[Job Ter burg]

Hi,

If you have a 3.0 system, then you can get up to 3.1.3 for free, which you can download at the dowload center.

The system requirements are on Avid’s website:
https://www.avid.com/products/Media-Composer-Software/system-requirements.asp.
They are for MC 4.0.2/4.0.3 (the current version of the software).

They have specifically tested some iMacs as well. I’ve ran multiple revisions of MC3 and 4 on an unsupported 2.16 GHz 2006 (black) MacBook, and it runs fine.

Not sure where you can find the requirements (and tested configs) for previous versions of the software. The biggest caveat when you are buying a new Mac today, is that these mostly come with Snow Leopard installed, and Snow Leopard is not supported (yet). That said, a lot of folks are making this work, see https://community.avid.com/forums/p/76313/426540.aspx#426540.

You should always stick – religiously – to the Version Matrix. Using newer/older versions of the Mac OS and/or Quicktime often result in unpredictable errors.

[Job Ter burg]

Sorry, but that’s too generic of a question.

If you don’t want to lose quality, you will export either Same As Source or Uncompressed or Animation. This will give you files that are so big, that you usually won’t want to put them on the web.

In order to compress your project for the web, you will need to find a balance between quality (size and compression) and filesize/bandwidth (and possibly the time it takes to compress the file).

I’d say that H264 is a pretty nice format for web distribution. If you can set your QT export module to 2-pass and high quality, that will take time, but will give better results than a 1-pass medium quality. You can set the datarate. For web distribution I use datarates between 1100 and 2500, depending on the length of the clip. As for size, I try to stay below 1000 pixels wide.

If you don’t want to think about it too much, you could use default compression settings like Apple TV or iPhone.

[Job Ter burg]

Hi,

File->ImportP2 Clips/Media is the “old” way to get P2 stuff into Avid. With MC 3.5, AMA was introduced. With AMA you can immediately use the P2 footage for editing.

The “old” way is still available to you in MC4, but you will need to turn off AMA in the AMA Settings in your Project Settings window (and then relaunch the Avid). After that, the File menu will again contain the File->ImportP2 options.

You can also use AMA to open the footage up to the system. Check https://www.avid.com/P2/ for detailed instuctions. Basically, you just have to mount the folder structure you noticed on your drive, by pointing to it. After that, MC will use it as a mediadrive.

[Job Ter burg]

Did you read the information on the webpage I linked to? Should answer your questions. I don’t think they are thrilled that they had to break some compatibility in order to have SMPTE compliance, but they apparently felt they needed to do that. As for installing this on large workgroups: “we recommend that all customers update their codec files to the latest version regardless of their workflow.” This suggests this is an important maintenance update for all systems across your facility.

[Job Ter burg]

You will need to install the newest version of the codec on the system at NBC. There has been a modification in the codec with the introduction of v4. If you have downloaded the latest version of the codec at home, it can be incompatible with the codec on the 3.5.4 system.

More info: https://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=290337

[Job Ter burg]

No it should not, and if it does, it should be able to link back.
Please read my other post. Don’t mess too much if you have little experience with handling Avid media. Could be better to bring someone in that knows how these things work. Not meant in a condescending way, just trying to avoid you losing files you need to get back.

[Job Ter burg]

If the files are still there, you should eventually be OK. Besides: you’ve made a backup of the media for that large project, didn’t you? If not, you now know that you always should.

Let’s step through this. First of all, if you display the “offline” column heading in your bin, does the Avid tell you that your audiotracks are offline? If not, check if your project sample rate matches the sample rate of your sound files, and if that is not the case, then switch the project sample rate, or turn on sample rate conversion. All done in Audio Project Settings.

If the bins tell you the audio media is offline, but you still see it at finder level, open the Media Tool and see if you see any of that audio there. Does it come up in the bins now?

Suppose it does not. Double check if the mediafiles folder is sitting at the root level of the drive, and is actually named OMFO MediaFiles (sic).

You mention using OMFI MediaFiles rather than Avid MXF MediaFiles. Not a problem, but there is a limit to the amount of files that can reside in the OMFI MediaFiles folder. How many files are in there? Should be well under 10,000 files.

Suppose there’s more than 10,000 files in there. Close MC. Rename the OMFI MediaFiles folder to “Media Temp”. Create a new folder named “OMFI MediaFiles”. Drag a few hundred files from Media Temp into OMFI MediaFiles. Lanuch MC. It will rebuild the database. Does it see the media you just added? If so, quit MC, drag some more files from Media Temp into OMFI MediaFiles, and launch MC again.

You need to quit and launch MC in order to make sure that MC will have enough memory available to rebuild those databases in steps, otherwise you will just be looking a frozen system.

If you have a large amount of files, if possible, divide the mediafiles across more than one folder. Having so many files in one folder makes any computer balk, and MC will suffer from it. Best practice is to keep less than 5,000 files per folder. Have to say that I have worked with folders containing 15,000 files, and they worked fine (but were very slow to open from finder).

Hope any of this helps.

[Job Ter burg]

How about drawing a circle in the Title Tool, then track that to the hand?

[Job Ter burg]

That setting determines the display size in Quicktime player. If you choose native, then a pixel remains a pixel, if you choose 4×3 then the display size is corrected from non-square video pixels to square pixels (like the ones on your computer screen), if you choose 16×9 then the display size is corrected from non-square anamorphic video pixels to square pixels.

I have no clue whether that setting matters for your DVD encoder, but I would tend to think it does NOT matter.

[Job Ter burg]

Turning a broadcast monitor upside down will cause severe damages to the monitor. The power supply will probably unsolder itself, and if that doesn’t happen, the rest of the monitor is likely to fry because of wrong heat dispersion.

I had a similar situation a few years back, and got a cheap LCD computer monitor in order to put that upside down. That went just fine.