[Glenn Sakatch]

First place to start. Full un-install- reinstall of Avid. and make sure your blackmagic drivers are updated.

Sounds like the program had a bit of a crash when the editor said cancel on the registration page, and the fact that the program is still launching is masking the fact that something went wrong.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I usually do a check of all the edit points in the scene detect tool before saving the EDL. Just shoot from clip to clip and you can tell pretty quickly if it has hit the mark. Delete and add edit points right from within the scene detect tool. Might be a pain on a two hour movie, but you have to check the edit points at some point anyway.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Your IO card isn’t doing any processing if that is what you are asking. I guess by giving you those codecs, it is “helping” with your output, but a different card from Blackmagic won’t affect the quality of your output via a file based method.

Of course using the best method to get the footage into the box, will eventually give you better results coming out of the box simply because you are working with cleaner video. (HDSR source vs mini dv) but strictly speaking, you could pull all your I/O cards out of the box, and still output a perfectly clean uncompressed quicktime movie of your project.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Hi Dan.

All i can suggest is some basic troubleshooting at this point.

Do you have access to any other c300 footage? (Are you sure there isn’t a problem with the file structure that has been provided to you with this footage?)

Anyone else around with an Avid that can try to load the footage to see if it works for them?
If you have a small enough folder of shots, and can upload it, i’d be happy to try to load a batch and see if I can get it to go. (We can talk off list if you want to about this)

It is not uncommon for user settings to go corrupt. Doesn’t happen as often as it did on final cut, but it happens. Delete your main user settings. Start a new one, or just use the new one you’ve already built.

Perhaps your state settings are corrupt? Under applications, media composer, settings MCState settings. I have deleted this in the past to fix some oddities. This will clean out a lot of your basic settings for the program. It will rebuild itself after a launch and save of settings.

Personally, when stuff goes this wonky, i don’t think twice about uninstalling the program and doing a fresh install. This will force you to re-install all your ama plugins. A lot of people shudder at the thought of an install, but i would rather spend 10 to 15 mins doing that, than hours trying to figure out if the problem may or may not be somewhere else. In 15 mins i can assure myself that the program itself is good.

Double check permissions on all your drives, make sure everybody can access everything.

Never seen this happen, but maybe after the re-install, just start with your mxf and canon plugins, to ensure nothing else is conflicting or corrupting the process.

Sorry, not a “oh, push that red button” answer, but maybe something will work.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I think you have two issues here.
1st, yes you have permission issues. There isn’t anything wrong with the installers, there is a setting on your computer that is not allowing them to instal.

2nd, everytime someone walks into my suite and says the c300 stuff won’t ama, i go have them show me how they are doing it. They navigate to the contents folder, click on it, then try the link. I tell them to try that again, but don’t click on the contents folder…navigate to where you see it, but are not in it.

Most times it magically works.

I find canon clips can be quite infuriating with AMA. Most times you don’t want to be in the contents folder, you want to be on the outside looking at the folder, but not activating it. Having said that, if an ama doesn’t work, the first thing i always try is different levels of folder structure. Sometimes you have to jump out one level to get it to work. (sometimes you have to jump in one level to get it to work)

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

As Bob said, you have to answer that question yourself. What kind of TV are you trying to output to?
Does it have HDSDI in? or HDMI in? Are you trying to output to an HDdeck? Once you answer those questions, go to the Blackmagic site and look through their decklink products and choose one that meets your needs. Some have both HDSDI and HDMI, some only one or the other. Some have input and output, some don’t. Do you need to capture from a deck? If so, you should get a card that handles in and output for that device as well. There are plenty of models to choose from, but you need to figure out what your workflow is going to be first.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I’m assuming “Decklink 7.9” is the version of the software you are running. What is the actual type of decklink card? (what other outputs does it have)

Your options seem fairly simple:

1- turn the deck on when you edit.
2- run into the monitor first, then loop out to the deck. (have to check audio sync on output)
3- run composite into the monitor and component into the deck.
4- get a monitor with SDI in.

If budget and monitor restrictions limit your choices down to #1…you will have to live with flipping that power switch on when you edit…It shouldn’t kill your power bill.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Don’t know about that. If having more than one keyboard mapping is your goal, but scrolling down to choose a different keyboard for different workflows is too much, you could set up multiple users, each named by a specific keyboard they are mapped to.

User-multicam
user-edit
user-colour correction

then you could simply select a different user to load different keyboard presets.

You should also still be able to select which settings are visible under the settings tab. This could eliminate some of the upper settings, and place keyboard up near the top of the list.

I personally just have two keyboard mappings, and switch between the two of them.
two clicks and i’m done.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

i know my 4800 is a Mac version. Some people have flashed their PC versions over to mac to save some dollars…more than likely voiding a warranty.

Not sure, but i think most cards are either or, but not both.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Actually, you should be able to take it one step further. Load you redigitized shot into the source monitor
and sync lock it to your timeline. It should now constantly update its position to represent your position when you move around the timeline. When you find an edit you want to swap out, park your bar on the edit and hit the replace edit button.

My brain tells me you shouldn’t need to mark any ins or outs on either side.

Glenn