ATTENTION ANYONE THAT CAN HELP

Im trying to Renew a cancelled protools subscription,  i couldnt update my billing info in time and it cancelled.  also i need to know how to find my system ID.  this is very frustrating 

I have a bunch of old projects with OMF media files which can't be read by most other applications. Is it possible to convert them to MXF without transcoding? Consolidating doesn't do the job, even when media creation settings is set to MXF.

Thanks!

I am in the midst of finishing a feature film for a festival premiere and ran into an error with how Avid handles 5.1 tacks.

My director asked me to create a quicktime file that we could screen with our newly produced 5.1 mix. I imported the 6 individual tracks into Avid making sure to set Multichannel Audio settings in the import settings the 5.1 order to SMPTE (L,R,C,LFE,Ls,RS). I sync’d the new mix to the assembly of the color graded reels. I exported a Quicktime with the 5.1 option checked in the audio format section in the output settings.

I got word from the projectionist that the tracks were not in the SMPTE order and that what should be the Center channel was going out the R channel. He rewatched his speaker to fix it, but I decided to check the situation out to see what had gone wrong.I opened up the quicktime. at the Chaneel order read SMPTE (L,R,C,LFE,Ls,RS). I then went back into the Avid and turned on the Waveforms in the timeline and that revealed that the track order was not SMPTE but ProTools (L,C,R,Ls,Rs,LFE) but was saying it was SMPTE in the file exports.

I decided to import the 5.1 mix again, but set the channel order to ProTools (L,C,R,Ls,Rs,LFE) and when I turned on the waveforms in my timeline the order was SMPTE (L,R,C,LFE,Ls,RS). I exported a new quicktime and looking at the movie info in the Quicktime Player (doesn’t matter if it’s X or 7.6) and the channel order listed was SMPTE (L,R,C,LFE,Ls,RS) there as well.

I decided to do some further tests and no matter what order the channels are in Avid says they are always in SMPTE order when exporting a 6 channel wav or a quicktime with multichannel audio. This is a bug in my opinion and needs to be fixed.

i have protools ultimate, and can make dolby atmos files

yet what i'd like to do, is add video to the dolby atmos file, with media composer

is it possible ?

Hello,

I will edit a feature next week and the file I have been sent to test on my machine are from a Panasonic EVA 1. I installed the Panasonic plug in to read AVC intra footage 4.9.01 and activated the extension. I run AVid 8.8.5

Still the footage appear as black image when I import and green image without sound when I link to AMA.

Can anybody help ?

thanks

Alice

Hi.

As explained in "Interplay® | Engine and Interplay | Archive Engine Administration Guide Version 3.3", Administrators can create new custom attributes, and can create list of values which users can choose from.

To do that, Admin should import an xml file within the Admin tool.

My question is:

Is there an API to do that from code ? using http://avid.com/interplay/ws/assets/

My first impressions of Titler+

- Wow great at last, over 20 years after Unicode became a standard, we at last have a modern Title Tool, rewritten, with a modern(ish) interface.  So I can add titles in all scripts, with diacritics, in Cyrillic, in arabic…. No more fiddling around with photoshop, exporting, importing. Hurray!

- Toolbox nicely laid out. Not too many bells and whistles which are unnecessary most of the time.  For fancy 3D titles I’ll use another tool - here we have a modernised replacement for the old Title tool, usable for lower thirds, simple static text and end-credits (the primary uses of the Title tool) with the possibility for soft discreet shadows which are very important.

- It is directly accessible from within the timeline, no second window, no plugins, it is integrated.

Great work…

But then I started to use it….

OK, now I expect a few issues after all this is a first release (but not an alpha version), a few unforeseen use cases etc….  What I found to be honest disappoints me greatly. Certainly my expectations were high, expecting not only a slick, easy to use welcome update of the >20 year old Title tool for the final year of the decade, but with the niggles with the old title tool sorted out (that came up very frequently and well known amongst seasoned editors and AEs), namely:

1. Possibility to add left, center and right justifying tab-stops allowing two column rolling titles (for end-credits).  

2. The possibility to copy and paste images into rolling titles (used to work reliably a long time ago…)

3. The possibility to export all titles on a track as text with timecode (as is possible with subcap) for reports required by production (would be fantastic)

4. Full Unicode ie. accented / non-latin character / right-to-left support.

5. Or maybe even something amazing like importing an RTF file making a rolling title with tabs, images, fonts…  or constraining vertical movement in rolling credits to a fixed number of pixels to avoid flicker… I digress… :-)

The impression I have is that it was not thought out from a user perspective, the result is nowhere near as intuitive as it should be for software today. 

In a sentence, Titler+ -  it is a bit like a sliding door with a pull-handle and a sign saying Push…. ;(

So here we go : 

a) You click in the monitor, a caret appears, you can type.  Double click a dotted border appears, so far so good.  All is nice and works as expected.  A good start.  It has an ugly black drop shadow that I’d prefer off by default, but I can turn it off. Fine. Looks good so far.

b) Click on the T in the Titler+ « toolbox », you get a square - You type and the square doesn’t change size, the text overflows - no wrapping….  No means (that I found) to have a text area that will wrap, not that it’s that important but the UI leads to expect that behaviour.  Resize the square and the text changes size, but the square is still smaller than the text???  Can’t change the size of the square without deforming the text.  It turns out the T creates a text layer (zone) not simply allowing text to be added, this is unclear….. hmmm it’s starting to feel a bit quirky……

c) Playing around with it I understand that there seems to be two types of ‘object’ - a ‘layer’ = zone that is created in the safe area that you can resize, resizing all the ‘child’ objects ..  and text created by clicking, making ‘child’ objects of a layer….. Phew…. Seems far too complicated and unclear - problem with nomenclature and UI.  Maybe reduce opacity on all other layers other than the selected one to indicate the current layer, but still UI badly thought out.

The whole layer / text object concept is very unclear in use - should be straightforward and evident.  I create a text object and that should be it, they have an order that I can change. Rather than have confusing layers (this is an implementation detail that should be hidden from me), allow me rather to group objects together, with safe-area guides as before.  I should be able to group and ungroup text or graphic elements and reorder them at will.  Or keep all objects independent as in the old Title tool.  The parameters in « layer » - position, scale, rotation, skew should simply apply to the current object or group, with the possibility for global positioning/scaling.  Simple and easy to understand, and closer to the way much other software operates.  No need to have layers, particularly as the UI has no window showing the hierarchy of objects and what layers exist (justified in eg. Photoshop but not here).  Something reminds me of TitleDeko with less UI... hmmm...

d) Can’t get rolling titles to work for the life of me…. That is to say…. No vertical scroll bar.   Rolling titles are used 99% of the time for end-credits, which are typically 10-20 times the height of the frame.   I can see the rest by moving the position in the clip and selecting ‘effect mode’ in the effect editor, but then I can’t edit.  And « Effect mode » in the effect palette this doesn’t mean anything at all!! I am in effect mode..!!  This is misnamed.  « Preview » maybe?  And there is no none, just Crawl, roll etc... Not clear.

e) The relationship between the effect palette and the titles is unclear.  Eg. Select a few characters, layer/scale has no effect as it only applies to layers (zones) (no visual cue as to which parameters apply), Layer/Add Text adds a new independant Text Layer, not text within a layer…. Should be named Layer/ Add text layer…     I understand the principle, but there is a problem of organisation and naming, making it very unintuitive (related to c)

f) The mixture of parameters that apply to the currently selected layer and operations‘select layers’, ‘add text’ in the same place is misleading and seems poor design.  Effect palette should be essentially for parameters and related operations, especially as there is a dedicated toolbox window with this effect for everything else - much more convenient (great that they this is the first AVX2 effect with a dedicated interface - everything does not have to be shoehorned into the effect palette). Also no means to add a tracker as was possible previously.

g) Accented characters can not be inputted from the keyboard.  É, ç à from the keyboard are ignored.  This wasn’t tested it would seem with non-US keyboards (I’m on MacOS 10.12…6, with a French keyboard).  But you can copy and paste anything you like including non-latin and right to left scripts, which is great news.

h) Selection of text.  Every text editor, be it in Word, Photoshop, Title tool… changes the background of selected text…. Here, you get a confusing rectangle, making you think that you have created an new object….  The difference between a click creating a new object and selecting an existing object is not always correctly handled -> there should be an arrow tool for selecting and a text tool for creating/editing and a way to make the caret disappear.  Feels quirky.

i) No means to select and align multiple text objects (left, right, center), a) with respect to each other and b) within the frame.  Multiple object selection impossible via Cmd+click or Shift+click.

j) Select previous/next layer icons look like alignment icons….

k) Resizing of rectangles should be unconstrained by default, and aspect constrained with shift.  The opposite is the case.

l) No polygons (often useful for basic lower thirds), or lines (there is a convention in France to place a large full frame cross 240f before FFOA - line tool useful).

m) Tools/Avid title+ refers merely to the tool palette, allowing you to find if it is hidden behind other windows.   This is not clear.  Does nothing in Src/Rec mode.

n) To create a title you need to drag+drop from the effect editor, add title in the timeline doesn’t always work (either no response or ERROR: unable to add an Avid Titler+ effect) - impossible to create a title as the only thing in the sequence as you can’t create the space in the timeline to drop the effect.

o) Alt+Cmd after Cmd+L to move around doesn’t bring up the hand cursor (but still works - this is a minor issue)

p) The two icons in the top-right of the effect palette (drag points, select areas) are identical, wasn’t able to figure out what they do. Related to (f) - if is changes interaction with the objects in the monitor it should be in the toolbox.

q) With my developer hat on, under the hood, looking at the AAF, for interoperability... doesn't look amazing... some of the data (text/font names) is hidden as "Private data" in a proprietary binary format (seemingly confirming some TitleDeko heritage...), the rest is as AAF Constant Values, with many repeated property names.  Maybe just use XML as a text value, that other downstream software can parse and use.  Avid (and other companies) uses XML elsewhere in AAF (and MXF for that matter) where things don't easily fit in to the AAF datamodel. Interoperability is what sets Avid apart and where other systems fall way short.  AAF is documented - everything is there, once other manufacturers properly implement import (not always the case) - a clear interface that is easily parsed reduces bug probablity elsewhere. 

You sort of get used to how it operates, but it is very very quirky.  The Avid design team should put someone who has never used the Title+ tool but with experience of editing software as a user and observe how they get on without a manual - a lot would be learned….   It practically breaks most UI rules in the book…. Poor affordance, hidden hierarchy, no feedback from some user operations, unconventional behaviour.  Yet it was certainly beta-tested…  (eg. with respect to the accented character issue reproduced on two machines - no French beta testers???)

Maybe I’m a bit harsh, but I do think that the first impression that you have on these sorts of things is the right one.  It is possible that some of the things I was unable to do, are in fact possible - but this is the point, it should be intuitive - the manual should not be necessary, not for something as straightforward as this.   I teach in a film school and using this, I’m thinking, this is going to be a fun one to explain to first-time users….  :-(

It is a pity that with this opportunity to rethink things from scratch we didn’t get better than this.  Should be clean, well thought out and elegant.  

Don’t get me wrong, I’m testing out the other features of 2018.12 and so far very impressed, not least the possibility to make a multigroup from a sequence AT LAST with cameras that start and stop whenever!!! Super work Avid!!  but this titler….. :-(

Curious to see what everyone else makes of it!

Janusz 

Hi,

I am working on Minidv footage shot with the Panasonic DVX100 and captured as 1:1.

I changed the speed of several clips in my timeline. Someone suggested that I do a mixdown of the aforementioned clips so that when I send them to resolve I wont have any problems and I will already have the clips with the modified speed imported in Resolve. 

I was wondering if a mixdown of the clip with modified speed (obviously done at 1:1 as well) before sending the footage to resolve results in any quality loss compared to sending original footage to resolve and adjust the speed there.

Thank you!

Folks: In an earlier post I recounted how my motherboard fried and I am replacing it. In the meantime I thought I'd use MC First and do a little work on a project I'd saved in my old (pre-fry) Media Composer Project folder/files only to learn MCF cannot work with these. Someone suggested I just download the free MC trial while my system was being repaired (sounded smart).So I did and now I get the following every time I try to launch -

Exception: Structured Exception, ExceptionCode:3221225477, ExceptionString:ACCESS_VIOLATION, FaultAddress:0X00000000140C0F030, MinDumpFileName:5707dc5c-8eb2-439f-957c-5788b07dacbe.dmp

Searched and a few blogs said to rename the Settings folder in Users-> Public -> Public Documents -> Avid Media Composer which appeared to work for some people. No luck for me... I guess I can wait another week or so until my system is repaired, but seems like a waste of time (and that Avid isn't working)... Any suggestions always appreciated. Tom

I can see (on a Mac in Output | Export to File | Options | Avid Media Processor) an option for XAVC-Intra 100 in an HD 25P or 29.97P project but no sign of XAVC-Intra of any class in an HD 50P or 59.94P project. 

Is this expected behaviour?

Sequencing thousands of sequential stills from Canon DSLRs, and projecting the final results;
any tips on setting up a 4K project?

I've never worked at higher resolution than blu-ray before. And consistent color rendition will be important across sequences from different seasons - in addition to some frames being printed for display alongside the movies.
A good few months' work is ahead and I'd love to start on the right foot, as they say.

Any tips v welcome (eg., it seems intuitive to stick to 'RGB' space, but is that even meaningful across print to video/screen?)

Hi

We shoot on Sony PXW-X70 1080p50 XAVC-L 50 10bit.  My normal workflow was to transcode to DNxL HD 185x which at 50fps is DNX 365x, Quite large files for HD.

With the introduction of the “Generic” AMA plug in I am able to edit with long gop media that I wasn’t able to do with the Nablet plug in.

Is it better to:

Consolidate and render in XAVC-L 50?

Transcode and render DNX 365x?

Or a combination of the above?

Is the Avid XAVC-L 50 10bit?

Thanks

I seem to remember that when I spec'ed my then new Avid system in 2014, we were told that the HP Z820 workstation should have dual 6 core HT CPUs, because MC (at that time v.7.0.4) could not handle more CPU cores - or at least could not benefit from more. Today we're running v.8.5.3 on the same platform. I can see that the settings (max threads) is set to 12 which would seem to agree with the original spec.

But my question is now, could newer CPU's with a greater number of cores be of any benefit - and MC utilize them, and are the gains worth it?

FYI we are currently fitted with 32GB RAM

Any real world experience on this question out there?

Is there any other way to set the zoom factor for the source and /or record veiwer other than having a + or - button from the command pallette mapped to the viewer?

My problem is that there is no more space for adding these buttons, without removing other buttons which I find more useful. Buit occasionally, when using a wrong keyboard shortcut in error, I come to change the zoom level without wishing to do so, and the only way I can find out of getting the viewre back to x1 is by mapping these buttons. Is there a menu comand or keyboard shortcut for this so that the + or - buttons, which I don't often need, are not necessary on the viewer toolbars?

Thanks!

I'm having some difficulty with importing still photos into Avid in a good quality.

These particular images have been shot on Canon EOS 5D MkII in RAW with a typical resolutioon of 5616x3744 pixels in 24 bit colour. I have subsequently edited all the selected RAW shots in Canon Difgital Photo Professional, setting the exposure, contrast, whitebalance and sharpness so they all look nice. Then exported to JPG in typically the same resolution (though some minor cropping on some shots).

When I import these to Avid they seem to be lacking in focus - that is comparing the outupt from Avid on a HD monitor with the same shots viewed directly from the camera on the same monitor - HDMI in both cases.

Does anyone have the same experience - or solutions?

Is it possible to AMA Link and import Canon HEVC H.265 4K (as shot on Canon XF705 camcorder) into Media Composer and then transcode to DNxHR?

I'm looking for a way to handle images in a way that is similart to tjhat which was possible in Liquid :)

In liquid - even on projects that were SD 720x576 pixels, it was possible to import a still shot or graphic that had a mich higher resoultion/pixel dimension - by default the imported icon shows the centre 720x576 pixels of the image, but the entire image was still available for effgects work, so that one could zoom/pan around the image as resuired. This has the advantage that shouts that one knew would be zoomed in on, would be imported in a much high resolution, whereafter one could use the effects editor to zoom out to full size, then zoom in to a detail, without it being very pixelated. Liquid was brilliant at this and I regularly handled imnages up to 7000 pixels wide.

I cantø see if this is possible in Avid, it appears that the image, when imported, is always reduced to the project raster size on it longest side, so any subsequent zooming - espeically when handling images that don't match the landscape 16:9 format - will suffer from resolution degradation.

Any suggestions or better ideas of how to handle this in Avid (8.5.3) would be welcome?

Hi,

Is there any possibility to disable the new Live Timeline function?

Thanks in advance

I frequently use and re-use little motion effects created in the 3D tool.

A little creep here. A little pan there.

It’s nice to be able to drop custom effect on a clip to see if a little move makes the shot work better.

I do it a lot. I’ve done it for a long time.

But in the latest release I noticed that the custom effects I make only hold the start keyframe but not the end. Result? Not much of anything.

Anyone else experience this issue?

I will be receiving footage shot on a Panasonic AG-UX180.   I've worked exclusively with Sony cameras for the past 10 years, so I'm assuming I'll need to install AMA plug-in's for the Panasonic.   Can anyone point me to a link to download Panasonic AMA plug-in's.    Thanks.