[Glenn Sakatch]

I think i’m just too old school..or maybe just too old? I have to have that keyboard at my hands, unless i can get every button i need on one device. Half the buttons don’t cut it for me.

I also have an Avid transport controller which i like. It allows a good chunk of buttons to be mapped to it.
(not sure if it works with FCP)

I also have been playing with the G13 pad. Tons of buttons, but will take some serious muscle memory to make using it a habit. It could definitely replace a keyboard.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

You are thinking of it for the touch screen aspect of it?

I think this might be a bit more gimiky for an edit application than it would be for a painting application.

I have a Intuos 4 which i use for Avid DS, but not for MC. Have always preferred the mouse for Media Composer, and the pen for DS.

Having said that, i always have one hand on the keyboard, and one on the tablet, so I don’t actually use any of the buttons on the tablet…just the pen itself.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

“Is there an efficient way to determine whether or not material in the Avid Meida Files folder is HD or SD”

Like I said in the original response, sort your list by date and file size. That will probably get you close.

After you divide up the folders, create an empty bin in your project and drag the database file from the “2” folder to the empty bin. This will populate the bin with everything From that folder. From here you can easily check to see if any of the clips are incorrect.

to clean up, just delete these clips…don’t delete the media, just the clips in the bin

You can also launch the media tool and sort the media there. Again, I’m assuming your transcodes all happened in the same timeframe, and once you id one HD file, the others should Be nearby.

If you want to keep track for future, you need to stay orgainized from the start.

Everything you digitize or render or transcode with Avid will go to your Avid Mediafiles/mxf/1 folder.
If you are in the situation you are in, and you want to start a new project and digitize or AMA transcode to HD, go to your Avid MediaFiles/mxf/1 folder, and rename it to any available number. Then start digitizing, or transcoding, or what ever you need to do for the current project. Avid will automatically create a new “1” folder, and put all your footage into that folder. When you are done, rename the “1” folder to better reflect what is in that folder- perhaps “project X HD Material” Renaming a folder with letters makes the folder read only to Avid. It can still use the footage with its current database, but it can’t write new media to it, or see any new media you manually put into that folder. If tomorrow comes around and you need to add to the folder, rename it back to “1”, digitize, transcode…what ever, then rename it back to “project x hd material” It might seem like a bit of a pain, but it only takes a second to rename the folder, and it will keep your MediaFiles folders nice and organized for backups, archives, or simply deleting when the project is done.

I would not consider this workflow “labour intensive” at all. We are talking about renaming folders here. I would consider continually trying to search out and separate media from multiple projects, weeks after the media was created “Labour intensive”

With the huge amount of digital media we now deal with on a continual basis, organization from the start of a project is the key to keeping it clean. The above workflow is pretty much the norm around our office now, as we are constantly transcoding media to low res and high res versions.

Avid has a pretty good track record on media management. Use it to your advantage.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

You might want to start out by separating your SD and HD material.
I find it usually easier to relink if my sequence is offline. Seems to force Avid to go looking for media that can fill the slots.

in your Avid Mediafiles/mxf/1 folder, see if you can determine the SD vs HD material. Sort by date created, and or size. Move SD to a folder numbered 2, and HD to a folder numbered 3.

Move the HD folder out to the same root as the Avid Mediafiles folder. This will stop it from being seen by the box, and help determine if any of the clips inside it are actually SD or not.

Relaunch Avid and let it build its database. Your sequence will should be back online, in SD mode. Double check for missing clips. Check your original bins and clips to see if all your SD material is accounted for.

Once all this is cleaned up, reverse the process.
First Rename the “2” folder “SD Transcodes” and move it out to the root where the “3” folder is.
Second move the “3” folder back into its appropriate spot.

Launch Avid, let it build its database.
Now check your HD bins and clips and make sure they are all online. If you missed a clip or two, go find it and move it to the “3” folder.

Now select your sequence and try your relink process. Yes, sometimes you have to try a couple of different settings to get it to work. It ain’t perfect, but it does (usually) work. Now that it can only access HD material, many of your settings should be irrelevant.

You now know which drive your media is on, so you should be able to select that drive specifically.
I usually deselect “relink only to media from the current project”
I usually deslect “Match case when comparing source names”
and the video paramaters should be set to “any video format”

If it still doesn’t work, try selecting all the clips from your original HD bins. You can select multiple clips in multiple bins, then try “selected items in all open bins”

Hopefully the sequence then comes online.

Once that is done, i would rename the “3” folder to “HD Transcodes”. This will retain the database, but lock the folder down so that no other media can get written to it.

As a workflow, I would probably only have one of those folders online at a time.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I would suggest you do a test to and from your editing program. We are having a very hard time getting
dnx36 media created in Resolve to AMA relink back to the original camera files in Avid after the edit is complete. We have no problems with the same files using Avid as the transcode device. If you are using it to batch to high res dnx and don’t need to relink, it is a great solution, but we have quit using it for offline/online workflows.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

That is what i’m finding is one of the “keys”. Everyone seems to want to delete the original ama links once
the transcode is done. It is much easier to put them in their own bin and ignore them until it
is time to do the relink. Then they are all in one place, easy to do a select all and relink

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

As Scott said, there are rules, but as usual rules are meant to be broken.

I would say it is a pretty good rule to have bars and tone start at 59;00;00, (notice the semi colon…not a colon) Broadcast shows need to be drop not full or non drop frame.

I would say it is a pretty good rule to run a slate from 59;45;00 to 59;50;00
I would say it is a pretty good rule to run black for 10 seconds
I would say it is a pretty good rule to start the show at 01;00;00;00

by saying these rules, i would be breaking the rules of many broadcasters. We have clients that insist the show has 10 secs of slate, some insist on 5
Some want a full minute of bars- beginning at 00;58;45;00
Some want the timecode to be at 10 hours instead of 1 hour
Some want full blacks in between segments, but most seem to want 10 seconds blacks.
Some want the segments to start at a 00 frame, many don’t care.

The first thing i do for a program is request that broadcasters spec sheet. I try to avoid assuming any settings, as (up here anyway) they are all different.

As for audio, there has been a lot of discussion about the L/R panning, based on dialogue, but music hasn’t been discussed. Music should naturally be set to L/R for proper stereo.

In actuality, we (and i would assume most) send audio to a post audio house for final mix. They send us back stereo files that we pan L/R and layback onto our timeline. In this scenario the best rule
i would come up with is “keep your timeline organized for the audio house”

Dialogue on CH 1/2, perhaps 3/4
Nats on dedicated channels
Music on dedicated channels.

From here it is easier to set your default to come in L/R, then if you have dialogue issues, you can simply concentrate on those channels, and centre them up if necessary. Your audio house will not be terribly happy if your audio mapping is all over the place.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

it is from a company called squared5. quick google should find it for you.

I have used it with Reference movies out of DS and Final Cut Pro. I would assume it would work out of MC.

One note with MC, i have had problems with MC and squeeze, if i didn’t do a mixdown of the audio from MC during the creation of the reference movie, i didn’t get an accurate “mix” on my quicktime reference movie.
(i was on 5.53 windows at the time)

Make sure your audio is good all the way through before you send it to the client.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

I agree with Michaels settings. My only comment is that you have to ask yourself what the purpose of the file is.

Clients say to us all the time “I want the best possible file of this half hour show…but i want it to be less than 3 megs ’cause i want to email it to someone” Those two statements don’t always work together.

Is this a screener for content, for final colour, for audio mix?

Offline version 1 or Online Final?
How long is your piece. A VBR 2 pass for a 2 hour movie might not finish quickly enough for you or your clients needs, where as a lower quality cbr file might be done in an hour or so.

Personally i use Mpeg streamclip for most of my mp4 needs. it is fast, multiplatform, free and the settings (for the most part) can be left in default mode.
It allows batching of files, color adjustments, volume adjustments and i believe a watermark feature.

For critical outputs, you can run a test on a short segment, and tweak your settings till you are happy.

Glenn

[Glenn Sakatch]

Rename your avid mediafiles/mxf/1 folder to something else.
Run automatic ducks media copy to isolate the media from the item you want. (build a sequence of the clips you want to take home, tell autoduck to copy media from that sequence)
every morning- after new media has been added, put it into a separate folder to keep it organized from now on.

Glenn