[William Meese]

It’s hard to make suggestions without an idea of what you’re working with. Can you post some stills?
Also, bear in mind you can set up cameras so it’s *impossible* to match them. I’ve seen it done on a shoot with AF100’s.

[William Meese]

“…everything he needs to take this straight to PBS from one editor in one cost.”

If PBS is a goal, then there are technical specs to plan for beyond basic broadcast quality. Google “PBS Redbook” to start.

If he already has a deal with PBS then you want to check with his contact on what deliverables are required and their delivery deadlines. If there’s a presenting station you’ll want to contact them; they’ll have their own requirements and can also help you through the process. If there are sponsors then your client has contracts specifying their requirements.

PBS and APT have specs and requirements and delivery schedules that mean work and costs for you well beyond creating a broadcast master. Captioning, HDCAM mastering, loudness specs, promos, content pre-approval, music cue sheets — the list is long.

It would be smart to find an online facility with experience delivering to PBS — a presenting station can suggest someone — and discuss the project in detail. It can save money to subcontract with them for online/finishing.

Whether for PBS or elsewhere, the discussions will help you be as detailed as possible with your producer about what you are — or aren’t — delivering for that one cost.

[William Meese]

Yes, one would think. But the relinking problems on this project make me doubt that it does works this way. That’s why I’m asking if someone can tell me they’ve done this — clone a media drive to an internal raid — and had Premiere relink automatically, before I recommend buying the drives.

[William Meese]

If you do decide to transcode for offline, Avid’s DNxHD should ease the transition to online. I’d rather use more storage space and ease the CPU load, especially with a large project.

I just stepped into a series — 26 half-hour episodes — with all media on a 4 TB external FW800 drive. Don’t go there; invest in a good raid tower.

And I’ll second Morten’s recommendation for the CC version; they’re making specific improvements in managing media.

Let us know how you go.

[William Meese]

Short answer: It varies with the online house. Best to have a long conversation with them now about what they expect and what they need. Include the editor.

Long answer: Your concern is valid. Moving projects between platforms has never been easier but is never perfect. The more complex the project, the more overhead the transition costs. Avoid it and you save money.

If the only reason to offline with Premiere is mixed sources, ask the editor to consider Avid for offline too. Its media management and editing strengths outweigh Premeire’s advantage in handling native formats, and the transition will be minimized.

If the editor isn’t strong in Avid, I would not ask her to deal with an unfamiliar NLE. Ask the online house what they expect for the transition.

Does the online house offer Premiere finishing?
How complex is the offline edit? There’s a point where the benefits of just transcoding everything outweigh the benefits of staying native, even if it means 6 TB of transcoded online HD.
How much online polishing? If there’s significant polishing in the Avid online they’ll probably transcode the delivered sequence anyway.

[William Meese]

Not sure I understand your question: as soon as you’re scaling non-vector items above 100%, the apparent quality may go down. So make your precomps 1080 also, or whatever size allows you to keep their scaling below 100% when at their largest. Then scale the source picture _within the precomp_ to fit. This will not improve low-rez stills — is that your intent?
Again, not sure I understand your question. Can you rephrase?

[William Meese]

In the After Effects file > import menu do you have the option for “Avid AAF via Boris AAF Transfer”? Then Boris Transfer AE is installed.

How much footage will you be keying? Is it a narrative project? What’s the quality of the greenscreen footage? Have you tried Avid’s SpectraMatte keyer? The more shots you have, the better to avoid the round trip. Also, unless the footage needs a lot of fixing, or this is a narrative project worth the time to squeeze out the best composites you can get, I don’t think the AE round trip will make enough difference. I find the SM keyer much better than most in-NLE keyers, and it’s worth avoiding the round trip. Here’s a tutorial, if it helps:
https://learn.avid.com/content/tutorials/SNspectraMatte/tutorial.html

Michael asks a good question about syncing to background; that’s editing, and is easier/faster in Avid. So one simple workflow: edit your foreground on V1, edit your background on V2 with a PIP effect on it and set into a corner. The purpose is to edit both layers realtime, with no rendering. Once you get close, delete the PIP, swap layers, roughly key the foreground and edit until locked. This would be a good point to refine your SM key — you may be done.

Or, once edit is locked, remove effects and export one same-as-source movie for each layer. In AE, separate into individual shots and composite.

Or, use BCC or Automatic Duck to save time in the round trip organization.

Is this the kind of workflow info you’re asking for?

Yes, uprezzing is just adding zeros, but combined with careful preprocessing in AE you may squeeze some slightly better keys out of the footage. HDV is the weak link here.

Hope this helps.

[William Meese]

Thanks for the prompt response. That was it — I foolishly hadn’t realized that the ProAnimator window was opening with its bottom extending below my monitor, hiding the bottom controls. A click on the maximize button and voila.
I might have figured it out on my own if the Batch Project Rendering window had a mention in the online User Guide…
As I’ve learned with Zaxworks programs, the interface is powerful and even elegant, but it’s not always intuitive — the user guide is necessary.
The learning curve is short, though — and I suspect that even when After Effects ships with their Cinema 4D plugin, with ProAnimator I’ll still get 80% of my graphics done with 20% of the work.

[William Meese]

erm…aren’t symphonies still sold solely as turnkey systems?
If by “handle it” you’re talking about responsiveness, reliable performance, you’re fine.
Unless something’s broken — Why are you not sure about this client’s system? Heard something?
“effect heavy HD project” — any editor on any system has a threshold. Beyond it they take the effects into After Effects, Motion, or the graphics department down the hall.
Your efficiency/speed with FCP’s effects versus Symphony’s might be the deciding factor. Symphony effects go far, but there’s a learning curve.

[William Meese]

Start at the end and working back is the normal process with a TC-referenced change list. Over the years, haven’t seen anybody find an easier way.