[John Pale]

[Dylan Reeve] “Avid is not going to be able to import a part of a file, it will always import the whole thing. This is probably unavoidable really as various formats are stored in different ways, it would be very hard, programatically, to issolate a smaller part of a video clip from a larger file in a reliable way (what works for Animation QT wouldn’t work for H.264 for example). “

Thats not true. Every Quicktime based editor does this (FCP, to name one). The problem is that Avid does not read Quicktime’s Timecode track.

[John Pale]

If you toggle the clip visibility and not the entire track, you don’t have to re-render the entire track, just the clips involved in the effect.

If you use undo, you don’t even have to re-render.

[John Pale]

[Jake Martin] “An edit assistant captured the DVC HD Pro footage via firewire on a single processor PPC G5 and reported it was coming in out of sync. “

Sounds like the media was captured on an incorrectly configured system. Do you have access to the originals ? You probably need to recapture…or at least be able to examine it for troubleshooting.

[John Pale]

I’ll second Kevins suggestion. The preset for this in Motion is quite good. If you dont want it to move, just export a still.

[John Pale]

[Johan Nordanfors] “My issue is that fcp captures the audio files to one single file and to export each file from the timeline is quite time consuming given the rather large amount of media.”

You don’t have to do that. If you set your sequence to output 4 separate tracks, not only will you be able to output to tape with 4 discrete tracks, your Quicktime exports will also. Make sure you select Discrete Channels in the export dialog

from Page 46 of Volume III of the FCP 6 user manual

Config Pop-Up Menu
Both the Export Audio to AIFF(s) command and the Export QuickTime Movie command
use a Config pop-up menu to determine whether sequence audio output busses
should be exported individually or as a stereo downmix. However, each command has
a different Config pop-up menu in different locations:
File > Export > QuickTime Movie: The Config pop-up menu is in the Audio Settings
area of the General tab of the Sequence Settings window. There are three options:

Stereo Downmix: This option exports a stereo mix to a single stereo QuickTime audio
track and overrides the Downmix button in the Audio Mixer. For more information,
see “Downmixing Multiple Audio Channels to a Stereo Mix” on page 47.

Channel Grouped: Based on your sequence’s audio output groupings, multiple
stereo and mono output busses are exported to corresponding stereo and mono
QuickTime tracks. For more information, see “About Audio Outputs” on page 40.

Discrete Channels: This option exports channels in the same way as the Channel
Grouped option, but each channel in the QuickTime movie audio track is labeled as a
discrete channel, numbered according to the audio output bus that the channel is
assigned in your sequence. Use this option when you want to preserve your
sequence’s original audio output assignments in your exported QuickTime file.
Note: If you reimport a discrete-channel QuickTime file into Final Cut Pro, the
resulting clip appears to have all mono channels.

[John Pale]

[John Grilli] “I have a 2 port external SATA card, I’ll sell it for $75, if your interested, call or email me. 407-694-7077 “

You should take him up on his offer. You are not likely to find a better price than that, and you are minimizing your expenses on a computer that is largely obsolete. You will not be able to move a PCI-X card to a Mac Pro in the future, so you don’t want to spend too much on it.

[John Pale]

Sounds like someone changed the audio output to multichannel instead of stereo, and you are not equipped for multichannel output. Open your current sequence settings (not the general preferences) and set it to stereo and you should hear everything

[John Pale]

sorry about that. But you might want to keep an eye on ebay rather than paying full retail for a new card for that machine.

[John Pale]

Can you afford this?

https://cgi.ebay.com/SONNET-TSATAII-X4I-TEMPO-SATA-X4I-PCIX-CONTROLLER-4_W0QQitemZ260355387254QQcmdZViewItemQQptZCOMP_Printers?hash=item3c9e63ef76&_trksid=p3286.m20.l1116#ht_1580wt_999

PS: I have the same computer….will finally upgrade in the winter, I think. Of course, it means new SATA card, new Kona card…etc. Ugh.

[John Pale]

[Rajarshi Basu] “I have my HD footage on a USB drive, there are no speed issues. “

You should never use USB drives for video. Consider yourself lucky if you are not getting lots of dropped frames. USB delivers data in bursts unlike Firewire which delivers a steady stream. Bad for video work.

As for your “unrendered” labels….delete your thumbnail cache. It will automatically rebuild and should clear up the problem. Using the USB drive might be causing this thumbnail corruption, though not necessarily. Could be just a random occurance, which happens from time to time.

The reveal master clips problem usually means that the sequence was dragged in from another project…are you working on more than one system?