J Smith
Forum Replies Created
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Wow. What a loaded post. In the same manner I refrain from commenting on FCP because I am only somewhat accustomed with it, I think perhaps Chill should brush up on Avid, or refrain from bashing it quite as strongly.
I’ve cut Avid for nearly 10 years, and yah it’s REALLY showing its age. FCP DOES trump it in many respects, but not necessarily the ones you list.
“Even using hot keys, you have to press twice the buttons to do the same task in Avid you do with one in FCP, making editors arguably less productive.”
I hear this a lot, but have found this to be the opposite. But then again, I don’t know FCP that well–perhaps I was going the long route…
“FCP can black and code a tape, Avid can’t.”
Why do you need either to black a tape? Hit “play and rec”.
“FCP with decklink hardware has built in serial deck control, the Meridians I’ve used all rely on that cheap keyspan USB to serial adapter, which is constantly loosing comunication with the deck.”
I have no idea if our systems use a keyspan adapter because its never given me a problem. Nor have any of the >20 Avids I’ve worked on, ranging from Composers to Xpress Pro’s.
“FCP creates standard quicktime files which can be taken to any other station and worked on, AVID creates proprietary files which appear as jumbled crap in their folders, useless, unless “exported out of the AVID”, which can be very time consuming for lots of clips.”
This is a very valid point.
“You are very limited in terms of how many filters you can put on a clip unless you nest them, I’ve had Avid comps 9 layers deep, and the AVID has to render each effect individually, so YOU ACTUALLY WATCH IN SHOCK AS THIS SUPER DUPER AVID RENDERS THE SAME BLOODY CLIP 9 TIMES, OVER AND OVER!!!!”
What are you talking about?! Render the top layer only, or use a “submaster” and render that layer. Learn it before you slam it.
“(These are but a few of my gripes with Avid, which I edit with daily by the way)”
If you cut on the Avid daily and make comments like this, I have to wonder just how well you know the software. Maybe self-taught editing has it’s shortcomings?
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Hmmmm, maybe it works differently on Meridian systems (I’m on Xpress, not Xpress Pro HD), but the slight “fringing” I’m describing seemed to be present regardless of file format or alpha vs. transparency. Mind you most of our stuff is now either AE or Marquee so it’s no longer an issue. Or maybe I’m remembering it wrong–that’s certainly possible!
You’re right though, this certainly doesn’t seem to be the issue he’s encountering.
Sorry I couldn’t help.
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Avid always premultiplies the alpha (unless you’re importing under something like Boris where you can choose).
Make your alpha with a visible background color that will mesh with the video you’re putting it over. Need a white font with no black fringing? Make the alpha with white behind it. There will be slight fringing, but being white it will match.
Give that a try–good luck.
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I wouldn’t bet the farm on doing it in Vegas. The AAF support is terrible at the moment (at least with Avid AAFs). I’m told that AAF doesn’t work very well period, but that’s little consolation.
If Vegas won’t open it, you might need a new .dll. Details in this thread:
https://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=394776
Good luck!
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I’ve had terrible luck with Ghost. Our station stopped using it too–corrupted ghost files 3/4 of the time regardless of medium. Now we use Acronis True Image
https://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/
Much happier. And cheap.
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” Yes in SD regular PCI 16bit /33MHz is more than enough you can safley use any blackmagic broduct for SD
I have been using declink extreme on regular pci slot with no problem ”
No dropped frames on capture? Or are you just referring to playback? This intriuges me…
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I should add that Avid’s scaling is (in my experience) quite bad. Not sure if that’s your problem–but try feeding it 480. I’m thinking it will like that much better.
good luck.
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DV is 720 x 480, not 720 x 486 – that’s D1.
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that explains it. thanks!
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I could be way off base here, or just misinterpreting your answer. I don’t believe the multibridge comes with a PCI(X) card–I’m pretty sure it is meant to replace it.
Multibridge —-> PCIe slot
not
Multibridge —-> Decklink ——> PCI-X slot
“Connect the built-in PCI Express 10 Gbps connection to any supported Windows XP or Mac OS X based computer and Multibridge instantly turns into the ultimate break out box capture and playback solution.”
The “instantly” part makes me believe it doesn’t require or come with a decklink card. Or perhaps you simply meant that decklink was integrated into multibridge.
Wow, now *I’m* confused.