[Pat Horridge]

We consider 3/4 to be a vulnerable format now (as are a few others) so VET handles it a certain way.
Tapes are inspected physically.
Only played once and captured at the highest quality possible.
We always assume only one hit at playback will be possible.
VTRs are cleaned and serviced before each job and monitored by an engineer as the job progresses.
VTRs are adjusted on the fly to optimise playback for that tape. This often includes internal guide and tape path tweaks.

We don’t consider 3/4 inch to be a suitable format for offline then conform.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

Some things to consider:
The VO9850 is a commercial deck not a broadcast deck so has less tape protection. So if the deck isn’t in good nick it could easily shred or damage the tapes.

What condition are the tapes? Age and mould are big problems and can bugger the video heads as well as destroy the remaining tape content.

I don’t think the 9850 has a TBC so you may have issues with horizontal jitter and unstable captures (with composite captures in Avid you can select a more tolerant input flywheel.

The 9850 has proper Y/C out which can go into the analogue Mojo and that will look slightly better.

9 pin control should work but the Timecode card is an option on the 9850 machine (and the tapes may or may not have TC anyway.

Make sure the tracking control is adjusted for optimum playback for each tape. Have the deck top panel open and the PCB board lifted away do you can monitor for tape damage and issues.

Good luck

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

.avs isnt a bin it’s a settings file. If it was from a PC you need an .avb if it was froma Mac Iit may have no extension so adf .avb on the wnd and try.
Avp is project file
Avs is settings
Avb is bin

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

The how is by selecting the original Master clips and forcing a re-link to the dnx36 media.

The why is because somebody found that as a workaround for poor AMA workflow management and the word has just spread.

Many now do this with no idea why they are doing it. And that they don’t need to.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

There is some disinformation around on linking the dnx36 transcodes back to the AMA master clips but this isn’t needed and can cause these sorts of odd things to happen.
Once dnx36 media is created and .new clips made use those .new clips to annotate.
The original AMA master clips won’t “like” being linked to the DNX36 media and it sounds like they are reverting back to the original format.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

A common Consolidate/ Transcode issue is failing to select the target drive in the LH pane. The bold drive just indicates the drive with the most free space. It isn’t selected until you click it (or another drive) The window then updates the space needed and space available on that drive so you can see the operation will work.
If there isn’t space it will warn you but let you continue if you want to (some operations allow the deleting of source files as it Transcodes and that could be freeing up space. A risky way to work!)

But to be clear you can AAF export linked to AMA media (as you have to for a Resolve grade linking to the original sources) or you Consolidate (if it’s Avid Native media) or Transcode to make new media that the AAF will be linked to.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

We don’t work just Avid. It’s what ever combination does what we need.
So we have Resolve, Legacy FCP (and Color) FCP-X, Media Composer, Symphony and DS and more, and we can round trip as required.

And it’s rare to find VET staff posting for solutions. We spend more time posting answer to problems 🙂

I get that others struggle but like all things that are worth doing it’s not always easy or “unskilled” and skilled is knowing the solutions.

Yes your right it’s not really a technical issue to solve it’s about a free market and all the players having self interests. Always been like that and I can’t see that changing.
Are we seeing rationalization of camera formats and storage formats or just about anything? No we’re seeing more and more “solutions”

I can’t see anything that can change that just people who work at getting the best from what there is.

Been like that for over 20 years in my experience.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

Maybe we’ve just been lucky but we work with a wide range of apps and workflows and provide fast effective turnarounds.
We are constantly working on the best solutions and robust workflows but they almost always do exist and can be found.
The range of apps and tools allows us the scope to fine tune the experience clients get to suit their needs and budget.

It’s not perfect and it could be better but it does work and it works really well.

The key thing for me is that a super app that has an limitation or issue but no sensible collaboration tools is a dead end.
Having a workflow that allows me to choose the apps and tools to solve each step of the problem is incredibly powerful and my preferred route.

Of course if one app does the job great but that’s rare nowadays.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

I go the other way and say we’re looking at a better world made up of small apps that do specific jobs very well. Supper apps are just too bloated and eventually just can’t keep everything developed.
I prefer apps that do a task or a limited range of tasks well and then pass on the work to other apps as required.
collaborative sharing and working is the key not all locked in one.

My view on DS is that it needs to become an MC plugin.
All the things DS is good for can be extended out of MC.

So upgrade the MC color correction but made the symphony Option the DS feature set as a plugin.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US

[Pat Horridge]

I don’t use the export option in MC for anything other than same as source exports as it’s slow and not great.
O I’d either de-interlace in MC using motion adapters and then export as a Progressive file or export interlaced and de-interlace in Squeeze.
Squeeze as some nice controls over the de-interlacing and you can preview the result to get it right. Also Squeeze gives you more control over the encode parameters and is often quicker.

Pat Horridge
Technical Director, Trainer, Avid Certified Instructor
VET
Production Editing Digital Media Design DVD
T +44 (0)20 7505 4701 | F +44 (0)20 7505 4800 | E pat@vet.co.uk |
http://www.vet.co.uk | Lux Building 2-4 Hoxton Square London N1 6US