[Glenn Sakatch]

I think that compatibility matrix would depend on what you are shooting. If you are recording some prores version of the camera, or shooting then transcoding, then sure, compatibility is fine…but i have seen nothing to indicate the raw files can be imported or ama’d into Avid.

Theres a lot of companies marketing like this now…you have to be very diligent in your research.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I believe you are limited to Premiere Pro, or transcoding through Resolve to something for the other boxes.

(not sure about fcpx)

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

True, others do it, but they don’t necessarily do it correctly. As on online editor getting sequences from guys who have cut in FCP and just let it do what ever to the footage, i have seen more than my share of projects that won’t relink properly to the native (r3d) files because the timecodes it is looking for, don’t actually exist on the original file.
You are working in 59.94 and bring in 23.98, and spit out a list, and that list assigns 59.94 timecodes to your 23.98 footage. All of the sudden i’m manually rebuilding edits in online.

Was on another forum last week with a online editor who just received a list exactly like this. 1500 edits won’t relink because they are 23.98 originals cut into a 59.94 sequence. Luckily for the offline editor, FCP just worked, he didn’t have to do anything…unfortunately for the online editor and the Client who has to pay, FCP just worked, so he didn’t have to do anything.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

When you are ready to relink, take your working media offline. (move it up one level, outside of the MXF folder is usually the easiest way.

Create a new bin called Linked clips
ama link to everything you will need…do it all if in doubt, and place all those links into the “linked clips” bin.

open your offline sequence

Select all the clips in your linked clips bin, right click on your sequence and select relink.
in the relink settings, select “relink to all selected clips on open bins” (thats the links you just created)
deselect “only link to clips from current project” You may have to play with the options for linking based on tape name/file name, as well as the number of characters at the end of the filename for avid to ignore.

i also tell avid to ignore extension

It is worth noting that every now and then i relink and only some of the clips relink…if this happens, try hitting relink again without changing anything in the settings. I have had this work quite a bit lately.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

What you will probably find one day is that a different client will come in with a different type of footage.
(Red, Canon) and you will do your link and try to edit and all of the sudden you will say “wow, this footage is way to hard to work with in an AMA environment”

XDCam, P2 and even C300 are not terribly taxing on the system. Others will bog you down right away, and transcode will be your only real solution.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Perhaps i’m not totally understanding your workflow, or at what stage you are at in the project, but why would you consolidate your media before you are done editing. Don’t you want access to everything during the edit?

If you want some organization, i would perhaps break your media up by day shot, or week shot, or something like that. I personally wouldn’t break up the audio and video.

Also at dnx36, you must have tons of media before it becomes taxing on your system drives…especially on a unity style system.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Try the backspace button instead

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Not sure how it works now, but years ago, before they were dnx36, 175, etc, and we were working with AVR 2 and 26, low res was only about a quarter of the screen size, and Avid blew it up to fill the screen…hence the picture looked like crap but took up less space. Again, not sure if that is still the basis behind lower resolution files. Either way, i wouldn’t expect my 36 HD files to be of Pristine quality. I know when you do transcodes to Red in Avid it takes for ever, but it also defaults to full quality debayer. Perhaps there is something similar in Avid for other codecs. Check your settings and see if there is a full quality switch on somewhere. But again, i would be very surprised to see an avid dnx 36 looking just as clean as an Avid dnx 175 file, no matter what the source is.

I know you’ve answered this, but just to be clear, the resolution tab in your bin does say dnx 36 after the transcode is done?

I would be curious to see a couple of screen grabs.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

If your 11 dongles were originally registered to the boxes of MC5, or at some point in their life registered for that software, than the license for that software no longer exists, as you’ve upgraded it to 6, 6.5 and 7.

The one thing that software is good for is using it in an older system for what ever reason. If you ever needed to use mc 5.0, your current dongle will still work for it. Dongles are supposed to be backwards compatible.

You can’t really sell it, as who ever buys it would have to pay Avid for a new license anyway…well you could, but they would probably be very upset with you for selling it.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I would probably take it into After Effects. Personally, i would use avid for “offline” versions of these kind of effects. Get your timing down in Avid, make sure everyone is happy, but for final FX just doing an image in PIC in PIC, or using animate to key it in, might not be your optimal final product. You’ll find so much more control in something like After Effects with regards to masking and feathering that image into the shot…including transfer modes that Avid does ‘t do natively.

You might want to look into AvidFX as well, it may get you there- i don’t use it so i can’t speak to it.

A lot of times these shots seem easy, until you start putting it together and then you discover that it just isn’t working.

It does also come down to quality you are looking for in the final effect as well.

Avid is a great editor..and does ok in some effects work.
After effects doesn’t pretend to be an editor, but kicks ass in effects work.

Glenn