[Job Ter burg]

1. In the Settings tab, under Timeline settings, you will find the option to ignore the track selectors when skippping from cut to cut. I think that does what you want it to do.

2. No, you can’t have filler space after your last shot. A lot of folks (like myself) cut in an end leader or one frame of black video, then add an amount of filler before that, and then you have a bit of “working space”.

[Job Ter burg]

If you actually want to _share_ the media (using the media on two systems at the same time) you’ll need some sort of SAN, like Unity or Terrablock or Editshare.
Other than that, if you need to move a media drive from one to the other, you’ll run into the issue that Macs need HFS+ formatted drives, whereas PC’s use NTFS formatted drives. Both can use FAT, but those are far from ideal for media storage.
The solutions I know are MacDrive on the PC (will allow your PC’s to read & write to HFS+ formatted drives) and Paragon (will allow your Macs to read and write to NTFS formatted drives).
I’ve pretty intensively used MacDrive for a few years, and that works well. I’ve only used Paragon occasionally, and found it disappointing, but that might have had to do with the type of drive I was trying to mount.
Either way, these solutions are not really supported for use as media drives on Avid systems. I can say that I have used HFS+ drives on my PC’s for Avid media (usually offline resolutions) and that worked fine. However, OMFI MediaFiles folders can get pretty crowded and having more than 3-5000 files in a folder will definitely slow down finder performance when trying to open such a folder on a PC with MacDrive. Since the new file format, MXF, has a different folder structure (limiting the amount of files per subfolder to 5000), that would be a better option.
Also, you might find that if you move the media from a Mac to a PC or vice versa, that the system will want to rebuild the media databases. On large projects, that can take considerable time.
Practically, the files and folders themselves are completely exchangeable between platforms (although older file formats like SD2 are limited to older Mac systems).
HTH

[Job Ter burg]

It’s a bit like asking: how do I build a house?, but I’ll give it a shot.
In general, after offline editing, a conform needs to be done at final resolution. Traditional conforming would mean the cutting of the actual original camera negative film. That conformed negative film could then be printed for theatrical distribution copies (although usually, intermediate safety copies would be made first). Most effects would have to be made by ordering opticals from optical houses (analog photographic processes), or would have to be done digitally (transfer to digital files first, processed digitally, then burnt to film again). Grading of the image would be done by a color timer, which would determine the exposure levels during printing.

In the last decade, the digital intermediate process has taken over most conforming. That means that all shots that were used in the edit are retransferred from the original camera negative to a digital file (or sometimes tape), then conformed to the offline. All effects are conformed/added/enhanced there as well. Grading also happens in the diital domain (allowing much more manipulation than is possible in trditional color timing). Afterwards, the digital intermediate will be recorded onto film by machines like an ArriLaser (you put digital files in and it will burn them to 35mm interneg or interpos material). Afterwards, 35mm prints are derived from that and distributed.

About DI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_intermediate
About ArriLaser: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrilaser

Since stuff like the ArriLaser allows for high quality film recoring of digital sources, any digital source is possible. So you can shoot a film on video (SD or HD) or with a digital cinema camera (Red, Sony, Thomson et al.), process everything digitally, then record to film. You could also transfer 16 or 35mm film to (HD) video, edit that, and record it to film. Digital grading can be done on various types of equipment, with different pros and cons (linear versus logarithmic color space).

In modern cinema post production, many ways lead to Rome, and workflows vary from simple to complex, from expensive to cheap, from high end to low end.

[Job Ter burg]

Hi Mohamed,
There’s a pretty elaborate segment about fiml projects in the Avid manuals, I guess you could start there.
Basically, today’s common practice is to transfer film negative to standard def videotape for offline editing. During the telecine session, identification codes are logged. The videotapes are captured into an NLE, together with the log. In the end, physical negative conforming or digital intermediate conforms are done based on an EDL and or cutlists plus the logs.
So basically, as an editor you are using the same equipment you are using for video editing. The log files are “extra”, and you’ll need to understand either PAL or NTSC pulldown for getting 24fps / 23.98fps footage in 50i or 60i environments.
You don’t capture straight from film (altough Avid’s Media Station in combination with a telecine could do this).

[Job Ter burg]

I disagree with Kenton. In 16×9 projects, there is NO way to maintain pixel aspect ratio, it will always screw up imports. Pan & Zoom is not always necessary, and is a memory eater.
I’ve used the following workaround: switch the 16×9 SD project to an HD project, import the graphics (maintain aspect ratio), switch back to SD, transcode the imports to SD.
Only HD projects can convert from square pixels to a 16×9 image, in SD projects, the conversion is always done based on the pixel aspect ratio for 4×3 display. It is one of the stupidest things in Avid these days, and something that has lacked proper addressing for at least 10 years.
So as far as who deserves the hard time here, I am of a different opinion…. 😉

[Job Ter burg]

I’ve seen import problems with filenames that have non-standard characters (or if the filenames are too long), but that is on Win XP.

[Job Ter burg]

Do find out what the TK house can give you. Sometimes they are offering to provide a take-based Flex or ALE, even if the cam did not record TC. If that is not an option, you’ll have to manually subclip, which is not too bad, especially if you have to manually sync up as well. Let us know how things turn out for you.

[Job Ter burg]

There’s of course also another option, which is to capture in 1080/24p DNxHD36, then offline in HD, or transcode to 24p PAL. This would allow you to capture picture and sound in one go, without any speed conversions during capture. But you would need an Avid with HD capturing possibilities.

[Job Ter burg]

Common workflow for tape based 24p posting in the PAL world is to set the deck to 25fps playback and also (separate setting!) to 24->25TC conversion. Then capture into a PAL 24p project. Picture will be slowed down, and any 24 or 25TC based EDL can be generated, since you can copy-convert the Start TC (25TC) into the TC24 column and it will calculate back to the original 24TC. My very first HDCAM 24p project was done this way, and finished in Avid DS. I don’t think there were any issues, except for some motion effects that did not translate well back in those days (but this was 2003 or 2004 or so).

You have to wonder about sound, though. It’s usually a better idea to work double system, but if you do need to use the sound from the tapes, you need to figure out a way to do that, without compromising the sound quality.

[Job Ter burg]

Thanks Michael. You are of course right. However, I believe that ALE does not allow for the necessary header conversion (from Sound TC to AuxTC), so that’s probably why I’ve always done these two steps in a text editor.

The thing is that the Aaton InDaw/KeyLink generated ALE/FLex will put the film/audio timecode it reads from the Evertz reader into a Sound TC column. But the Avid does not accept a Sound TC entry for V-only clips (they need to have A tracks plus a Sound Roll entry). I’ve actuallly been wondering why this is the way it is. TK operators have told me they can’t do it any differently.