[John Cuevas]

There may be another better way, but this works for me.

Open up the digitize tool. Create Tape A & Tape B. Now log all the shots for tape A, but don’t digitize. Highlight all the clips and Cntl-d. Take these new clips into a new bin and close first bin.

Highlight all the clips in new bin. From the “clip” pulldown on top, hit “modify” and then pulldown “set source”. Change the source to tape B. Avid will give a few warnings, hit yes.

Now batch digitize.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

Well for the Project 1 folder, it looks to be a copy of the attic and those are the autosaves. Just take Bins/seq/seq.11 and change it to Bins/seq/seq.avb.

You should be able to open it then.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

Could be other things, but the first thing that jumps out to me is that you’re AE comp is 720 x 405. I’ve never had very good results bringing anything into the Avid that wasn’t at it’s native D1 resolution, 720 x 486.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

Just played with it for a bit-had a terrible logo/text client sent me. It had been grabbed from a website.

I couldn’t do much to fix the text—but I can just recreate that in AE, the logo came out great though. All from a 150×150 jpeg.

Neat little tool. One with a few more features and is pluggable into AE—well I’d pay a few bucks for that.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

Wow, very neat.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

Years ago interviewing for an editing job, after about 10 minutes of chit-chat they brought me into the back, through a tape in and said “all right, just set the bars correctly”. Felt sort of bad for them that they actually had to see that done…must of been some really bad previous applicants.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

I was going to mention AE, but you posted here – basically the same procedure in AE, you probably have more tools available to do it there though.

[John Cuevas]

If you only have an avid at your disposal, you could try inverting the footage. Then use the color correction to crank up the midtones to 235+ white and crush the blacks. Do a video mixdown, then use that layer as a matte.

Johnny Cuevas, Editor
http://www.ckandco.net

[John Cuevas]

Make sure you aren’t running anything else while digitizing. On one of my systems, I can’t log, batch dig and then cruise the Cow…the other system can’t handle it.

If that isn’t the problem, couple of options – try control track. Or black another tape, lay the footage to that tape…then you know you have a pristine time code.

If you are using a tape that’s been used a few times, TC can get a little wierd.

[John Cuevas]

I’m not sure what you mean by no luck with that at all? Have you already tried adding a polarizing filter to your camera? Or are you saying you shot the footage already and can’t reshoot it. Do a google search on polarizer filters and reflections—

If it’s already shot with reflections and such, yes, you will need 2 plates. A clean bkg plate and the foreground plate with him in it. It will take some rotoscoping, also you will probably need to use some caustics and displacement mapping so that the ripples appear on the top layer, after you remove his reflection.