Michael Hancock
Forum Replies Created
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Select your offline Master Clips in Avid and do a Batch Import.
Michael
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I’ll be working late. -
So your drive flipped out and the 1 folder showed 0Kb, but the drive was showing there was still a lot of stuff on it…and you deleted the 1 folder? Ouch. Is it still in the OS trash bin? If so, I’d restore it and run a drive check again to see if you can recover it. Otherwise, you may have to copy any media your system still sees to another drive and wipe this one. But if the drive is part of a RAID, replace it. It sounds like it’s got problems.
Michael
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[Tim Kolb] “Keep in mind that the ideal settings for output are based on what the playout server is using and getting as close to that as possible to avoid additional transcoding by the station.”
Good point. Like Terry, we never got exact specs from any of the stations in our area that accept/require digital delivery so it was a lot of trial and error to get something that worked for us. There’s still one station in town that requires MPEG2 layer audio, but the rest are the same. I know some agencies just send Quicktimes and take the transcode hit, but we’re trying to avoid that.
That said, I still don’t know for sure if additional transcoding takes place on our files. I’m sure it does, but at least what we see on air looks like it does when it leaves our edit bay.
Terry, continue to push for Comcast to nail down some real specs so you can match exactly what their playout server wants. Failing that, try to set some time aside to do a batch delivery and have them test it on their end to see what works best.
It’s situations like this where I actual miss Beta tapes.
Michael
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Todd,
Do you have any compression software to take your uncompressed spots and convert them to mpeg2? We use Sorenson Squeeze here and haven’t had problems (once we nailed exactly what the stations wanted–good luck with that).
If you have Squeeze, or can set up a custom compression using Adobe Media Encoder or Premiere, here are my settings:
Stream Type: Program Stream
Audio:
MPEG1 Layer Audio
384Kbps
Sample Size 16, Sample Rate 48000
StereoVideo: MPEG2
1-pass CBR (we’ve had problems with VBR playing nice with the stations here)
Date Rate: 10000Kbps
Format: NTSC
Frame Size: 720×480 (we mixdown to DV50 and export 720×480 from our editor)
Frame Rate: 29.97
PAR: 4:3
Field Encoding: Bottom Field First
GOP Structure: I Frames: 15, P Frames: 3, AutoGOP: None, Close GOP unchecked
Advanced MPEG Video Settings: ProfileID: Main, LevelID: Main, ChromaID: 4:2:0 (we’ve have trouble with 4:2:2)A :30 spot is typically about 50MB (includes :08 slate + :02 black) and quality looks fine on air.
Michael
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Try this:
You have a recovered project, lets call it Project01. It won’t open. At the OS level, move all your Avid projects out of the Shared folder and put them somewhere else for safekeeping, temporarily.
Open Avid and make a new project. Call it Project01. Close Avid. Go to the Shared folder and you’ll see that Project01 was made. Open it. Now open the Project01 folder you recovered using the DataRescue program. Copy all the bins from the original Project01 to your new Project01. Open Avid, open Project01 (the new one you just made), and see if all of your bins are there and work.
By making new projects with the same name and copying just the bins over, all the media in your original Project01 will maintain it’s relationships to your new Project01, and since it’s the project that seems corrupt but not the bins you should be in business.
Let me know if this works.
Michael
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I’ve never heard of this one. What OS are you on? Could someone have changed the keyboard at the OS level? Anything change on the system while you were gone? Updates, new programs installed, etc?
Michael
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[Kenton VanNatten] “Avid codecs do not support Alpha.”
Some of them do.
ALPHA SUPPORT:
Avid Meridien Uncompressed
Avid Meridien Compressed
Avid DNxHDNO ALPHA SUPPORT:
Avid 1:1x
Avid DV
Avid DV100
Avid MPEG50Michael
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[Alan Okey] “Could someone post a few bullet points explaining why AVID’s media management is superior?”
Here’s how Avid handles media compared to FCP:
In FCP, when you import something the software looks at where the file is and makes note of it. It leaves the file as is. Move the file, the media is offline. You’re in charge of organizing your media.
In Avid, when you capture or import something (picture, movie files, audio, etc…) Avid makes its own media (either OMF or MXF format) and stores it in a specific folder. Change the name of the folder structure (including capitalization, even) and the media is offline.
For example, if your media drive is M:\ and you import a Quicktime movie, Avid converts the Quicktime to Avid’s OMF or MXF format.
For OMF media, Avid uses this folder structure:
M:\OMFI MediaFiles\(media goes here)
It leaves the original Quicktime alone though, so you can move/delete, change them without affecting Avid’s links to the media (since it created it’s own media of the file).If you’re using MXF it creates MXF media of the Quicktime and stores it here:
M:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\1\(media goes here, and you can have up to 99 numbered folders)
Again, it leaves the original Quicktime alone so if you move it you don’t lose your links to media.Because Avid does this, all of your media is always in the same place and managed by the NLE. It can’t, by default, be scattered across a lot of drives and buried in a lot of folders. Render files go in the same place as the media files.
All of this makes media management much, much easier. In addition, Avid creates database files of all your media and tracks them through that, and it’s pretty much rock solid.
When you “Media Manage” an Avid project you either Decompose your sequence (makes new offline master clips based on just the media you used, plus handles) so you can uprez, or you Consolidate, which creates new master clips and media based on just the media in the sequence (plus handles). Perfect for backing up. Both are pretty much foolproof. Why Avid handles media changes and whatnot better, I’m not entirely sure, but I assume it’s the way it tracks media (the databases) and all the metadata it assigns to clips.
So Avid’s media management is solid, but in exchange for that you lose the openess you have with FCP, Edius, Premiere, pretty much most other NLEs. If you have a ton of Quicktime movies to import you have to wait while Avid creates its own proprietary media of each Quicktime, so you take a hit up front. But once it’s OMF or MXF, you get a ton of realtime at full quality. So really you choose whether you want to take the hit up front in exchange for great media management and realtime capabilities, or you want instant access to your files but have less stable media management and more of a render at the end.
So it’s a tradeoff. I prefer the time hit up front from importing and I hate tracking media so I’m happy to let the NLE take care of it for me. When I have super tight deadlines, though, and a lot of Quicktimes, audio, logos, etc… to import I wish Avid was more open like FCP. Six one, half dozen of another.
Hope that made sense and answered your question Alan.
Michael
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Plug the Adrenaline into your system running 3.0 and it will update the firmware on the Adrenaline so it will work.
Plug it back into your PC running 2.6.4 and it will roll back the firmware to work with 2.6.4. Easy as that.
Michael
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I’ll be working late. -
You may have playback problems. On the PC side, ATI cards were notorious for freezing the frame when you hit play and updating it when you hit stop. Hard to edit when the picture doesn’t move!
Test it out before you buy. Avid just released MC 4.0 and more than doubled the duration of their trial period–it was 14 days, now it’s 30 days. Download it here and install–see if it runs:
https://forms.avid.com/forms/MC4TrialEng
Michael
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I’ll be working late.