Michael Hancock
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I used to do this into an old Meridien for news promos. Just ran the highest quality I could get out of the DVR into the Meridien box, turned off deck control and hit Record. You should be able to do at least composite, but run component out of the DVR and into your Adrenaline if you can to get better quality.
Michael
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We’re entirely SD. There’s only one station in our area that even accepts HD, and I don’t know that anyone has ever actually submitted a spot to test whether or not it works. One station has changed to HVX200 cameras but shoot DV25 because the rest of their infrastructure isn’t HD ready, and the economy has pushed those plans back by at least another year.
I know of three people in town with some form of HD cameras, but they master everything in SD. It’s probably going to be at least a few more years before HD takes off at all here.
Michael.
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Do you have an audio card? If you’re using onboard audio and it’s Realtek, that could be the problem. It was a big problem for a long time with Avid systems. If you can find a Soundblaster Audigy 2 card put it in there, go into Bios and disable your onboard audio, than try again.
Also, your graphics card isn’t approved, so like MichaelP said that could be the problem. Did you uninstall the current graphics drivers and install the drivers Bob was talking about? Avid is very, very specific about what drivers to run.
Michael
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I’d bring it in at 1:1. I believe Beta is basically a 2:1 or 3:1 compression, but if you bring it in at 1:1 you know you aren’t possibly recompressing it anymore. DV50 is nice because it preserves the 4:2:2 color from Beta, but it’s about a 3:1 compression I believe. So 1:1, while a bigger file size, at least isn’t compressing it anymore.
As far as 10-bit goes, Beta is only 8-bit I think so you really aren’t gaining anything there. The only advantage is that you have a bigger color space to work in, but it can’t add anything that’s already there. I suggest capturing 1:1 8-bit, trying to pull a key, then recapturing at 10-bit and see if it’s any cleaner. I’m guessing it won’t be.
Michael
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[Lu Nelson] “I’ve installed the Avid PE Codecs on the same system I’m using AE on, I should be able to render directly to an Avid Codec (which support Alpha too), and which MC should recognize and allow the Import step to be faster, is that correct? (basically just copy and not transcode)”
Correct, but you’ll need to make sure of a few things. First, make sure your AE comp is the right frame size for your Avid project. For example, if you’re working in a 720p project make sure your comp is 1280×720. Then decide what resolution you want to import at and render to it. For example, DNxHD75 29.97. Check that your colors are good and render to the right field order (if any).
Now, when you import your AE render into Avid set your import options to Image Properly Sized for Current Format, 601/709 color, set the field order (if there is one), and if you rendered to an Avid codec that supports alphas choose to Keep Existing alpha. Also set your import compression to match the compression you rendered to (for example, DNxHD 75). This should result in a fast import.
A lot of editors still render to Animation because it’s great quality, cross platform, and NLE agnostic. Plus there was a problem, I believe, with alphas on the Avid codecs at one point. I haven’t had problems with them lately, but I remember a few releases back the alphas weren’t as clean as they were with Animation.
Michael.
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[Lu Nelson] “when I switch back to FCP it detects the change, reloads the file and I keep working.
What’s the Avid equivalent to doing this?”
Batch Import. You’re right that Avid imports all external audio/graphics, converts them to MXF or OMF media (depending on your Media Creation settings), and puts them in it’s own file structure.
It’s not as fast as FCP because you have to wait for the imports, but if it’s just graphics and audio the imports are super fast, and as a result Avid typically offers more realtime than FCP (especially with alphas).
To Batch Import, select whatever files you need to update in your bin and hit delete, choose to keep the Master Clip but delete the media files. All of the master clips/effect clips stay in your bin but are now offline. Now select them and Batch Import. Your Avid will remember the import settings for each file and the original file path so you can just hit OK and it will reimport and autoupdate everywhere the files are used. You also have the option to change the import settings if you need to.
I personally prefer Avid’s method because I keep all revisions of AE renders, photoshop files, etc…instead of overwriting them. Then, when I batch import I change the file path to point to the newest revision. It will import those revisions and update just like you’d expect, but if you need to roll back to an earlier version of the graphic you just batch import again and point back to the original file. It’s basically the “replace file” option in After Effects. I don’t know if FCP can do that, but it’s great when you have a producer or client who decides to go back to Revision03 instead of staying with Revision05.
Hope that answers your question, and keep asking if you have more. Media Composer is a very deep program.
Michael
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That’s odd. I can tell you that the two can definitely co-exist, as I’m running them both with the old analogue Mojo.
Are you Mac or PC? What OS version (OSX, XP Pro or Home, Vista “??”), what version of Quicktime do you have, what kind of storage are you running, has anything else at all been updated either by you or by the system automatically? Any other cards installed, and what firewire port is the Mojo on?
Michael
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You’ll have to use the media tool if you go the omf route. Just open it, select the drive you dropped file into, choose to show only Master Clips and have a custom sift set up to sort by date, most recent at the top. Your newest additions should be there. Ought to be quick and simple. That said, I haven’t done this (especially with a LanShare), but I’m pretty sure it will work. I render to Quicktimes so I have a backup.
If you decide to continue with the Quicktime route, render to an Avid codec. The files are typically a lot smaller than Animation and they’ll fast import your Avid (make sure you render to 601 color and in the full frame size for your project).
Michael
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[Beau Baker] “Can I have an edit system devoted soley to motion graphics and just run Avid software for cutting video?”
Yep. If you have your Adrenaline hooked to your broadcast monitor just turn one of your Mojo systems into a graphics station and use Media Composer in software only mode. The issue will be that you can’t properly monitor your footage on an HD display (Mojo is SD only), but if you rememeber to color check everything on your Adrenaline before you export for FTP uploads or dump to tape you should be fine.
Also, find out about your lease. I’ve seen a lot of leases with $1 buyouts when they expire. If your leases are close to being up, you may be close to owning everything for cheap. Then you should have plenty of money for Maya.
Michael.
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Connecting it to your system is pretty easy. Plug the firewire into the Adrenaline, plug the other end into your computer.
As far as hooking everything else up, what do you need to connect it to? Also, does it have the DNxHD board for HD?
Michael
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I’ll be working late.