[Pat Horridge]

I’ve always found the PC version of any version of MC to be more stable than than the Mac version since way way back.
And yes I’d say V4.05 was the best most stable version pre AMA
V5.5.3.6 is very very good and V6 followed by V6.5 still has a way to go to cathc up with that but the additional features, if you need them, are worth the pain sometimes.

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]

That’s the very catch. HD is a lot of data. RAW it’s around 7GB per second. So even with a lot of compression you are looking at around 1GB per minute. WHich is way too much for easy viewing files.
From then on you are looking at codecs like H264 which are a lot of effort to encode and a lot of effort to decode (so the client needs a reasonably powerful machine). That extra comtpression effort can make a smaller file look just as good. But even that is too big for you needs. So that factors that you can adjust are:

The software doing the encode (some do a much betetr job than others)
The image size and framerate (lowering down from 1920×1080 will reduce the file size for a given quality)
Trading quality against size.

At the end of the day the final element is the skill in the encode settings to choose based on the content and that’s a skill it takes some time to develop.

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’m running Symphony V5.5.3.6 (Nitris Classic) Symphony V6.0.3.2 & V6.5.2 (on a Resolve machien with BM I/O)
Media Composer V5.5.3.6 through to V6.5.2 on a mixture of Mac and PC systems.

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]

More RAM helps but there was mention of 12GB being it’s upper limit.
The graphics card can be used if it’s found to be listed in Avids config file (and has the right driver installed) and that gives improved realtime playback and faster renders but there’s little info on exactly what cards give what improvements.
Otehr than that it’s currently core speeds that seem to be of more value than core counts.
Some functions benefit for more cores like Transcoding but I’ve not seen more than 8 cores gain much.

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]

Yes backwards compatability is still pretty robust despite the many recent developments. We have a lot of V5.5 to V6 & V6.5 projects moving around.

As always best to recreate a fresh project with the version of MC you are on and copy just the bins you need. Yes MXF media is compatible so if you have an effect thats not backwards supported just mix it down.

This is one of the reasons I’m so pleased Avid have resisted the easier “x” route of completely redesigning the software and breaking that compatability model they’ve protected for so long.

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 think they’re spot on and many folks have seen the writing on the wall for this for some time now.

Apple and FCP-X is going to be the way forward for an increasing amount of content creation and that will run just fine on off the shelf hardware. An ipad version I’m sure isn’t far away.

And yes the HP machines blow he current MacPros out the water but then the MacPros are now old tech. Not that the future for HP is a sure thing…

Will we see a new MacPro and if so will it regain the lost ground? Who knows and if it won’t support the FCP legacy users then I’m not sure wht people will be editing on it with…

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]

To be afir to Avid it’s not all Mac users (in fact with the big move over of FCP users on Macs the level of issues isn’t as high as I expected)
Many Mac users and system configurations are working fine. But the Mac OS goal posts have been moving very fast and I suspect that’s complicating things. But who knows.
If you import then you can’t upres (well you can but you are limited to the original DNX45 quality so that’s pointless)
You’d have 2 routes:
Import at DNX220 (after making sure your Avid MXF 1 folder is empty)
When all imported rename that 1 folder 220
Then transcode all those DNX220 clips to DNX45.
Then you can move the DNX220 media (in the 220) folder off the system till the online.
Whent he offline cut of the DNX45 media is done you delete (or hide) the DNX45 media. Bring the DNX220 media back and the sequence shoudl just link to it.

Option 2 is to import at DNX45 then when the sequence is done re-batch import at DNX220. The problem with the import method is that the whole source file has to be imported for the offlien then again for the online and the import process is much slower than the Transcode process.

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]

Have you tried creating a fresh user setting and using that?

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’ve seen a number of Mac users having transcoding issues on the Mac side (in fact generally there still seem to be more errors on the Mac side)
Yes the transcoding order is a real headache and one we hope Avid address (I suspect Avid handles the queue in order they exist on the disc or something like that)

One day we hope to have background Transcoding but currently that doesn’t seem to be a priority which is a shame.

In theory you could use MPEG stream clip to produce low res versions of the media and then AMA to them (and then consolidate rather than transcode) and then have MPEG stream clip make finishing quality version of the final needed files and then AMA mount those and re-link.
But it’s a clunky workflow and prone to errors so you’d need to test it fully.

The easiest route is to find a PC MC and use that to do the Transcode…

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 guess the line I’d have taken was to ask the editor as you did.
If the editor wasn’t prepared to go that route then speak to the Director and suggest he/she instructs the Editor.
If the Director and editor aren’t prepared to go that route then it’s not a viable creative solution for them and you have to accept that it may have been an effective post workflow solution but that’s no use if it doesn’t work creatively.
If the jobs been quoted and an expected workflow and the Directors lateness impacts on costs (and the Director has declined offers to mitigate those costs) then the Director will expect to see a bill that reflects those additional costs.

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