XDR/nano with Avid Media Composer

[Mark Job]

Originally Posted by Mike Schell

Just an FYI and I can not say much due to an NDA, but I think we will see much better integration of the nano files, including 100 Mbps Long-GOP with Avid AMA in the coming months. Stay tuned for more info and announcements.

Cheers-

....Hi Mike:
Yeah, I thought so, it's the next logical step. This is great news and thank you kindly for sharing what you could with us ! This is hot !

[Lance Librandi]

Hello Mike,
That’s very interesting news, I have now booked in for an Avid presentation next Wednesday where I believe we will be get a 30 day evaluation copy of Avid Media Composer 4. I would love to edit at 100Mbps with a system that will not restrict me 50Mbps. Mark has suggested to me in the past that Avid was the way to go then I have read some frustrations with Avid. I understand you can not comment due to NDA but I trust your evaluation so I will ask the Avid demonstrator next week how best to use NanoFlash 100 Mbps files with Avid. If I get the correct answers they will have a covert.

[Ted O'Brien]

Lance: Don't know how it goes in Australia but in the USA you can download and try out Media Composer 4 for 30 days anytime.

Mike: Great news about future AMA support. I'm hoping AMA becomes more useful and stable. Last week I had to turn it off in our edit suites due to a problem it had with our Facilis Terrablock. Our editors would import nano media from our capture artists bins and it would work but everything else would go offline. Turning off AMA fixed the issue.

Additionally, I have had more time to test out the nanoFlash with our Avid's since our game was just launched. The import of our files is not real-time like I mentioned in my initial post. We mainly do small captures of video, about 1-3 minutes, and they come in a little quicker than real-time. As a test, I captured 10 minutes of gameplay and it imported into the Avid in about 2:30. Much faster than real-time!! Now to see how the media behaves in AMA.

[Peter Moretti]

160 I-frame only does work in MC w/o any additional hadware or trascoding, correct?

[Peter Moretti]

Originally Posted by Mark Job

... They do have a forum, but disent is quickly muzzled there. ...

I'm sorry but this is quite simply not the case. I am frequent poster (and critic) on Avid's user forum. Dissent is not muzzled. Of course obnoxious, trolling posts are called out, but even most of those are allowed to die a slow death.

I agree wholeheartedly about the 24F fiasco. It was appalling.

[Mike Schell]

Originally Posted by Peter Moretti

160 I-frame only does work in MC w/o any additional hadware or trascoding, correct?

Hi Peter-
Yes, all the I-Frame bit-rates work great with MC. Currently, only the 50 Mbps Long-GOP works well. We hope to have compatibility for all the Long-GOP bit-rates in the near future.

Best-

[Mark Job]

Originally Posted by Peter Moretti

I'm sorry but this is quite simply not the case. I am frequent poster (and critic) on Avid's user forum. Dissent is not muzzled. Of course obnoxious, trolling posts are called out, but even most of those are allowed to die a slow death.

I agree wholeheartedly about the 24F fiasco. It was appalling.

...I strongly agree to disagree with you. You don't have to be a troll to get sanctioned on their forum-You just have to ask an embarassing question or two (to them), then suddenly you start to have technical difficulties with your posts, then suddenly your posts get moved, then suddenly your posts begin to disappear, then when you start to ask why ? .... Look. companies sometimes have millions of dollars riding on certain sales at certain times, and they don't necessarily want certain questions asked at certain times - even if you need to know what's causing whatever so you can work. Like I have stated many times, the company's product is outstanding. This doesn't mean the company's attitude toward the end user is equally outstanding. How I wish the two always went together. You've had a good experience and I've had a really bad one.

[Dan Keaton]

Originally Posted by Peter Moretti

160 I-frame only does work in MC w/o any additional hadware or trascoding, correct?

Yes. Sorry for the delay in responding.

[John Mitchell]

Originally Posted by Mark Job

...I strongly agree to disagree with you. You don't have to be a troll to get sanctioned on their forum-You just have to ask an embarassing question or two (to them), then suddenly you start to have technical difficulties with your posts, then suddenly your posts get moved, then suddenly your posts begin to disappear, then when you start to ask why ? .... Look. companies sometimes have millions of dollars riding on certain sales at certain times, and they don't necessarily want certain questions asked at certain times - even if you need to know what's causing whatever so you can work. Like I have stated many times, the company's product is outstanding. This doesn't mean the company's attitude toward the end user is equally outstanding. How I wish the two always went together. You've had a good experience and I've had a really bad one.

Can you give specific examples Mark? I post on the forum a bit, help out with a bunch of basic questions, have seen many negative threads on Avid (some justified, some ill informed) that only get locked when they get to about 20 or 30 pages long and become counter productive. I find Marianna to be very accommodating. Sure there are things they can do better, but I reckon they're trying. I have *never* had a post removed or deleted and I've complained about the lack of MPEG2 (DVD) support and HDV2 (JVC flavour) support, and the scrapping of the dongle - rationally but forcefully.

Keep in mind the forum is run by users, not by Avid themselves (even though they host it). I simply don't buy into the marketing conspiracy thing. Just my opinion of course - your entitled to yours :)

Anyway back on topic - I would recommend copying the XDCAM BPAV drectory to a media drive inside a named project directory, and then using progam called Visual Subst to mount the project directory as a virtual drive.

Visual Subst - Virtual Drives In Effect - NTWind Software

Avid will automatically recognise the drive (under AMA) and mount the media. This also provides a clear path for archiving.

[Mark Job]

Hi Jon:
I am very reluctant to do as you asked because I don't consider this forum to be an appropriate place to do so. Let us give Convergent Design a break here, since this is not their squabble. All I will say on this subject is if customer relations were of the quality that others here have stated, then other Avid editors would not have started protest websites (I'm not kidding here) to get the basic respect they desrved and to get the company to listen to common, working day editors like you or me, and not only to Academy Award winning ones. Google for "Keep the Dongle" website started by a well know Australian Avid editor.

..........If you don't mind, I'd rather concentrate on Avid Media Composer related issues with Flash XDR and Nano Flash as opposed to the disgusting experiences I and other editors have had via Avid customer service.

[John Mitchell]

Hi Mark - that is what I was trying to do :)

[Mark Job]

Hey John:
No worries :-) I'm still a big user and appreciator of Media Composer, and I have my upgrade on order. So many editors are upgrading in Montreal that the reseller has run out of stock. I hope to get AMC version 4/0/2 sometime this week.