[Hector Berrebi]

[Erik Lindahl] “Basically we could have 1 media composer + Da Vinci Lite as our “offline / edit” suite an a Symphony + Da Vinci as our “online suite” I guess. Seems the premium cost for Symphony might not be worth it for us though. We’ll see.”

not exactly… 🙂

MC6 + a decent I/O card, good drives, a scope and a calibrated monitor (if you know what you’re doing) is enough for a large bulk of your online work too. MC color tools are good. you can add magic bullet and resolve lite and you cover even more work.

for higher end finishing, just get resolve (6 times cheaper than Symphony and far superior for color work)

in any case… its hard for me to think of a specific reason why you would need Symphony for your workflow

my 2 cents..

hector

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

[Bernhard Grininger] “The new MC seams to be an excellent choice, but one thing disturbs me:
Why isn’t Symphony the new Media Composer?”

hi Bernhard

considering you never used either one (as you mentioned) let me tell you this.
differences are so thin that if anything should happen, its symphony retiring.

maybe 10-12 years ago Symphony was worth its name and reputation, today, name and reputation is mainly whats left of it (i’m talking software)

as someone who does (and teaches) on-lining finishing and grading for a living i can tell you this

for 70% of the work (maybe more), MC color tools + a good scope, an IO card and a decent calibrated monitor is all you might ever need (add magic bullet tools if you want presets too) to deliver great results (if you know what you’re doing)

for the remaining 30% (probably less), which consist of secondary work (some can be done in MC), masking, keying and vignetting, Symphony just isn’t enough. its outdated, and in comparison with other tools in the market, a frustrating set of tools to work with.

you’d be better off even with Davinci lite. or, if finishing is an important part of your work, you can just buy Davinci, which isn’t an expensive software (MC6 + Davinci is still cheaper than Symphony).

most of the post work is off-line, and most of the online work is primary CC.
Adobe may sell a large attractive bundle of apps but Avid MC is by far a superior editing platform.
(and i can back it up, i teach and use both)

i’m saying all this considering that you are not in the high-end finishing market for film and commercials…
if you are,
a. prices shouldn’t be such an issue for you
b. there are better, more adequate, tools and apps for that market than Avid and Premiere (and FCP for all it matters) look into smoke.

so why are Avid still selling Symphony as a separate tool? in my opinion, its for legacy reasons, tradition and heritage.
and maybe because there are still clients who spent 80K$+ 10 years ago on Symphony systems that feel 5K$ is a great deal. a lot of people in decision making positions don’t really know what they need or buy, when they purchase new systems.

this is all based on personal experience and opinions.

hope i didn’t offend any Symphony fan.

hector

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

[Job ter Burg] “Ranging from 442Mb/s for 720p23.976 to 1989Mb/s for 1080i59.94.”

hi Job

that sounds very interesting… if i’m calculating right, that’s 2:1.
where did you get this info from?

is there white paper for the new DNX?

hector

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

It will be faster than anything you can find in that price range.
Will allow more streams

For example, you could probably online and grade in uncompressed 10 bit RGB ( which is currently Avid’s most demanding compression) with no particular lag problems.

Raid performance will depend on how you configure it

See demo here https://www.viddler.com/explore/engadget/videos/2557/

There are other’s, google it

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

if you are really novice to color correction
try using the auto features.
in the color correction tool, choose HSL, in the 3 wheel pannel, there are buttons for auto white, black and balance, hover over them to see which is which.

also, in the color wheels there are color pickers, the left wheel is for shadows, mid wheel for midtones and right wheel for highlights, the color picker help you fix color casts in each area.
select the one in the highlights wheel and click an area which is supposed to be white in your shot, if problem isn’t fixed do the same with mid wheel and something gray. see that the auto fix shows you what it did on the wheel, so you can further adjust from there.

first fix contrasts with auto black and auto white.

there are some good free video tutorials on basic color correction on the Avid screencast
https://avidscreencast.com/

hope this helps

and BTW, there are curves in MC, they are a little less sophisticated than symphony, but do exist

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

[Nick Hrycyk] “Could this be a Mac/PC thing, Just recently switched from PC MCv5.03 where I’m pretty sure it worked”

Maybe… I switch between Mac and PC quite often, But I’m almost sure I used it on Mac …almost 🙂

When you’re on PC try choosing a bunch of clips/sequences and instead of right click and export, pick export from the file menu. I think this solves the pressing enter you mentioned.

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

[Andrew McKee] “Another alternative is to import the footage as QT files after typing “IgnoreQTRate true” into the console. This will speed up or slow down the footage to convert it to the framerate of the project.”

And he will have to re-type it in console every time he opens the project.

(last I checked was MC5… this might have changed)

I’ve been wanting an “interpret frame rate” feature for ever… Maybe some addition to source settings.

I think if you export as tiff sequence at max quality and reimport as 25 fps it’s a pretty clean way that won’t do any mysterious abracadabra to your frames. It will result in slight slow-mo though (80%)

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

As people mentioned it’s a combo of file type and system strength.
I would add you drive speed and connection type to equation, if you’re trying to work of a pocket external USB drive with DSLR files and AMA for example. Don’t be surprised if iy stutters.

What format are you working with?

Also, I find some Improvements in AMA links in 5.5, and with 64 bits coming our way it’s fair to be even more optimistic.

As for the person who told you he never uses AMA, maybe he simply transcodes before he passes it to his editors. compared to how things were before (long, inaccurate imports, no proper TC or metadata support, and no relationship to originals to allow relinking) AMA is light years better, and considering it’s young age, should be given just a lil more time to be perfect.

Hector

Hector Berrebi
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[Hector Berrebi]

[Juris Eksts] “Use ‘dip to colour’ change duration to 6frames, change colour to white.”

very true… 🙂 i thought you wanted a white gap, but for flash “dip to color” could work alone just fine

you can find the dip option in the quick transition window
and change the color in effect editor

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting

[Hector Berrebi]

for white solid you can do one of the following

drag a 3d warp effect to empty space you left on the timeline in desired duration.
click the effect editor button
select the foreground and background categories, choose a white background and bring foreground to zero (in Avid foreground means in many cases transparency)

OR

go to title tool (not marquee, which is a million times better for titles but has some learning curve)
create a white square shape on the whole frame

save by closing window.

call it white solid or something

now you have a white clip in your bin you can use anywhere

there are probably other ways too…

as for the dissolve. dissolves in avid are much better handled than in FCP.

as a test, throw a couple of clips on the timeline, (leaving enough handles for transitions)
click the quick transition button

and the quick transition tool will show up

play with it a little, it offers many options including a-symmetrical dissolves (which is one of the things every avid editor who switched to FCP misses)

from what you describe your transition might be set as “ending on cut”

🙂 and put an end to your misery, get proper training… or at least a FCP to Avid book from Amazon

hector

Hector Berrebi
prePost Consulting