Calling Avid Liquid experts at DVinfo.net

Antony Michael Wilson · May 22nd, 2006, 06:22 AM

Is there anyone on this board who uses Avid Liquid v.7x in anger? I'd like to know if you can export captured clips as data and preserve TC - as MXF or OMFI, for example. The aim is to capture 720/25p HDV and export the clips as SD files with TC for offline in Avid. I realise it's highly unlikely to be possible. FWIW no one at Avid UK seems to know anything about Liquid and they certainly can't answer this question.

Peter Jefferson · May 24th, 2006, 01:24 AM

"Is there anyone on this board who uses Avid Liquid v.7x in anger? "
yeah so i dont bother with it..

as for MXF, from memory (im probably wrong here) but we shot an ad about a year ago with the Pana P2 cam (SDx900 i hink its called) @ DVCPro50, and the only way we could export it back MXF was when the camera itself and a blank card was installed. we xported the timeline that way...
I didnt do this myself, but i remember we couldnt export with the USB2 BoB straight into a DVCpro50 deck as there were massive audio sync issues..

we usually use a digisuite and prem 6.5 and just export through SDI to the DVCPro deck ...then again, im refering to nativ MXF.... its all confusing now and i have a headache.. :(
i cant recall how to export MXF i dont think it can jsut export an MXF file as a standalone file.. Liek i said, im prolly wrong..

Why not just use avid to downconvert?? or maybe jump ship to another NLE and use proxies like Vegas?

Antony Michael Wilson · May 24th, 2006, 02:15 AM

I can't use Avid to downconvert because I can't capture into Avid in the first place: it doesn't support 720/25p - they keep promising but there's no sign of support yet. At the moment we are capturing in Edius, exporting via Procoder to Avid JFIF SD offline res and then importing and manually adjusting source reel and TC FOR EVERY CLIP!!!!!!!!!!!!! It works but it's a real pain. The process would be a lot less painful if there was an application that could capture and export/transcode maintaining TC. Then it would just be a transcoding/importing delay and I wouldn't have to sit there typing in timecode for days and then double-checking.

Six years intensive facility house experience on Avid says jumping ship is not the best idea with tight deadlines and mountains of work for a very complex edit... The only sensible alternative I can see is a switch to Mac and FCP but FCP doesn't support 720/25p either.

John Mitchell · May 24th, 2006, 03:11 AM

Antony - what kind of Avid do you have - if you have the DNxCEL board there could be an (expensive) solution. If you only need SD masters this solution would work as well.

If you can cross convert your 720P footage in hardware to 1080P and SD50i then you could directly ingest it to the MCA.

The Miranda HD-Bridge DEC MAY support this - as well as converting directly to SD if you don't need HD masters at this stage.

http://www.miranda.com/product.php?i=336

I can't see if it actually supports crossconverting 720P - 1080P - it may only support 1080i.

For realtime SD downconvert the Multibridge Pro and Extreme should work.

Also did I mention that it's expensive....

I think there are less expensive converters that will appear on the market over the next few months, but hopefully by then Avid will have their act together.

Jemore Santos · May 24th, 2006, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antony Michael Wilson

The only sensible alternative I can see is a switch to Mac and FCP but FCP doesn't support 720/25p either.

http://developer.apple.com/sdk/#FireWireX

you can use it to capture HDV 720p25 and the good thing is that it saves it to m2t files for windows users, then you can put it on any sequence you want. Thats how I do HDV SD60p on this, FCP doesn't recognize this format to capture but I can now and put it on any sequence.

Antony Michael Wilson · May 24th, 2006, 05:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by John Mitchell

Antony - what kind of Avid do you have - if you have the DNxCEL board there could be an (expensive) solution. If you only need SD masters this solution would work as well.

If you can cross convert your 720P footage in hardware to 1080P and SD50i then you could directly ingest it to the MCA.

The Miranda HD-Bridge DEC MAY support this - as well as converting directly to SD if you don't need HD masters at this stage.

I can't see if it actually supports crossconverting 720P - 1080P - it may only support 1080i.

I think there are less expensive converters that will appear on the market over the next few months, but hopefully by then Avid will have their act together.

Yes, the MC Adrenaline with DNx (or, better still, the new Symphony Nitris system) is one of our favoured online solution for HD finishing. We'll use the Convergent Designs converter box, which does actually work well with HDV1 - unlike the Miranda unit. We'll cross-convert via HD SDI to 1080i (actually 1080PsF in this case, of course) for finishing to HDCAM. However, this is a long-term project with a big shooting ratio so we only have access to AXP HD for offline. We don't have the BRHD50 deck and there's no budget to buy one. Rental units are scarce. This leaves the undesirable option of using the camera to ingest via firewire. Of course, this option isn't really there to users of Avid products at 24 or 25 fps even though it was promised 'shortly' way back in September 2005 and actually announced at NAB 2005. This leaves the option of using another application to capture and then transcode to compressed SD for cutting. What I'm trying to do is simplify this process a little by finding a way of exporting/transcoding with TC so that I don't have to input the data manually in the offline Avid project. My guess is that there's nothing out there but I'll happily be proven wrong.

John Mitchell · May 25th, 2006, 07:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antony Michael Wilson

What I'm trying to do is simplify this process a little by finding a way of exporting/transcoding with TC so that I don't have to input the data manually in the offline Avid project. My guess is that there's nothing out there but I'll happily be proven wrong.

Understandable dilemma. Avid have missed a golden opportunity here to get one up on FCP...
Liquid seems like a reasonable workflow - it's a shame there isn't more interoperabiliyt with the rest of the Avid line or I'd buy it tomorrow. Is there no EDL export/ ALE anything like that that would allow you to ingest from tape again?

Antony Michael Wilson · May 25th, 2006, 09:06 AM

Well, I'm sure there's EDL export but that would mean using Liquid for the offline. At the moment, I think it's probably worth going through all this pain just to offline in the Avid just because this is the only project for the next few months that will be shot on the HD100 and there's several years experience behind us on the Avid interface - that's 1000s of hours of practice which means we can just get on with the business of cutting a film rather than wondering why we can't do this and that - not to mention the fact that our Avid Xpress Studio system wasn't exactly cheap and we'd like to use it!

You're right, Avid have missed a chance here. I know there's better work-around for FCP already but my bet is that it's Apple that will get one over on Avid yet again. I wonder how much longer idiots like me will stick with Avid just because the cutting interface is better than FCP... The low cost of upgrade to new formats and finishing hardware with FCP is a big persuader.

John Mitchell · May 26th, 2006, 09:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antony Michael Wilson

You're right, Avid have missed a chance here. I know there's better work-around for FCP already but my bet is that it's Apple that will get one over on Avid yet again. I wonder how much longer idiots like me will stick with Avid just because the cutting interface is better than FCP... The low cost of upgrade to new formats and finishing hardware with FCP is a big persuader.

Missed one of many I'd say. I'm sticking with Avid for the time being - the cost for me to changeover at this stage (plus learn a new system and solve all the niggles) would be too high.

My only other idea would be to ingest everything in DNxCEL and get those tapes consolidated and crossconverted to SD in the Avid itself and haul the project and the linked SD media itself over to Xpress. Still with the amount of material you were talking about it just doesn't sound economical. I'll ask the question directly to Avid to see if there is a more viable workflow.

John Mitchell · May 26th, 2006, 10:05 AM

Update: The BRHD50E or U will cross-convert to 576P or 576i on the analogue outputs. I would suggest hiring or borrowin gone of these to ingest into Studio via Mojo.

Still looking for Liquid solutions.

Antony Michael Wilson · May 26th, 2006, 10:46 AM

Thanks for your thoughts John.

Yes, you're right that using Adrenaline/DNx board for downconverting would be an option but we don't have the deck or the HD SDI interface yet. Of course, if we had the deck we would be able to capture via analogue SD (using the built in down-conversion) for the offline, as you say. Unfortunately we don't have money spare to buy the deck right now and I've only found one place here that rents the deck - it's out for weeks.

It's a real pain but thanks for your help anyway.

Btw, I don't think it makes much sense for us to buy the deck now. We'll get direct support via camera/firewire at some point and there will surely be updated decks released later this year to go with the new 60/50fps cameras. £2k+ seems like a lot of money for an interim solution at this budget level, so it seems like more sense to buy the Convergent Design HDV to HD/SD SDI, HD/SD analogue interface, which will be great for online.

I know that it's never ideal to use a camera as a feeder deck but this is the only project for this camera right now and the wear and tear on the camera is worth it not to spend all that money on the deck!

May 22nd, 2006, 06:22 AM	#1
Antony Michael Wilson Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 343	Calling Avid Liquid experts Is there anyone on this board who uses Avid Liquid v.7x in anger? I'd like to know if you can export captured clips as data and preserve TC - as MXF or OMFI, for example. The aim is to capture 720/25p HDV and export the clips as SD files with TC for offline in Avid. I realise it's highly unlikely to be possible. FWIW no one at Avid UK seems to know anything about Liquid and they certainly can't answer this question.

May 24th, 2006, 01:24 AM	#2
Peter Jefferson Inner Circle Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Aus Posts: 3,884	"Is there anyone on this board who uses Avid Liquid v.7x in anger? " yeah so i dont bother with it.. as for MXF, from memory (im probably wrong here) but we shot an ad about a year ago with the Pana P2 cam (SDx900 i hink its called) @ DVCPro50, and the only way we could export it back MXF was when the camera itself and a blank card was installed. we xported the timeline that way... I didnt do this myself, but i remember we couldnt export with the USB2 BoB straight into a DVCpro50 deck as there were massive audio sync issues.. we usually use a digisuite and prem 6.5 and just export through SDI to the DVCPro deck ...then again, im refering to nativ MXF.... its all confusing now and i have a headache.. :( i cant recall how to export MXF i dont think it can jsut export an MXF file as a standalone file.. Liek i said, im prolly wrong.. Why not just use avid to downconvert?? or maybe jump ship to another NLE and use proxies like Vegas?

May 24th, 2006, 02:15 AM	#3
Antony Michael Wilson Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 343	I can't use Avid to downconvert because I can't capture into Avid in the first place: it doesn't support 720/25p - they keep promising but there's no sign of support yet. At the moment we are capturing in Edius, exporting via Procoder to Avid JFIF SD offline res and then importing and manually adjusting source reel and TC FOR EVERY CLIP!!!!!!!!!!!!! It works but it's a real pain. The process would be a lot less painful if there was an application that could capture and export/transcode maintaining TC. Then it would just be a transcoding/importing delay and I wouldn't have to sit there typing in timecode for days and then double-checking. Six years intensive facility house experience on Avid says jumping ship is not the best idea with tight deadlines and mountains of work for a very complex edit... The only sensible alternative I can see is a switch to Mac and FCP but FCP doesn't support 720/25p either.

May 24th, 2006, 03:11 AM	#4
John Mitchell Contributor Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 873	Antony - what kind of Avid do you have - if you have the DNxCEL board there could be an (expensive) solution. If you only need SD masters this solution would work as well. If you can cross convert your 720P footage in hardware to 1080P and SD50i then you could directly ingest it to the MCA. The Miranda HD-Bridge DEC MAY support this - as well as converting directly to SD if you don't need HD masters at this stage. http://www.miranda.com/product.php?i=336 I can't see if it actually supports crossconverting 720P - 1080P - it may only support 1080i. For realtime SD downconvert the Multibridge Pro and Extreme should work. Also did I mention that it's expensive.... I think there are less expensive converters that will appear on the market over the next few months, but hopefully by then Avid will have their act together.

May 25th, 2006, 09:06 AM	#8
Antony Michael Wilson Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 343	Well, I'm sure there's EDL export but that would mean using Liquid for the offline. At the moment, I think it's probably worth going through all this pain just to offline in the Avid just because this is the only project for the next few months that will be shot on the HD100 and there's several years experience behind us on the Avid interface - that's 1000s of hours of practice which means we can just get on with the business of cutting a film rather than wondering why we can't do this and that - not to mention the fact that our Avid Xpress Studio system wasn't exactly cheap and we'd like to use it! You're right, Avid have missed a chance here. I know there's better work-around for FCP already but my bet is that it's Apple that will get one over on Avid yet again. I wonder how much longer idiots like me will stick with Avid just because the cutting interface is better than FCP... The low cost of upgrade to new formats and finishing hardware with FCP is a big persuader.

May 26th, 2006, 10:05 AM	#10
John Mitchell Contributor Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 873	Update: The BRHD50E or U will cross-convert to 576P or 576i on the analogue outputs. I would suggest hiring or borrowin gone of these to ingest into Studio via Mojo. Still looking for Liquid solutions.

May 26th, 2006, 10:46 AM	#11
Antony Michael Wilson Major Player Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: London, UK Posts: 343	Thanks for your thoughts John. Yes, you're right that using Adrenaline/DNx board for downconverting would be an option but we don't have the deck or the HD SDI interface yet. Of course, if we had the deck we would be able to capture via analogue SD (using the built in down-conversion) for the offline, as you say. Unfortunately we don't have money spare to buy the deck right now and I've only found one place here that rents the deck - it's out for weeks. It's a real pain but thanks for your help anyway. Btw, I don't think it makes much sense for us to buy the deck now. We'll get direct support via camera/firewire at some point and there will surely be updated decks released later this year to go with the new 60/50fps cameras. £2k+ seems like a lot of money for an interim solution at this budget level, so it seems like more sense to buy the Convergent Design HDV to HD/SD SDI, HD/SD analogue interface, which will be great for online. I know that it's never ideal to use a camera as a feeder deck but this is the only project for this camera right now and the wear and tear on the camera is worth it not to spend all that money on the deck!