[Michael Hancock]

Alexa records to DNxHD now. It’s already going somewhere else (or at least wisely expanding its recording options).

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

[Shane Ross] “I don’t know of another camera that shoots to that type of card.”

The Alexa records to SxS, and it looks like JVC has an adapter that records .mp4 files to it:

https://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL101824

Perhaps this is where the footage came from? I’m not sure if Avid has an AMA for it, though. Can you do a straight import? Is the SxS card recognized by your computer?

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

Go to your Timeline settings, click on the Display tab, and make sure “Show Marked Waveforms” is unchecked.

Also, on your timeline, click the arrow to the right of the top left timecode display. It will expand little boxes out on the record side track panels. Check the waveform marking there (first little box). See if that helps.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

Have her get Media Composer. If she’s going to do stringouts pretty quickly she could download the trial and run it for 30 days. If she needs it past that she can buy a license then.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

Instead of trimming just use Extend Edit. I believe it defaults to P (or I used to always map it to P, can’t remember which). So park your playhead, activate the track you want trim to that point, and hit Extend Edit. It will trim to your playhead and leave your playhead in place.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

To use subst, you’ll need to open a command prompt and type a simple command. However, your archive folders must be set up right. To do that, set them up like this:

Say your archive hard drive is drive B:. I liked this folder structure – B:/CLIENT01/ProjectA/media. I want Windows to see the ProjectA folder like it’s a drive (no spaces can be used either – use underscores). For Avid to then see my media I need to make the Avid media folder structure in the ProjectA folder and put my media in it.

So, my archive would look like this: B:/CLIENT01/ProjectA/Avid MediaFiles/MXF/1/media

The space in Avid MediaFiles is ok, because we’re only telling the OS to look at ProjectA as a drive. You have to pick a drive letter, and it can’t be a drive already in use. In this example, we’ll use Drive X:

Now to bring our media online without moving it. Open a command prompt. Type exactly this (without quotes) “subst X: B:/CLIENT01/ProjectA” You’re telling the OS, substitute drive X: for the folder at B:/CLIENT01/ProjectA. When you open Explorer you’ll see a new Drive X: if you did it right. Open that drive and you should see an Avid MediaFiles.

When you launch Avid it will also see the new Drive X:, recognize its folder structure, and scan your drive, index and create new databases if necessary and your project is now online! The best part is you can open that project, do a revision, render and capture/import to Drive X:, thereby archiving as you work.

Let me know if this makes sense or if you run into issues. I used this exclusively when I was on a PC and could bring any project back online in a matter of seconds.

EDIT: I may have the slashes backwards – they were slashes originally but the Cow stripped them when I posted. Not sure why, so you may have to just use a everywhere I used a /

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

Are you on a PC? If you are, you can used the subst command to make the OS think folders are drives – it’s awesome for bringing an archived project back to life for a minor change. Saves you from having to move the footage from its archived folder and moving it back.

Let me know if you’re on a PC and I’ll find an earlier post about using the subst command.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

The Avid media has to be in the right folder structure at the root of your drive. It goes like this:

DRIVE\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\1\Media – where 1 is any numbered folder (could be 1, 2, 53, 75, etc), and the Avid media goes in it.

Once you have these folders set up and the media in the numbered folder, start Avid and it will scan the drive and reindex the databases. Now when you open your project it should automatically relink. Chances are your media isn’t in the right place so Avid simply doesn’t see it.

Let me know if this works.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

[Daniel Rutledge] “Avid didn’t sink money into developing that up just so they could compete with iMovie on iMovie’s home field (or vimeo’s free app). It’s a preview, a warning to the Avid faithful, and an attempt to cash in early on the research that has been going into Avid X or whatever they are going to call it. “

Nope. The Avid iPad app is in no way related to Media Composer, Symphony, or DS. It’s a consumer app from the consumer division, and a lot of the reviews I read rate it higher than iMovie in function and power.

Avid isn’t going to port Media Composer or their other professional grade NLEs to an all touch interface anytime soon (I wager – never). Touch interfaces could be useful for very specific tasks, but I’d wager again that they will never replace a keyboard/mouse/wacom combination.

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Michael Hancock
Editor

[Michael Hancock]

Lol! It happens. I was using MDV and had used MediaMover before that, then MediaCopy v3 came out and it did everything I needed and more. Now that it’s free it’s even better!

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Michael Hancock
Editor