[Jimmy See]

Thanks,

I hadn’t checked that, however the AAF was generated via the file > export AAF menu rather than via the delivery page. I did go in and have a look at this just to be sure though and it wasn’t ticked.

I also tried exporting an AAF via the delivery page using the Avid AAF preset to see if that would help. It actually forces you to render out either Audio, Video or both if you do this even though I only wanted the AAF file that this preset also generates, but I told it to output just the video for the first shot and it generated an AAF for me of the whole timeline but the result was still the same as achieving this via the file menu: the AAF imports successfully in to Premiere (which I’m using to test whether or not the AAF’s have been generated correctly) but does not retain the scaling and position information.

Thanks anyway though.

[Jimmy See]

Sadly, though I’m sure that would work, it is basically the same as the fcp7 solution of exporting a sequence with the camera b clips and titles filling the gaps between them and then reimporting that and using it in a multiclip group.

Granted there are a few less steps, but creating a video mixdown of a sequence with titles in the gaps between shots and then grouping using the mixdown as an angle will still create new media which means you have to wait for the time it takes for that to happen, have to have the storage space for every single b cam clip from every shoot to take up double the avid media space and it also causes problems if there is any grading or motion FX work to be done with the footage outside of avid since it’d mess up the conform if you have to use proxies.

If it’s just a single or small number of shoots and the whole post process takes place in Avid and you’ve got plenty of space and time available this’d work though.

I still don’t see why being able to group sequences would be disallowed, if subclips can be grouped it certainly seems possible in principal that specific arrangements of media can be grouped together as well as entire source clips. Oh well, I think ultimately though it has it’s own drawbacks, it’s probably best to just break the long continuous a cam clip up into multiple subclips of sections that coincide with b cam clips and make multiple groups. Seems to have the least confusion created.

[Jimmy See]

Aww turns out you can’t. The in to out range of the sequence with the cameras synchronised on different video tracks is considered to be a subsequence and Avid apparently will only group clips or subclips but not subsequences. Frankly I don’t see why, as it seems perfectly reasonably to want to do that to me but there you go. I guess that would also put the kibosh on the filming black idea too because if I understand what you were suggesting correctly you’re suggesting separately filming and importing footage of blackness after the initial footage that was captured of multicam filmed event placing that between gaps in shooting from one camera during the continued duration of filming of another in the same manner as I hoped to do with the title graphic. Since that footage of black isn’t part of the same master clip that is Camera B’s first, no Camera B’s 2nd clip there doesn’t seem to be anyway to get Avid to group using the footage of black. It would merely consider it another camera and occupy a tile with it, whilst still placing the B cam footage in random tiles of the split in the disorderly manner it already does.

[Jimmy See]

I haven’t used Avid in shared storage environments too often, so you may want to wait to see if there are any replies to my comment correcting inaccuracies but I think I can lend support to the suggestions that this is related to the names of your folders and clear something up regarding the read only confusion.

In a single user, non-shared storage environment, as you probably know, avid creates subfolders in the ‘MXF’ directory in which it places the MXF media it generates, along with the media database files. It creates a new one of these every 5000 files and in the context I describe, each of those subfolders is named simply 1,2,3,4 etc incrementally up from the previous batch of 5000 files. It’s actually possibly though, if so inclined to change the name of one of those folders, after it’s been created, and have Avid still continue to access the media stored therein and read the database correctly, this has one catch or useful feature depending on your perspective, which is that Avid will not write to, scan, or update the databases of any subfolders in the MXF directory that do not conform to the naming convention it uses when creating those files, only read. In a sense, you could say it’s read only, except it’s more that Avid will only read it, not write to it, but the directory as far as the operating system is concerned has all the same permissions it’s always had including write permission. This is quite handy if you want to logically sort your Avid media by things like date for example, as it keeps it all in one folder with a name that matches its contents and because it can no longer be written to by Avid, nobody can accidentally add anything to it that’s from a different date, and it doesn’t get filled up with renders and titles and graphics etc, as that will automatically go only to correctly named, numbered, avid folders.

If the Avid MXF subdirectories have been renamed for the purpose I describe above, the thing to remember is that there is a side-effect of the folders becoming read only to Avid, which is that if you have to add something to one of those folders later on down the track, (maybe if they’re organised by date, the data wrangler hands an additional card to you that somehow never made it back from the shoot with the rest of that day’s footage), then when importing, that footage won’t go to that folder, and if you later drag that footage in to that folder, Avid can not write to it, and thus can not update the database, and thus can not tell that the media is in there meaning it won’t link to it and it will show up offline despite being correctly placed in the MXF folder it should be inside.

In the single user setting I describe, that problem’s easy to workaround, you simply copy your footage in to the folder you want it to be in, then rename the folder to something like ‘2’ or any correct system name for the folder that isn’t already taken, and then switch application to Avid which will begin scanning the new directory and updating the database and then ultimately relinking the footage, and then rename it back to what I wanted it to be in the first place which puts it back in to a read-only state that correctly freezes the contents of that folder so that it only includes exactly what you want it to. Handy if you’re not using shared storage and want to distribute media between multiple, disparate storage locations piecemeal.

This paragraph is the part that would be best to have confirmed by someone who works with Avid in managed, shared storage scenarios because my knowledge here is a bit iffy. Another commentor has pointed out that the folders don’t look like correct system names, and I also note that there are a lot of folders and that the folder names look a lot like date formats yyyymmdd, and that they also lack a period followed by a number as a suffix. This suggests to me that those folders aren’t computers but are MXF directories that have been manually renamed to match the date their contents was filmed and that somehow additional footage was added after those folders were initially made, presumably by someone else than whoever initially did it and that additional footage that was added, was added to a different storage location that was still attached to the machine that the project was initially started on. Fixing this problem should be a very simple fix of renaming the folders correctly, first and easiest thing to try then is to simply rename the folder you just added the footage to something like ‘2’ and seeing if Avid will scan it and if it fixes the problem, you can rename that folder back again afterwards if you want to retain that same structure. If that doesn’t work, I assume that’s because in shared storage situations, the Avid MediaFiles structuring is slightly different and in which case I assume the way the structure should look in such a situation is that each computer linked to the shared storage should have a folder in the MXF directory called computername.01 or computername.02 etc, and within that folder should have numbered subfolders just like in a single user setting. If that’s the case and I’m correct in my assumptions, then you want to use one of the linked computers and import something, anything, even a still, in to the project, my guess is that will create a folder for your computer in the shared storage with the correct system naming conventions and a subdirectory with a folder called ‘1’. If it does that, then you can drag all those folders from your picture in to that computer’s folder and perform the same renaming trick I described above for the problem folders in there.

Whatever the fine details, this problem looks very much like it’s related to how those folders have been named and I strongly suspect it’s a case of a manual renaming meaning that Avid can no longer write to the database file within the MXF subfolder, which will be a nice easy fix. If no one chimes in with more credible information, you could always experiment with what I’m suggesting because it’s all reversible and nothing is deleted in the process.

[Jimmy See]

You know, I don’t have the means to test it at the moment as that particular project is operating differently now anyway (stopped using multiple button on and button offs as part of a single group and simply made groups as long as each simultaneously filmed section using subclips and then laid them out in an assembly so it’s seamless for the editor). However I might still use the technique we were discussing earlier in future which would present the dilemma. I wonder now then whether I might have figured out a why to do what you’re describing in practice.

Since it’s possible to make groups consisting of subclips, maybe a simple graphic like an all black title, or text saying ‘buttoned off’ can be added from the end of a camera B clip until the beginning of the next where both of those camera B clips coincide with one camera A clip and then set in and out points at the start of the first camera b clip until the end of the second (thus including the graphic between them) and then create a subclip of that and then create a group consisting of camera A’s clip and the new subclip. That would theoretically keep all the camera B footage in one tile for the duration of the group. I know a variation of that technique is possible from a FCP7 COW post where an editor did this, but in their case the placed the black between the clips in a sequence, then exported the sequence, then re-imported that video files in to the project and made multiclips with it and corresponding A cam footage. That may have worked for him, but that’s totally impractical when there’s a lot of footage and not a lot of time or necessarily storage, or where it’s important to maintain the footage’s original codec, so hopefully it can be done without ‘baking in’ the black gaps.

The potential snag I see here is that while I know you can make groups from subclips, those subclips I’ve tested with were in and out ranges of source clips, not sections of timeline, that may prevent the grouping from being possible, hope not.

[Jimmy See]

Nevermind, the issue has resolved itself. I think I may have simply left the command palette open, though it seems unlikely because the problem persisted even after quitting avid and reopening. Anyway, I moved the quad split button down to a spare timeline button rather than a key command and then made sure I closed the command palette and keyboard map and the tested it and it worked fine switching between both modes. Then I tried my original key command again and it also worked fine.

It’s either suddenly fixed itself, or I was just such a ditz I didn’t notice I’d left the command palette open, either way it’s fixed now so GOOD!

[Jimmy See]

Thanks, but unfortunately in order to use two keyboards and therefore dedicate one keyboard to a specific purpose (in my case patching and track selection and track monitoring) you would need both layouts to be active at the same time.

Of course if I had two keyboard layouts active simultaneously and only one keyboard then the there would be conflicts between differently assigned key combinations and it wouldn’t work, which is why that is not allowed, however, as I physically have two keyboards at my disposal, it would be good to have one assigned to each layout thus eliminating any conflicts and allowing me to take advantage of the additional extra physical space and buttons.

In order to switch keyboard layout, it is necessary to use the mouse to navigate to the home window, select the settings tab, scroll down the settings list to find the keyboard layouts and then click the checkbox adjacent the alternate keyboard settings entry in the list. It would then also be necessary after doing so, to do the same again in order to switch back to the original layout. This would eliminate all the benefit of two layouts, whether it’s two keyboards or one.

Is it possible to switch layouts by a hotkey combination?

[Jimmy See]

That is weird. I can see by the lack of any cogwheel above the timeline that you aren’t using any kind i/o for a TV or broadcast monitor so it my first guess that it would be related the i/o card probably won’t apply.

From the screenshot there doesn’t seem to be any automatically applied frame flex effects or anything. The only thing I can think of is that is plugins perhaps.

Since you just performed the upgrade, how ‘clean’ was it? Did you bring the footage in by AMA linking and then consolidating? If so, perhaps there is a manufacturers AMA plugin at work that’s playing up and if that’s the case, perhaps the plugin for that particular footage type would need to be removed completely and reinstalled for the appropriate MC version. Aside from that, perhaps this is still somehow related to how the installation was performed. Do you know and are you sure that the previous Avid version was totally uninstalled prior to installing the current one?

[Jimmy See]

Do you have an actual file with the extension .dcp at the end? Is that a digital cinema package or something else?

I ask because digital cinema package is all I can think of for what you must have there based on what description you’ve put forward. If it is a digital cinema package that you’ve got that you’re attempting to change back in to some form of playable digital file, you could have some problems.

if dcp stands for something else, what I say next will likely be irrelevant but if not then unfortunately I’m not aware of a solution to your problem and that is for the following reasons:

I’ve never heard of a DCP that is a single stand alone file with .dcp as it’s extension, my understanding from memory is that a conversion to DCP means starting with a playable digital file which is then converted to a image sequence, whose files are converted individually in to jpeg2000 files which are wrapped in to MXF media along with accompanying mxf soundtrack(s), these files are placed in a specific structure of folders on the media it’s written to along with accompanying xml documents which act as instructions for media servers in a theatre to playback the different media files in their respective folders in particular ways depending on the contents of the xml documents.

if that is the case, I’m not aware of a specific workflow for doing this process in reverse however if you can somehow split the mxfs that wrap the individual jpeg2000 frames back in to separate files perhaps you could use final cut or after effects or avid or something to import them as an image sequence and import the accompanying soundtrack fikes and then finally export them together in to one file. However if you somehow managed this you’d be faced with another issue which is that you’d need to find some way around the fact that the jpeg2000 images in the DCP have been encoded in to the XYZ colour space which will not playback correctly on a computer monitor or even much computer software (probably not final cut for example) which would mean having to first perform a conversion of all those images in to a different colour space and most likely (for compatibility’s sake in the image sequence importing stage) a different image file format (either with a accompanying quality loss or large disk storage cost), first. The XYZ colour space is a larger gamut than rgb which is what you’d likely have to convert those stills to, which itself is a larger gamut than than the rec709 standard you’d likely encode the video file in to so you’ll be losing quite a bit of colour detail. Additionally, this procedure (if somehow possible) will likely take a great deal of time on your average computer and a great deal of space, and it’s worth pointing out that this could be an especially important cinsideration if the DCP is 4k or something greater (not sure if the standard allows this yet) as you may lack the resources fir the undertaking depending on what you have available, also Final Cut will not work with files if that frame size so you’d need to either use software that can, like davinci, or add ab additional conversion step to your image sequence of resizing the images, depending how that’s done you could see quality losses there too.

Hate to be a downer but if what you’re dealing with is indeed a digital cinema package I’m not sure what you’re doing is possible (within practical bounds). Even with theoretical means I described there’s a lot of ifs and I’m not sure of any known process for doing those things. If however what you have is an actual single file with the extension .dcp and it’s some obscure file type I’m not aware of rather than a digital cinema package, then maybe wbat you ask is possible. Either way, good luck.

[Jimmy See]

My only experience with attempting to do what Michelle wants to do in FCP is detailed in the original posting from a year ago and clearly it wasn’t problem free, it also was not exactly the same circumstances either given I was importing an AAF I had produced using FCP in the first place for the sake of testing. That said, I identified the cause of the problem which would suggest to me (touch wood) that in those same circumstances again, if I followed my own procedures laid out above, I wouldn’t encounter those same problems.

The automatic duck software, as I recall, about 5 years ago at least was very popular paid software, which though a far from foolproof metric, leads me to believe people must have used it in ways that were at least similar if not the same as what Michelle is aiming for.

I wonder then, what is that has you and Shane so skeptical of this process, is there something else we should know that makes the use of the automatic duck tools in conjunction with Final Cut Pro 7 for the purposes of AAF import and export functionality inherently unreliable or risky? Though in a year I’ve never had to do this since that one occasion nor had I needed to before my original post, I had rather hoped I could say I was prepared should I ever need to again next time being both in possession of the tools and now tbe procedures as well. What don’t I know?