Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 at DVinfo.net

Dan Keaton · December 31st, 2009, 09:46 AM

Dear Friends,

I noticed that Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 is now available for download. This is a free update for those with Avid Media Composer Version 4.

I have attempted to find the release notes for this version without success.

Is anyone using this version?

If so, does our 100 Mbps Long-GOP work with 4.0.5?

Bob Willis · December 31st, 2009, 03:21 PM

There is no mention of CD nanoflash support in the readme file under AMA updates. Only updates for Ikegami GFCAM.

Here is a link to the readme file: http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/self...348265&Hilite=

Dan Keaton · December 31st, 2009, 05:00 PM

Dear Friends,

It appears that Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 works with our files the same as previous versions.

Thus, 50 Mbps Long-GOP works great, as does all I-Frame Only modes.

100 Mbps Long-GOP and higher have buffer errors when playing files on the timeline.

Perrone Ford · December 31st, 2009, 05:41 PM

Dan, when you say "playing files from the timeline", does this means files that have been linked to by AMA? Does this also hold for files that have been copied onto local HDD or is it just coming off the card directly?

Dan Keaton · December 31st, 2009, 05:55 PM

Dear Perrone,

Our 50 Mbps Long-GOP files work fine.

This is due to the fact that the Avid buffer size, to hold an entire group of pictures is just large enough.

With our 100 Mbps Long-GOP files, when one stops playing, then the Avid Media Composer may give a buffer error. We feel that this is due to the fact that the buffer is too small to hold the full long group of pictures, so it can not find the start of the GOP.

We have asked Avid to increase the size of their buffer.

In the meantime, if one just plays a timeline, without stopping or scrubbing, it should work fine, with 100 Mbps Long-GOP. But this is impractical.

The error is non-destructive, it is just annoying.

I do not think it matters where the source files are located.

Perrone Ford · December 31st, 2009, 06:07 PM

Thanks for the info Dan. I have not yet tried the NanoFlash files in Avid. That's next week. :) This week was for material that I already have!

Bill Ward · December 31st, 2009, 07:41 PM

Perrone: also, see if you can replicate another issue Mark Job and I have noted. The AVID can largely deal with the 100mbs clips, if one doesn't mind the occasional momentary pause as the AVID reminds you it's choking on the buffer size. Annoying, but doable, as long as you're not scrubbing a bunch in the timeline.

The larger problem is that you can't seem to export any of the edited 100mbs stuff out of the application...the export always fails.

It will be a happy day when AVID fixes this bug.

Perrone Ford · December 31st, 2009, 08:33 PM

Ok, I got the buffer size error from the MXF file (Garden of the Gods). I was not able to use the .mov version of the files. Also the MXF nor the MOV fast imported. The Garden of the Gods clip was recognized as XDCam HD. So that's GREAT!

I was also able to export a .MOV file DNxHD 36 and an .AVI file. My first attempt at a .MOV export failed and indicated I could not use "same as source". So I just did a custom .MOV with the export selections I wanted. Easy as pie.

I am using 4.0.4 of MC.

Mark Job · January 1st, 2010, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dan Keaton

Dear Friends,

It appears that Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 works with our files the same as previous versions.

Thus, 50 Mbps Long-GOP works great, as does all I-Frame Only modes.

100 Mbps Long-GOP and higher have buffer errors when playing files on the timeline.

....And you cannot export the edited timeline out of the application ! You *May* be able to *Play out* the timeline in realtime if you have an Avid Mojo DX, Nitris, or an Adrenaline box. (??) You also may *NOT* be able to transcode the Long GOP 100 + data rate files into DNxHD either ! EDIT: Downloading and thoroughly testing 4.0.5 now. Stand by for a thorough report in a couple of days :-)

Mark Job · January 1st, 2010, 05:41 PM

Hi Dan:
On page 5 of the new Avid Media Composer Readme .pdf it states,

" The following have been added to this version of the editing application:

Avid supports linking to MPEG 2 HD Long GOP 102 Mbits media with AMA via the
GFCAM AMA plug-in......."

I find this statement quite interesting. I will investigate further to decipher exactly what it actually means.

Perrone Ford · January 1st, 2010, 06:01 PM

Are you guys not able to replicate what I just did yesterday? I didn't have any trouble making a DNxHD file out of MC 4.0.4

Dan Keaton · January 1st, 2010, 06:01 PM

Dear Mark,

Yes, that is very interesting.

I had to look up "GFCam":

Ikegami Press News

John Mitchell · January 1st, 2010, 07:27 PM

Guys - just a quick update -

First off - Lets tackle a few of the points raised in this thread - you cannot xport long gop media of any kind with QT Ref and this includes standard XDCam material @ 35Mb/s. This is a QT limitation rather than Avid. The QT handler cannot decode the LongGOP media "on the fly". This is not a Convergent Design limitation

Secondly - AMA will not work with the Nano, because you require the .MP4 and Sony file structure for XDCam work. This is essential metadata which tells the Avid how to stitch clips together etc. So if clips span cards etc it doesn't matter - they come up as one clip in a bin. if they go over the 2gig file limit it doesn't matter - they still appear as one clip in the bin. I would love AMA to work with the Nano but CD have a bit of work to do to make that a reality. In effect they would have to talk to Avid and possibly design their own AMA structure on the cards, or replicate Sony's. It seems Avid are open to this.

Now on to the primary topic of the thread - I'm currently using 4.04 with 100Mbs Long GOP media. I am having no problem during playback, only when parked do I get the buffer size error. I have also successfully done a video mixdown at DnxHD 120. There is a catch - the video mixdown/export will fail if you begin on a frame with a buffer error (and possibly if you end - I didn't check that). I have not done exhaustive tests but it appears that provided the in and out points of your video mixdown are not buffer error frames, it does not matter if frames in between, including if they lie on edit points, contain buffer errors. it will successfully mixdown. If it will successfully mixdown it will also successfully export. This is at best a workaround, so I only post this info to help others. My tests are very limited and not exhaustive by any means - Mark Job has done a lot more work and his results seem to vary from mine. I don't imagine the behaviour in 4.05 will be any different. One factor is that I work at 25fps - while most here work at 30 or 24.

I'm in a unique position on this project - I have the luxury of using the JVC HM700 so all my clips are dual recorded to SD card (XDCam 35Mb/s). So if I can't get it to work I can switch media. I would not advise others to take on this Avid/100Mbs Long GOP workflow without running exhaustive tests.

BTW another workaround is to transcode all your source material to DnxHD.

Dan Keaton · January 1st, 2010, 09:50 PM

Dear Perrone, John, and Mark,

Thank you for all of your testing and reports on your results.

John Mitchell · January 2nd, 2010, 10:51 PM

Further info - well I've cut my first sequence sometimes if you start a cut with a frame that generates a buffer error it will stop the export/video mixdown process. This seemed different from my first test but I think it probably doesn't happen of every one of these frames.

To workaround this I constructed my timeline so that every cut started on an "I" frame. This involved moving clips up a couple of video tracks and trimming clips that began with buffer errors under so that edits still happened at the right time. I could then transcode the entire sequence to DnxHD using 0 frame handles.

This is a tedious workflow and I wouldn't recommend it, but it is a workaround for those that may be stuck with this.

December 31st, 2009, 09:46 AM	#1
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 Dear Friends, I noticed that Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 is now available for download. This is a free update for those with Avid Media Composer Version 4. I have attempted to find the release notes for this version without success. Is anyone using this version? If so, does our 100 Mbps Long-GOP work with 4.0.5? __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

December 31st, 2009, 05:00 PM	#3
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Friends, It appears that Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 works with our files the same as previous versions. Thus, 50 Mbps Long-GOP works great, as does all I-Frame Only modes. 100 Mbps Long-GOP and higher have buffer errors when playing files on the timeline. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

December 31st, 2009, 05:41 PM	#4
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	Dan, when you say "playing files from the timeline", does this means files that have been linked to by AMA? Does this also hold for files that have been copied onto local HDD or is it just coming off the card directly? __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.

December 31st, 2009, 05:55 PM	#5
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Perrone, Our 50 Mbps Long-GOP files work fine. This is due to the fact that the Avid buffer size, to hold an entire group of pictures is just large enough. With our 100 Mbps Long-GOP files, when one stops playing, then the Avid Media Composer may give a buffer error. We feel that this is due to the fact that the buffer is too small to hold the full long group of pictures, so it can not find the start of the GOP. We have asked Avid to increase the size of their buffer. In the meantime, if one just plays a timeline, without stopping or scrubbing, it should work fine, with 100 Mbps Long-GOP. But this is impractical. The error is non-destructive, it is just annoying. I do not think it matters where the source files are located. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

December 31st, 2009, 06:07 PM	#6
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	Thanks for the info Dan. I have not yet tried the NanoFlash files in Avid. That's next week. :) This week was for material that I already have! __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.

December 31st, 2009, 03:21 PM	#2
Bob Willis Major Player Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico Posts: 292	There is no mention of CD nanoflash support in the readme file under AMA updates. Only updates for Ikegami GFCAM. Here is a link to the readme file: http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/self...348265&Hilite=

December 31st, 2009, 07:41 PM	#7
Bill Ward Major Player Join Date: Jul 2005 Posts: 580	Perrone: also, see if you can replicate another issue Mark Job and I have noted. The AVID can largely deal with the 100mbs clips, if one doesn't mind the occasional momentary pause as the AVID reminds you it's choking on the buffer size. Annoying, but doable, as long as you're not scrubbing a bunch in the timeline. The larger problem is that you can't seem to export any of the edited 100mbs stuff out of the application...the export always fails. It will be a happy day when AVID fixes this bug.

December 31st, 2009, 08:33 PM	#8
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	Ok, I got the buffer size error from the MXF file (Garden of the Gods). I was not able to use the .mov version of the files. Also the MXF nor the MOV fast imported. The Garden of the Gods clip was recognized as XDCam HD. So that's GREAT! I was also able to export a .MOV file DNxHD 36 and an .AVI file. My first attempt at a .MOV export failed and indicated I could not use "same as source". So I just did a custom .MOV with the export selections I wanted. Easy as pie. I am using 4.0.4 of MC. __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.

January 1st, 2010, 05:41 PM	#10
Mark Job Trustee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada Posts: 1,138	Strange Claims in Avid MC 4.0.5 Readme Hi Dan: On page 5 of the new Avid Media Composer Readme .pdf it states, " The following have been added to this version of the editing application: Avid supports linking to MPEG 2 HD Long GOP 102 Mbits media with AMA via the GFCAM AMA plug-in......." I find this statement quite interesting. I will investigate further to decipher exactly what it actually means.

January 1st, 2010, 06:01 PM	#11
Perrone Ford Inner Circle Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Tallahassee, FL Posts: 4,100	Are you guys not able to replicate what I just did yesterday? I didn't have any trouble making a DNxHD file out of MC 4.0.4 __________________ DVX100, PMW-EX1, Canon 550D, FigRig, Dell Octocore, Avid MC4/5, MB Looks, RedCineX, Matrox MX02 mini, GTech RAID, Edirol R-4, Senn. G2 Evo, Countryman, Moles and Lowels.

January 1st, 2010, 07:27 PM	#13
John Mitchell Contributor Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 873	Guys - just a quick update - First off - Lets tackle a few of the points raised in this thread - you cannot xport long gop media of any kind with QT Ref and this includes standard XDCam material @ 35Mb/s. This is a QT limitation rather than Avid. The QT handler cannot decode the LongGOP media "on the fly". This is not a Convergent Design limitation Secondly - AMA will not work with the Nano, because you require the .MP4 and Sony file structure for XDCam work. This is essential metadata which tells the Avid how to stitch clips together etc. So if clips span cards etc it doesn't matter - they come up as one clip in a bin. if they go over the 2gig file limit it doesn't matter - they still appear as one clip in the bin. I would love AMA to work with the Nano but CD have a bit of work to do to make that a reality. In effect they would have to talk to Avid and possibly design their own AMA structure on the cards, or replicate Sony's. It seems Avid are open to this. Now on to the primary topic of the thread - I'm currently using 4.04 with 100Mbs Long GOP media. I am having no problem during playback, only when parked do I get the buffer size error. I have also successfully done a video mixdown at DnxHD 120. There is a catch - the video mixdown/export will fail if you begin on a frame with a buffer error (and possibly if you end - I didn't check that). I have not done exhaustive tests but it appears that provided the in and out points of your video mixdown are not buffer error frames, it does not matter if frames in between, including if they lie on edit points, contain buffer errors. it will successfully mixdown. If it will successfully mixdown it will also successfully export. This is at best a workaround, so I only post this info to help others. My tests are very limited and not exhaustive by any means - Mark Job has done a lot more work and his results seem to vary from mine. I don't imagine the behaviour in 4.05 will be any different. One factor is that I work at 25fps - while most here work at 30 or 24. I'm in a unique position on this project - I have the luxury of using the JVC HM700 so all my clips are dual recorded to SD card (XDCam 35Mb/s). So if I can't get it to work I can switch media. I would not advise others to take on this Avid/100Mbs Long GOP workflow without running exhaustive tests. BTW another workaround is to transcode all your source material to DnxHD.

January 1st, 2010, 09:50 PM	#14
Dan Keaton Inner Circle Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Augusta Georgia Posts: 5,421	Dear Perrone, John, and Mark, Thank you for all of your testing and reports on your results. __________________ Dan Keaton Augusta Georgia

January 2nd, 2010, 10:51 PM	#15
John Mitchell Contributor Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Sydney Australia Posts: 873	Further info - well I've cut my first sequence sometimes if you start a cut with a frame that generates a buffer error it will stop the export/video mixdown process. This seemed different from my first test but I think it probably doesn't happen of every one of these frames. To workaround this I constructed my timeline so that every cut started on an "I" frame. This involved moving clips up a couple of video tracks and trimming clips that began with buffer errors under so that edits still happened at the right time. I could then transcode the entire sequence to DnxHD using 0 frame handles. This is a tedious workflow and I wouldn't recommend it, but it is a workaround for those that may be stuck with this.