Guys,

We're just experimenting a little with v5 and were very keen to get this feature of combining the Proxies and Hi Res Audio in our workflow.  However, it appears the only way to do this is by AMA.  This makes it practically useless to us (as we'd have to copy every tape to a Drive then AMA it and with the amount of rushes we bring in this would be impractical).

Does anyone know if this is indeed the only way to combine the two?

Ra-ey

Tape?

XDCAM is either disc based or solid state cards.

Hi Ra-ey I had wondered about that so will check it out later today when MC5 frees up. 

XDCAM from disk has gotten a whole lot worse in my opinion since AMA. You need to turn AMA off to import proxies or upres to full definition. Turning off AMA requires changing the AMA settings and quitting Avid. restarting Avid with it off and doing your importing. Then reversing this whole time consuming process when you have finished importing.

Last time I foolishly put a disk in a U1 whilst AMA was still turned on MC4 automatically started to link all the files on the disk via AMA. 

Bobcat, sorry I should have said disc for clarity (we use the terms disca and tapes interchangeably here).

Andrew, I take your point.  For all AMAs brillance (and I do think it is brilliant) there seems to be a few workflow issues I'd like to see changed in futurt releases.

I also think that AMA may well be the only way to combine Proxies and Hi Res Audio because of the 'muxed' way they are created, but there's always hope!

Ra-ey

Ra-ey, I understand. I have also decided not to use AMA for XDCAM discs at this time. AMA does not work well off the disc and the extra time needed to copy files to a hard drive negates all the advantages of AMA.

It does work well with XDCAM EX files, but I still do not have an efficient workflow for the discs yet. It is frustrating.

Update:

My boss has done some testing/playing and has worked out that in v5 there are some new AMA settings that let you 'link' to XDcam clips by using the Low Res 'Proxy' video AND Hi-Res Audio.  He then Consolidated these clips - meaning that you could then use these as your Master clips and didn't need to copy a load of disks onto your computer.

He used a 40 minute disk as a test.

It took 18 minutes to 'Link' the Proxy/Hi Res Audio and then Consolidate.

It took 2 minutes to Import the Proxy (with the standard Low Res Audio).

So the bad sound Proxy Audio is still way quicker, but if you have the time and space, the Consolidate method isn't exactly out of the question.

Ra-ey

Hi Ra-ey,

I hoped to test this within a few weeks but some internal changes (extra edits, upgrading to ISIS and moving edits) prevent me from doing this now.

Could you give a step by step workflow on how your boss did it?

Maybe, if this workflow is not optimal, we should do a feature request at Avid as technically and workflow wise I don't think it is that difficult we ask for.

AMA needs to support both local file transfer (firewire usb) and FTP transfers (network). The network is especially needed when multiple Avid's want to use 1 xdcam and not walk around with it from edit to edit. When using firewire/usb the mounting process is automatic. With FTP it will need to be a manual mount. For FTP transfer there needs to be a settings tab to enter the ftp settings. being IP address, user name, and password. A default path is not needed as the file structure on the disc is always the same. After opening the bin, select which clips to consolidate select which audio/video media to consolidate.

Do you have any thoughts?

Hi Ra-ey!

Same Problem here. The classic way does not have the option to import hires audio with proxy files. AMA an consolidate could be an option and I could care less about the 18 min. But batch importing will not work. How is your online workflow?

For my production discspace ist the main concern. having 13 shows with each 15 50gig prodiscs there is no way to work with online picture.

all the best from germany

jil

Guys,

Talk about bad timing - my boss just went on a 2 week vacation, so he's not here to ask about all the details (and he was the one that had v5 on his laptop and did all the testing).

However, here's what I remember about his process (hopefully someone with a little more time can give it a test and make any amendments):

1)  He attached a U1 drive to his computer (usb).  Apparently, this is the only sure fire and quick way to AMA XDcam (something about the deck having 8 play heads, not quite sure).

2)  He selected the AMA settings.  There are now Video and Audio preferences, described as something like "Most Compressed" (proxy) and "Least Compressed" (Full Res).  He picked the former for Video and the latter for Audio.

3)  He AMA-ed his disk.

4)  He then Consolidated the Clips to another Bin.  There you are, Low-Res Video; Hi-Res Audio.

5)  When it came time to delete the Low-Res Video he simply selected all the clip, pressed Delete, which brings up the usual Delete Options window, and he then deleted the Low-Res Video ONLY, and kept the Audio.

6)  Batch Import the Video at Hi-Res.

I hope I didn't miss something out, trying to do it from memory.

The big gotcha (and it IS a big Gotcha) - and is a general XDcam issue - is that he found when Batch Importing 'Consolidated' XDcam clips ON A MAC ONLY there would be random offsets.  In other words, the clips were not the correct timecode, but would be out by anything from 4 to 18 frames.  THIS DID NOT HAPPEN ON A PC.  However, if the clips were not consolidated, there was no problem.  Even if you tried Batch Importing directly from the sequence, again, if the sequence was made up of consolidated clips, the same issue occurred on a MAC, if the sequence wasn't made up of consolidated clips, there was no problem.

I can't remember what he found when he tested different decks other than the U1, but I think there was issues with AMA.

I hope this helps.

Ra-ey

I've had the same problems. I spoke with Avid tech support, and apparently they never intended us to work off the disks like in the past. The AMA work flow calls for us to load ALL disk content to a mass storage device and link to it. I think they assume we all have huge shared storage. I too was assuming by their press release that we could continue the Proxy workflow, but with full audio rather than low quality. Avid dropped the ball here.

Anyways, I don't think this new feature is of any use unless you have multiple editors accessing the same footgae and don't have a MASSIVE shared storage. The work flow described by tech support would be to house all the content on cheap mass storage (not high performance high bandwidth... so I'm thinking external hard drives), and consolidate the low res proxies with high audio to your shared storage for all to access. When the sequence is ready, you would mount your mass storage device with the footage and relink to the high res and consolidate. 

I tried that this morning but kept crashing. Another problem is that when consolidating the low res to begin with, you have to make sure it is set to "keep master clips linked to media on the original drive"... I was told to switch it to relink master clips but then ran into the problem of  not being able to relink to the high res... it kept linking to the low res consolidated material.

Is it just me or does it seem to make more sense, if you're forced to copy over the entire disc, to forget the AMA and just import the high res clips and work off them. No consolidating, no relinking. (barring the multiple editors situation from above)

Another issue is that Avid repeatedly advises against mixing AMA workflow with import/batch import workflows. Anyone know why?

lalondejv:

Another issue is that Avid repeatedly advises against mixing AMA workflow with import/batch import workflows. Anyone know why?

If you have a disk in a XDCAM player with AMA on the default is that Avid will import it. I have not spent any time trying to see if you can change this default position as I had wasted enough time cussing the half thought out implimentation of a great idea already.

I see. I had already run into those annoyances, I thought there was another reason. When I asked tech support he didn't know Avid advised against it.

UPDATE

I've been able to set up a workflow that meets my needs using the workflow I briefly mentioned above. If anyone needs it more clearly let me know. There is one problem I might potentially run into that I can't forsee a solution. If any of the consolidated low res clips were to go off line, how could I relink them and retrieve them. In the past (tape based) workflow, if the clip media was accidentally deleted, or if, like last week, a hard drive of the media crashed and all media was lost, we could batch capture/import the clips to rebuild the media. But if that happens now, I don't know how to re-consolidate the low res footage. Anyone?????

Thanks

Jason

My XD workflow is old fashioned.

I open a new project and call it client name LOW RES (proxies) I never edit  that footage in the low res project and in 3 years I have not filled a 1.5 TB "LowRes footage" drive which is always available on that CPU (and all the edit stations as the drive pops into an Addonics SATA cage in each of the CPUs) This drive is backed up incrementally to a drive on the server via RoboCopy.

Then start a client name project and open the appropriate proxies bins from the client name LOW RES project in it.

Batch import full res at any stage (for me usually at the end of the first long, selects, rough cut) of the project.

Proxies of all XD footage ever used here is available at all times.

I was given a demo by a rental house on proprietary software they developed that can import high res audio and low res video from XD Cam.  I think they've been trying to develop this software for a few years now.

We are going to try out this workflow on our next season and see how it goes.  We'll probably have to have the rental house baby sit us for a bit as we get it all nailed down.

BTW, using low rez audio is not a viable option at any stage of our workflow.

Hello,

I work at a large post production department, last week everything was upgraded to avid mc version 5 and we're currently looking in to the concept of loading proxy video with highres audio to our isis. I was able to AMA mount a xdcam disc with an u1, set the AMA consolidation settings to most compressed video and least compressed audio. The AMA bin gives full playback no problem. However when I first tried to consolidate the disc to our isis, avid crashed after the third clip and gave me a Exception: STREAM_SIZE_EXCEEDED error box. After that it won't start any more consolidations. Just the three first clips, and they seem ok. I've tried restarting, changing workspaces, switching to another avid set so far no good. Any ideas ?