each track off to the side to lock in its new starting position. You may want to stagger these keyframes so each picture slides in at a slightly different time. Hold the alt key and drag your keyframes back and forth until you are happy with the timing. The space between each keyframe should be the same for each clip, so they all slide at the same speed.

Next you can animate the crop opening up. This is where you are going to have to decide what order these crops open up, as you are going to have to razor and rearrange the order of the timeline, so that each time you have a crop open up, that clip gets put on the uppermost track. As far a I know, you can’t animate the order of the tracks in Media Composer, and the crop change will only overtake clips that are under it on the timeline. If you open up the top crop on layer 3, layer 4 is still going to be covering it.

razoring the clips after your lock keyframe should keep the rest of that clip in the final position. Then decide which clip is to open first, place it on the uppermost track, and animate its crop to open. When its time to open the next clip, animate the first clips crop back to loked position and razor the clips again. Repeat the process for the next clip to open.

Obviously there will be some trial and error with timing and such, but it is certainly doable with in MC.

As for other compositing apps, you would probably come up against the same issue for the crops needing to be on top. I know Avid DS lets you animate the order of the layers, but I’m not sure that after effects does. (someone else can chime in on that one.)

Really, the procedure would be the same for everything else, no matter what program you use. Some might give you more elegance in the programing of the moves, but the technique would essentially be the same.

Wow, didn’t plan on that being such a long post:)

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I’ve discussed this in other posts as well. The best way to do this is to set up a separate encoding station. Having your edit system both playback and encode at the same time is not the way to do it.

The slingbox you mention could be that external encoder, but the setup is a bit more elaborate for the client to access your slingbox account, and yes, you only get analog outputs.

My setup is as follows.

Edit system with HDSDI out feeding an older MacBook pro through a MXO2. It has HDSDI in and out as well as HDMI in and out. The newer version has Thunderbolt as well. Basically any I/o box will work, if your connections go to it, but you need a separate box to do the work. (In my case the MacBook pro)

Within the Mac I run a program (U stream producer pro) to encode and stream the files. That company charges a fee to host your stream. Your client is sent a link or in my case I embed a link onto my website, hidden from everyone else. It all runs very smoothly *** and looks very professional. You can setup (I’m offline right now) screens, and switch between different inputs, including the desktop of your edit box. You can also record the stream for playback later.

I tried the slingbox approach, with some good results and some very poor results. Its pretty embarrassing when it doesn’t work.

*** results are ofcourse based on your upload speed and the clients download speed. There is also an inherent delay in whey you hit play, and they see what you are doing. I usually put a TC window on the feed to help us both understand what area we are looking at. I also have a tablet showing me the stream at the same time, so I have a bit of a better idea what they are looking at when they say stop.

Either way, if they say stop, I hit stop, and then backup the timeline by the delay. (maybe 5 seconds) then you have to wait another 5 seconds for their screen to reflect what I’ve just done.

It takes some practice on my end to try to make it run smoothly, and you always remind them at the start of the session that there is a delay, based on the internet connections.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Sometimes its nice to keep your audio tracks layed out in an organized manner. Voice 1 and 2, nats 3 and 4 music 5 and 6.

This type of organization makes the sound house less likely to yell at you as well, when some of your tracks are easy to spot as to left and right (odd numbers left, even numbers right).

I’ve received timelines from editors that put 1 voice track on ch 1, then music on 2 and 3, then some sound effects on 4 and 5, more music on 6 and 7. Pickup voice over on 8 (dropping the voice on 1 to silent, so the could go back to it if needed) It becomes a bit of a rats nest trying to figure out what is voice, what is music.

It doesn’t take much effort to keep a clean organized timeline. In the end, everyone will benefit.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I don’t see an attached photo, but I think this is the same issue I had a couple of weeks ago. If you look above your record monitor, and check out the timecodes visible for each video/audio track, do you see one of the tracks labeled with a “?” .

If so, than its the same issue. Not sure why or what is causing it, but in my case, I simply loaded the bad sequence in the source side, and a blank sequence in the record side, and edited each “stable” track to a new track on the new sequence. Renamed the sequence with a Version 2, and used it for my new master sequence.

I should note, I had to do this about 3 times over the course of a week or so with the offending project.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

try opening a new bin in Avid.
Open a finder/explorer window on you computer.
Navigate to you ama footage’s root
(in windows) hold ALT while dragging the folder that contains all the ama media you want to your bin. Not sure about mac, maybe option?

You know you have the correct key, as all media gets linked, not imported into that bin.

Works quite well for embedded folder structures.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

For sure, my comment was more to say “don’t throw out your finishing box yet”

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Just remember, a lot of what you are doing in Symphony for finishing you will still have to do in Symphony.

I tell everyone I color in Resolve, but finish in (in my case) DS.

Proper titles, picture fixes, fx work still is much easier in other programs.

I have a few plugins for Resolve, but I’ve actually quit using them within the program because they just kill the playback.

(Neat Video and a film plugin) I run them in DS, render them once, and I’m off to the races. In Resolve, the whole project comes to a halt when a clip hits a plugin.

I just told this story the other day on another forum. I was in DS cloning out an objectionable item in a shot when the director proclaimed “Resolve sure is an awesome program” I replied, yes it is an awesome program, but we aren’t in Resolve right now”

Its not that it can’t “finish” a show, but there are better tools for some aspects of “finishing”…right now.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Dammit, I was stopping at 17!

Rookie mistake;)

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

If you are on a windows system, you may have to go buy the dvcpro codec. I think its about 50 bucks.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

If you already have some effects on your clips, you can promote some of them to 3d, which opens up a whole bunch of new controls.

Bottom right hand corner of your effects editor.

Glenn