[Michael Hancock]

Answered in the Creative Cow Avid forum. See here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/45/862232?

Mike.

[Michael Hancock]

You may also have corrupt media on that drive. Try this:

Rename the OMFI MediaFiles folder on the firewire drive to xOMFI MediaFiles. This will throw it offline in the Avid. Start Avid, then do a File–>Mount All to ensure the Firewire drive is mounted and available for capture. Try importing a graphic or piece of audio and choose for it to go to the firewire drive. This will create a new OMFI MediaFiles folder, as well as new database files.

Now for the time consuming part:

Minimize Avid. Go to your firewire drive from the desktop. You should have xOMFI MediaFiles and OMFI MediaFiles. Open xOMFI MediaFiles, select a handful of clips (say 10 or 20) and copy them to the OMFI MediaFiles folder. When they’re finished copying maximize Avid. It will rescan and rebuild the databases of your firewire drive. If there is a corrupt piece of media it will tell you. If there is corrupt media delete it. If it scan fine, minimize Avid. Select another 10-20 files from the xOMFI MediaFiles folder and copy them to the OMFI MediaFiles folder. Maximize Avid. It will rescan. Again, if it finds corrupt media it will tell you. Delete the corrupt media. If not it will scan fine.

Repeat this until everything from your xOMFI MediaFiles folder is in the OMFI MediaFiles folder. If there is corrupt media your Avid will find it this way and you can delete it, then recapture it later. Hopefully you have some time to kill because this may take a while, depending on how much media you have on the drive.

Best of luck. Let us know if you get it working.

Michael.

[Michael Hancock]

I don’t think so. When you import a file you lose all timecode and reel information. I’m thinking you’re going to have to recapture if you need that information.

If I may ask, why capture in Premiere Pro if you’re going to edit in Avid? Why not just edit in Premiere or capture to Avid first?

Mike.

[Michael Hancock]

Big problems: Avid Xpress Pro can’t read 720P 25/50. It’s been a huge complaint on the Avid forums and for good reason. I believe you have to go all the way up to Symphony or Nitris before you’re given that capability, although Avid has said they’re working on making it available in Xpress and Media Composer.

It was originally supposed to have been available Q4 of last year, I think, but it still hasn’t surfaced. There have been murmurs that it’s one of Avid’s top priorities, but until it’s released all the promises in the world won’t help you. I believe FCP does 720P 25/50, and possibly Premiere Pro? I don’t use either so I can’t say for sure, but that’s an option for you. In fact, if Premiere Pro does 720P 25/50 that’s the way I would currently go because of their integration with AE, Photoshop, etc…

In the meantime, if you have to use Avid, go to the Avid forums and post your complaint. Here’s a direct link to the 720P 25/50 threads:

https://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/thread/181481.aspx

Good luck.

[Michael Hancock]

I think you’re out of luck. Like Bob said, the Meridien systems are incredibly picky about what you put in them. There are specific configurations that work, and anything outside of that is likely to just not work.

I cut on an Xpress Meridien (Compaq Evo W8000 version 6.1) and we leave it exactly as it is because it works fine now and messing around with it gives us more problems than solutions. We also have an Xpress Pro v5.6 system and a Media Composer Adrenaline v2.6, both running on HP xw8200s. They’re a treat to play with because we can use the RAID storage or hook up some firewire drives and edit off those. I’ve even cut stuff (15:1s) off a USB drive and it did okay. The Meridien, on the other hand, locks up half the time if I try to even consolidate to a firewire drive. I’ve got my fingers crossed it will just melt down one day so I can get a new system, but until then…

Good luck, and if the budget allows get rid of your Meridien systems and get a new Xpress Pro or Media Composer. If the budget doesn’t allow just stick with the tried and true.

Mike.

[Michael Hancock]

You need to render it with Millions of Colors+. The + is your alpha channel. Without it you’ll get a black background (like you’re currently getting). I assume when you import you’re choosing either Use Existing or Invert Existing Alpha, right? That’s what gives you the matte key. The trouble is, there isn’t actually an alpha channel for the matte key to effect, so you’re getting a black background.

Try rerendering with Millions of Colors+. If the Avid codec you’re using doesn’t give you that option it’s because it doesn’t support alpha channels. Animation codec definitely does and is a lossless codec, but takes a little longer to import. Worth it though. Let us know if that helps.

Mike.

[Michael Hancock]

As for capturing SD into an HD project, I can’t help you. Haven’t worked in HD yet.

Concerning your tape issue–just rename your tape. This happens every once in a while and that’s about the only way to fix it. To help prevent your Avid from reading your tape wrong, pop it in and let it roll for a little bit, giving Avid time to detect the Timecode. Otherwise it will assume it’s whatever you have set for your default (DF or NDF). Once Drop or NonDrop is associated with a tape name it can’t be changed. Just give the tape a new name and it’ll fix it.

Mike.

[Michael Hancock]

I’m in the US so I can’t personally attest to any of these training facilities in the UK:

https://www.avid.com/training/centers/index.asp?countryCode=GB

…but to get your hands on an Avid system download it from the Avid website:

https://www.avid.com/freedv/index.asp

This is AvidFreeDV, a stripped down version designed to introduce people to the Avid interface. It’s incredibly limited on what it can do (since it’s free), but its interface is pretty much identical to the Xpress Pro/Media Composer/Symphony interface–it’s just missing most of the features (extra rows of buttons, color correction, center duration, etc…). It’ll help you become familiar with the Avid interface, however, and the Avid way of doing things. Which is modal. Everything has a mode–Edit mode, Effects mode, Trim mode, Segment mode, etc…

Since you’re coming from FCP and Adobe you’re probably used to a lot of freedom in the timeline to just grab clips and drag them about. Avid is much different and doesn’t work well this way. I would definitely suggest following the online tutorials at https://www.avid.com/freedv/tutorials/index.asp to get familiar with it. They will probably annoy you since they’re so basic in nature but they’ll answer some core questions about how the program works.

Good luck with your endeavors, and if you have questions post away.

Mike.

There is also online training available from Avid at https://www.avid.com/training/selfpace/alex.html

[Michael Hancock]

It will work. If you have effects in one system that aren’t in another they won’t show up, but otherwise you shouldn’t have any problems. We bring projects from Xpress Pro 5.6 to an old Meridien system and haven’t had problems.

Mike.

[Michael Hancock]

Still title from both the regular title tool and Marquee default to 2 minutes and I don’t think there’s a setting to change that. You might be able to make the change through a console command but I’m not sure. Why are you wanting to limit your titles to 30 seconds? They don’t take up much space even at 2 minutes.

One thing you could do is make your title, select Export instead of Save, save it to your hard drive, import it back into your Avid and set your import length to 30 seconds. More work than it’s worth though unless you’re that strapped for space, or is there a specific reason you want them shorter?

Good luck! If you find a way to limit title duration let us know.

Mike.