[Michael Kammes]

Hi Boruke:

I dig your app, did some experimentation with it a year or so ago for this very purpose.

The above (and below) link has a compiled version which does this.

https://michaelkammes.com/avid/play-avid-mxf-for-free/

~Michael

.: michael kammes mpse
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[Michael Kammes]

Thanks – hoping some enterprising soul takes this to the next level with a nice front end 🙂

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[Michael Kammes]

Well, that is an easier way of explaining what I tried to do in the last portion of the post 😉

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

A few different ways.

You can use the Audio Punch in Tool, or the Capture tool. Depends on what gear you have.

Check this out: https://community.avid.com/forums/t/88651.aspx

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[Michael Kammes]

Another solution may be to make a freeze frame of the entire frame and crop out everything but the the “good” image. Place this small cropped image on a black background which only covers the lower third of the screen (to allow for the dissolve of the upper moving image). Remember, this is layered, not merged.

At the point the video stutters, back up 1 frame, and lay in the above composition. Manually move the small cropped image and black lower third into position, where the image would be if the video had not stuttered. Keyframe the movement. Then, cut back to the original video when the stuttering is done. In fact, since it’s on the screen for a while without anything else, you could do this “cut away” for a few seconds until the image moves off screen. You could even do this at the very beginning of the image moving from the left….redo the entire movement across the screen. With this method, which would eliminate any matching issues. In essence, redoing the entire movement with a mask over the “wrong” video.

This can be done in Avid, but would probably be easier in After Effects…or heck, even FCP. It’s not hard at all.

Hard to describe, hope this makes sense. I suggest asking around and offering pay, perhaps even in the Jobs Offered forums here. We all work hard and would like to be compensated.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

You’re 100% right on the “mechanism to direct traffic”. That’s what the Unity file system does, and why JUST a file level locking SAN doesn’t cut it.

Facilis emulates the Unity structure – that is, the volume is multiwrite, and the sequences are written so separate folders to avoid collisions, but the media is truly shared. However, a Facilis volume is formatted to match the Host OS – and has a software switch to fool the Avid into thinking it’s a Unity volume.

As a side note(s), this has been less than reliable over the past few years following v.4.5. Some successes, some not. However the current incarnation – I’ve personally beat the piss out of, and it seems to work as promised. Wish I could post some AJA Speed Test results, but whatever reason, they do not reflect the correct throughput. I’m getting uncompressed 4:4:4 video in Avid via AMA or in FCP from a shared multi-write volume in file emulation mode, yet AJA Speed Test shows under 200 MB/s. Go figure

Editshare, I haven’t played much with in several years, but they do some sort of bin locking as well, I believe.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

That’s why I said “almost”!

Avid does indeed need the volume to be mounted in order to use it.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

I think Bob was referring to a pseudo shared project architecture. Editshare and Facilis have their own ways of project sharing to emulate (or at least resemble) the Unity shared project ability.

Avid clients can sit and use almost any SAN (albeit with some performance limitations), but for shared project workflow, the choices are limited.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

Yes, if you export a DNxHD file, and he downloads and installs the DNxHD codec pack, he can open the file in FCP. It may not play smoothly, but he can certainly do what he wants with it, including export with no issue.

It does beg the question that if all he is going to do is bring it into FCP and export it…why not just have him open it in Compressor and bypass FCP all together? *shrugs*

Buying FCP ain’t gonna help you, FCP won’t run on your editing system, you’d have to buy a Mac. I presume you know that!

I was hesitant to suggest it, but there are other codecs you could try and export to, but they all have caveats. Uncompressed will be a massive file size compared to what you’re doing, probably on a factor of 10 (ballpark), but should work on both. Other codecs all have their caveats; loss of quality, or a gain in file size, or RT performance. Codecs are a pain.

~Michael

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[Michael Kammes]

Apple is stingy with the Apple ProRes codec on a PC, in terms of encoding. Decoding (playing) yes – encoding to…not so much. Thus, there is nothing free you can do.

Products like Telestreams Episode can do it, however there is a $500 pricetag.

DNXHD should work. He should ensure he’s downloading the most current. The problem is also that FCP can’t playback DNxHD files in RT easily. Yes, it will see them, but most likely will not play smoothly.

Once solution, if the client can do some work, is to have them download a free trial of media composer for the Mac. Send him the entore project and media, and he can export ProRes files. Headache, I know, but that’s Post for ya.

An alternative would be export into another Codec, if possible.

~Michael

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