[Michael Hancock]

I originally posted this in the FCPX: Debate forum. Oops. Looks like our conversation got moved but my last reply didn’t. See below:

[Charlie Austin] “If you do it in the browser, in list view, click the disclosure triangle adjacent to to the clip and you’ll see all markers on that clip with notes etc. You can name the markers with your answers, or put in the noes filed.”

Thank you Charlie! Although I’d love to have a separate tabbed window, this definitely gets the job done for me.

[Charlie Austin] “Also, for what you’re doing, I’d consider selecting a range containing the answer, and the favoriting or using keywords on the ranges and putting your notes in the notes field for the range”

That’s sort of what I’m doing already. The marker is at the beginning of the answer, then I favorite the portion relevant to that marker. Twirling that triangle open lets me see all my notes at once and in reference to the entire interview while being able to quickly navigate through them, select a favorite and cut it into the timeline.

Thanks for your help.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

If it’s Avid media, this has to be the file structure (note the capitalization and spacing):

DRIVE:/Avid MediaFiles/MXF/1/[MEDIA GOES IN NUMBERED FOLDER]

I don’t know how ISIS does it, but I work off an EditShare and it names the media folders based on the user’s computer name. So instead of a 1 folder I see iMacHancock.1 and iMacPostIngest.1 and stuff. So if I take those folders to a local media drive I have to rename the iMacHancock folder to 1 or 2 or 3, etc… If the folder the media is in isn’t a number, Avid won’t scan it.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

[Nick Ravich] “*I realize my small prod house is running 7.0.2 Media Composer, pre-subscription. Looks like latest level is 8. Wondering what I’m missing out on in terms of transcode quality/codecs/color correcting?”

New in Media Composer 8.3 (look for the “What’s new Guide v8.x” links).

Quick overview of MC v8.x over MC7:
1. LUT options on the source side, better AMA management, better mixing of frame rates.
2. Support for greater than HD video (2K, 4K, etc…). DNxHR codec for +HD material.
3. Background Render/Transcode/Consolidate. This might be a big help for you.
4. New/better project window.
5. Search for markers (this was huge for me).
6. Image cache for thumbnails (great if you use thumbnail view).
7. Quick Filter in project window (helpful to find bins in big projects)
8. Change the color space you’re viewing in (Rec709, RGB, etc…)

Personally, I like MC8.3.1. It’s been solid for me and the improvements have been great. I work with a ton of footage shot in LogC, so being able to apply a LUT on the source side, or as an effect on the timeline, is fantastic. And the marker searching is fantastic. Those were reason enough for me to upgrade.

[Nick Ravich] “*Also, started ingesting footage in MC 7 for 4 hour long series that we won’t finish/CC until a year from now. Typical work flow is AMA/consolidate except in cases – like RED or HDSLR footage – where codecs not native and then I transcode. Wondering if I’m losing anything picture/color wise by not upping the ante to MC 8 now for the ingest?”

Nope. Unless you have +HD footage you want to keep in its native resolution. Otherwise, what you’re doing sounds fine.

[Nick Ravich] “*Really lost on Media Composer and color bit. Now that there’s more and more 10 bit color option cameras, really unclear to me if MC is preserving the 10 bit color. Color bit doesn’t seem to be an option in bin columns. And project settings don’t list color bit either, just color space. FYI – Hope editorially lock in MC, but color correct in Resolve. “

If your footage is 8-bit and you consolidate it, it’s rewrapped as MXF media and stays 8-bit. If it’s 10-bit and you consolidate it, it should stay 10-bit. If it’s 10-bit and you transcode it, pick a resolution with “x” at the end (220x, 175x, etc…). The x denotes 10-bit. Also, go to your render settings and you may want to render everything to a 10-bit codec. But if you’re going to relink and send to a color, it shouldn’t really matter, especially if they’re going to relink to the camera originals. And I think Resolve calculates everything in 32-bit float, so that’s a great way to go. Your colorist can spit out 10-bit deliverables from there to maintain the highest quality.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

[Nick Ravich] “Arri footage is Avid native? Interesting . . . “

If it’s not ArriRAW, it’s just a Quicktime file encoded to either some flavor of ProRes (usually 444), or DNxHD (but DNxHD is a paid option so most camera ops I know don’t have it). You can typically consolidate it into Avid since Avid supports ProRes natively now.

I still offline/online edit for most of my Avid projects though – even the Alexa/Amira stuff. I transcode to DNxHD36 and relink to the original, AMA linked footage at the end for finishing. It works, keeps my system really snappy, and make it easy to drop to a hard drive to edit from home if I need to. For example, my last project had 685GB of Amira ProRes444 files. I transcoded them to DNxHD36 and it only took up about 115GB.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

[Nick Ravich] “Doing the transcode now using the process you suggested. Definitely taking AVID a while to down frame size and re-codec the RED stuff. At DNxHD 220x guessing these are gonna be big files. “

Yeah – it’s going to take a while. I like to set it up before I leave for the night to let it crunch while I’m sleeping.

[Nick Ravich] “*I noticed I have to burrow into each individual RED clip folder in the AMA tool in order to link to individual clips. Definitely a hassle. A way around this?”

Do you have the latest Red AMA plugin? You should be able to select two folders up from the .r3d files – maybe even three folders up. Example folder structure below:

CARD_A1/A001_053G3.RDM/A001_C001_053G3.RDC/A001_C001_053G3.R3D

You should be able to select CARD_A1 and it will AMA link to everything in the A001_053G3.RDM folder (which would be all the footage from the A camera, Card01 (that’s how I organize media). If that doesn’t work, then selecting “A001_053G3.RDM” should definitely work.

So make sure you have the latest Red AMA plugin (I’m not sure what version that is – I have Media Composer 8.3 with Red R3D Plug-In v5.3). And when you AMA link, under the “Files of type:” select “RED R3D (folder)”. Otherwise Avid will guess and gets it wrong a lot.

[Nick Ravich] “*So there’s no consolidating RED original footage in AVID, just transcoding? “

Nope. Red isn’t Avid native, so it can’t consolidate it. It has to be a transcode. Which is part of the reason I love Arri footage – I find it much easier and faster to work with.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

1. AMA link to the Red footage.
2. Select all of it and go to Clip–>Source Settings. Click the FrameFlex tab.
3. Set your scaling/frame dimentions, etc… here so the footage looks how you want it to look (full frame, with slight letterboxing, etc…).
4. Hit Apply to All.
5. Transcode to the DNxHD flavor of your choice (if you want to skip the offline/online process and will finishing with the Avid media pick the highest number possible – likely 175x if you’re in a 24p project). Check “Apply Source Transformations FrameFlex” box before you do to bake in the FrameFlex setup.
6. Edit and output.

Otherwise, transcode to DNxHD36, relink to the Red files when you’re done and send an AAF to your colorist. They can use it to relink to the Red files on their end and output 1080p from there, and they’ll have full access to all the .r3d raw settings.

Or just shoot 1080p to start with. It is easier, but the 4K downsampling can help to give your image a bit more sharpness and can help squash some noise, if necessary.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

Two options:

1. You can edit with the AMA footage. But I don’t recommend this because it’s still not that rock solid and I’ve had sequences get weird when I try to edit with too much AMA footage.

2. Consolidate/Transcode. Select the clips in your bin. Go to Clip–>Consolidate/Transcode. From there you choose the drive for the files to go to, and whether you consolidate or transcode them.
You may not be able to consolidate them given they’re XDCam Quicktime files. But I’d try that first, because all that basically does is wrap the files as Avid MXF files and copies them into the Avid MediaFIles folder structure so Avid can track them.
If you can’t consolidate, then Transcode them. Pick the resolution you want (you can pick XDCam), select your media drive, and hit Transcode. If you’re on the most recent version of Avid you can transcode in the background. Otherwise, wait while it does its thing and you’ll have all new clips in your bin when it’s done that you can edit with. I like to make a new bin to put transcoded files in, and I rename the original bin with AMA in the title so I know the footage in that bin is AMA linked.

Regarding the watermark issue – if the watermark isn’t there, and it doesn’t limit you to only using 30 seconds of the footage, I’d say you won the Calibrated lottery! Unless they made their software free at some point. Otherwise, it sounds like it glitched in your favor. You can always email them to ask about it.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

Make sure you install the trial of the Calibrated software and test it before you buy it. I’d hate to see you buy it and have it not work!

Good luck with it!

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

[Lor Porter] “Yes, I’m on a PC… I’ve used video from this videographer a ton of times before – with no issue… I’m going to try the SxS driver first… (that’s what seem to have worked in the past) – there may be a new one… “

Hopefully the SXS driver will work for you and same you the expense of the Calibrated decoder. But does this videography normally supply you with XDCam Quicktime files? Why not the raw XDCam card structure? Then you could avoid all this mess and just AMA link directly to the footage.

[Lor Porter] “And this may be a dumb question… but when you say – import it into Avid… do you mean more than just installing it on the computer I work on? Sorry – just this end of everything makes me unsure.”

I mean import your footage. If you import your footage via File–>Import you’re using old code and the import is slow. If you AMA Link to the Quicktime files then Consolidate/Transcode them you’ll be using new code that magnitudes faster than the old import method. Once you install the Calibrated decoder you don’t need to do anything else to Avid. Just start it up and it should see the decoder and read the footage (aka – no more white screen).

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

I’m going to guess that you’re on a PC? If you are, you’ll need to buy a decoder. I used Calibrated XD Decode when I had a PC and it worked. You can download a demo to see if it works, and if it does buy it and import into Avid (or better yet, AMA and consolidate/transcode).

https://www.calibratedsoftware.com/Products/XDDecodeV2/QXD.php

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Michael Hancock
Editor