Michael Hancock
Forum Replies Created
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Recreate your user settings. It’s really the only way to know that they’re good. If you imported settings from another Avid and it’s a different version, weirdness might happen. The safest bet is to just make a new user, recreate everything, then save that to a disc or flashdrive. That way, if you lose them again, you can reload the settings created specifically for that version of Avid.
Good luck,
Michael.
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[Set Apart] “if I want to keep my media seperate, then I need to create the virtual drive. “
Yes. You keep the media in an OMFI MediaFiles folder, but you can put that into a folder that’s named after your project.
Say your project is called CarDealer. Make a folder called CarDealer on your media drive. Inside that folder put your OMFI MediaFiles folder–inside that folder is all the media for the CarDealer project. If you started Avid now it wouldn’t see the CarDealer footage because the OMFI MediaFiles folder isn’t at the root of the drive–it’s in a folder.
Now make the folder CarDealer a virtual drive–Avid will no longer see the CarDealer folder as a folder, but as a drive, and that means OMFI MediaFiles is at the root of that drive, which means Avid sees it and your media is back online, and all contained in the CarDealer folder! When it’s time to back it up just transfer the entire folder to an external drive or burn it to a disc.[Set Apart] “And if I want to simply move the media from one drive to another, then I can just drag it into an already established OMFI folder and Avid will read it?”
Exactly. You can take the media from 100 projects and throw it all into one OMFI MediaFiles folder and you’ll be good to go. You might need to delete the database and index file to force Avid to rescan, but Avid is pretty good about noticing something changed and rescanning on its own.
[Set Apart] ” automatically assumed that if I took media from one folder (OMFI files) and put them on another drive with the SAME FOLDER NAME (OMFI files), that the media wouldn’t relink.”
Nope, it will relink without a problem. This is one of the strengths of Avid–you can take media from one project and drop it into the media folder on another drive/system and you’ll be right back to editing as if nothing happened.
Michael.
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Like I said, I could be wrong!
Thanks for the clarification Shane.
Michael.
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Unless I’m really mistaken, 29.97 runs at 30fps. The 29.97 is just a counting system–no actual frames are “dropped” during playback, but the numbers on the timecode are so it reflects real time. That way a 30 minutes show is actually 30 minutes long.
Or I could be completely wrong. I need to google it again.
Michael.
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[Paris MkVI] “Save this on your desktop with a .BAT file extension. Then just double-click it (before launching Avid) and Windows (and Avid) will now see your “other media” folder as a virtual drive.”
Excellent advice. I did this at my last job because we had so many projects that needed to be online all the time, and it was easier to media manage/back them up if they were in their own seperate folders.
TO take Paris’ advice one step further–if you plan on using virtual drives everytime you start Avid, put the .bat file you create in the Startup folder in Windows (click the Start button on your taskbar, then Programs, then Startup. Drag it there). Now, everytime you start Windows it will load your virtual drives. Just make sure you wait a couple of seconds for it to load after you start your computer before you fire up Avid.
Michael.
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[Tcurren] “Digibeta is actually a little over 2:1 compression. So you won’t be losing anything.”
I didn’t know that. Cool. 7:30am and I’m already learning stuff.
Michael.
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2:1 is fine for broadcast. If DV25 (about 5:1 compression) can play back, 2:1 is pure gold!
Seriously though, unless you’re doing heavy color correction or effects there’s no need to go to uncompressed. I spent two years at a TV station cutting promos/topicals/commercials etc…at 2:1 and the engineers never had a problem with it.
What’s the original source? Beta SP, Digibeta, DV? Again, unless you’re doing really heavy color correction don’t bother recapturing. You won’t see a difference.
Michael.
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[Set Apart] “How come Avid wouldn’t RELINK? I selected the proper drive.
Maybe because I renamed the OMFI folder when I moved it?”
That’s exactly why it won’t relink.
OMF files must be stored in a folder called OMFI MediaFiles at the root of your drive (for example, D:\OMFI MediaFiles). Put them anywhere else and Avid won’t see them, and you’ll have media offline. It’s okay to copy media from one drive to another, but if you want to continue to use it the media must go into another OMFI MediaFiles folder (note the capitalization and spacing–it must be exactly as I typed it).
The fact that ProTools tried to open may be what caused things to freak out. There are certain combinations of ProTools and Xpress Pro versions you have to install to use both successfully on the same system. I have no idea what combinations those are because I’ve never used ProTools, but I know that some people who use it can’t upgrade their edit system with every new release because it breaks things.
Did you update your Xpress Pro at some point? If so, ProTools may have broken things. I would try power cycling the Mojo first, then a reinstall of the software next. Just make sure to back up projects if you reinstall–it shouldn’t be necessary, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry, right?
Michael.
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[Dave LaRonde] “That’s a really weird bug in Avid. In a perverse way, it makes me feel better about editing on Apple’s bug-ridden Final Cut Pro.”
It’s not a problematic bug if you’re in NTSC land. 🙂
I’ve never worked in PAL, but apparently this wasn’t an issue in Xpress Pro 5.2/Media Composer 2.2, but with the release of 5.5/2.5 it reared its ugly head. Luckily there’s an easy workaround (change your field order when rendering), but if you have a stock library of renders that are DV LFF in PAL it’s time to rerender everything or roll back to an earlier version.
Honestly, though, I feel bad for our PAL friends. Between Avid’s field order problems and FCP’s issues (Color was struggling with PAL, wasn’t it?), PAL users aren’t getting much love. Someone from Europe needs to develop an NLE that everyone loves and adopts, then they can mess with the NTSC folks!
Michael.
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Shut down Avid, unplug the Mojo, wait a few minutes, plug it back in, restart Avid. It sounds like the driver on your Mojo was rolled back and now it isn’t working. By power cycling it (unplugging it and plugging it back in) you may be able to force Avid XPress to rescan it and reinstall the correct firmware upgrade.
If that doesn’t work, you could try to reinstall Xpress Pro. Something might have gotten corrupted when you double-clicked the OMF.
Beyond that, I’m not sure what’s going on.
Michael.