Expert Connections : Interplay

Avid Workflow Expertise - an all round experience

balonso — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:47:00 GMT

Through my several years working at Avid as a workflow consultant, I have shared experiences with a huge variety of Avid users, from diverse backgrounds, with different goals and ambitions and with varying levels of Avid product knowledge.

To my surprise, one of the questions that I get invariably asked is: "in your experience, how have you helped others (other broadcasters, other production facilities, other users) go about addressing this challenge?" In other words, when it comes to implementing new technology, new products, new ways of working, users want to know how it is done elsewhere, how did we, Avid Consultants, go about working out similar conundrums.

It makes perfect sense that upgrading or changing technology should be taken up as an opportunity to re-evaluate the production processes, the way “things are done around here”, and to humbly re-assess what needs improving and what needs to be preserved in the new world. And this often happens in close collaboration with Avid Professional Services team: our project delivery team, trainers and workflow consultants.

Hence, an unexpected "bonus" that comes with being an Avid Workflow and Training consultant is that we are exposed to all sorts of practical situations both in broadcast and post-production environments. Either for news production, programme-making, high-end editing, material ingest, play out... you name it, we have probably been asked about it! It is a great satisfaction to work together with our users through the technological and workflow challenges that they may find, and agree on and implement a solution that makes everyone (or most!) happy. Not only that, but we know that workflows are organic and they evolve with time and as production needs change, so we are always prepared to review workflows and tweak them if needed.

As more and more users quizzed me about my recommendations based on “how others did it”, I gradually realised that such exposure was of huge value. Most end users do not get the chance to walk into another production or broadcast facility and spend time observing how they work, analysing their workflows and optimising them for efficiency. Avid Workflow consultants do! We gradually collect an invaluable set of tools, tips and tricks, which we can then pull out and apply at the relevant moment with whoever we work with next.

For example, whilst working at a start-up news channel in India, the library department had never worked with non-linear, digital archive systems. We spent a considerable amount of time exploring what their goals were, and agreeing strategies with the super users, to ensure that they had a reliable and effective archive workflow. This resulted in the creation of several custom metadata fields to their Interplay database (editable via Assist or Access), setting up of daily workflows to sub clip rushes with Assist, consolidate them with NewsCutter and then placing these archive compilations on an auto-archive folder which takes care of the actual archiving process.

I have also found that, during workflow discussions and workshops, my customers appreciate a session on “user cases” that describes how we helped broadcaster A, or post facility B tackle a particular workflow challenge. Or simply, to learn about alternative ways of ingesting, transcoding, editing, approving, sound mixing, archiving, etc. Obviously, we are extremely sensitive about how we share such information, and we will always discuss user cases as fully anonymous. The idea here is to learn about the processes and workflows, and not to share any “trade secrets”!

As another illustration, I recently worked with a large broadcaster in Central Europe, which produces programmes and promos for their national TV channels. Coming from an Avid MediaManager environment and upgrading to Interplay, they wanted a solution that allowed them to easily distinguish Interplay folders from checked-in MediaComposer projects within the Interplay database. This was easily achieved with a combination of folder colours and pre-fixing folders with special characters. A simple, but very elegant solution that suited all!

As you can see, Avid Workflow Consultants cannot only help our users understand more about Avid products and the processes that use those products, but we can also add that “all-round” experience that is so valuable in today’s content production industry. Ask us a workflow question: we have probably answered a similar one before… but, if not, rest assured we will reach out to the rest of the Avid Worldwide Consultancy team to offer you a variety of solutions. It’s in our inquisitive nature!

Bea Alonso-Martinez

Avid Senior Professional Services Consultant

The Avid GPS/SatNav

JGalui — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:12:00 GMT

I’m currently sitting in a hotel room in Odense, Denmark whilst visiting the TV news station, TV2 Fyn. Yesterday I was in Holstebro, Denmark to visit TV2 Midt Vest and the day before in Munich for Creation Club, Germany. 9 days, 3 customers, 3 flights, 3 hotels, 1 hire car and thankfully a GPS to find my way around. Last month I spent a great deal of time in Dubai at MBC, where again, thank goodness, the car I was being transported in was fitted with a GPS/SatNav system as well. For those of you who have ever visited, or read about Dubai, you will know it is a constantly changing and developing landscape, whereas Denmark has a long established infrastructure.

So, are there any similarities? Well, yes… all four of these customers produce news, sport, trailers, commercials and features. They shoot, edit, produce, transmit and archive video and audio, albeit in different formats and resolutions. They all strive to be the best they can be and to serve their audiences across multiple platforms. And, best of all, they all use Avid products to create, publish and archive their content.

All of these customers also made a move from a familiar landscape of Media Manager on Unity to ISIS with Interplay. Not as big a ‘leap’ as they initially made from tape to Avid, but nonetheless they were moving into new territory, and needed a guide who had been there before: enter the Avid Workflow Consultant, or the ‘Avid GPS/SatNav’.

‘At the next junction remember to delete unchecked-in avid assets folder contents. These will quickly fill with rendered effects not used in checked-in final sequences’

As you can hear, the GPS system keeps reminding me of what to do/say along the way…

Instinct features heavily in the MBC newsroom workflow, voice over is done at the desktop and the majority of the editing is done by the journalists, who in the past would have used Media Browse to prepare edits, which would be finalised by an editor using Avid NewsCutter.

‘In 1 mile, keep left and remember to duplicate an Instinct sequence in the NewsCutter bin before finishing it off’

Occasionally, Instinct edits are finished off by NewsCutter operators if effects are required, duplicating the sequence in the NewsCutter will break the link with the original iNews story and means that if the journalist were to open their original story from inside Instinct again, that they will not overwrite anything the editor has checked-in.

Yesterday, I had an editor capturing video at a central ingest point to a NewsCutter bin. They, of course had to wait until the 30 minute capture was finished until they could begin to edit. They have 2 x NewsCutter Nitris DX systems that they use as capture devices.

‘At the next junction, pin a folder in Interplay, and you can capture directly to that folder and return to your NewsCutter and frame chase edit’

Pinning the folder and capturing to it, allowed the editor to begin cutting from the ingested tape, as they would from an AirSpeed ingest, frame chase editing. They finished the story earlier than expected because of this and this allowed the news gallery a little more time for a rehearsal before they went live with their new programme using an Interplay workflow.

‘Turn right and you have arrived at your destination’

Last night TV2 Fyn went on air with their news programme using a full Interplay workflow. In a day or two we will be deleting media from the ISIS that is no longer needed for news using Interplay Access, so deletion and protection rules are very important. What if a master clip that was captured yesterday is going to be used again tomorrow? What are the rules, and who will protect the media? These decisions need to be made by the customer, with the guidance of a Workflow Consultant from Avid.

A joint decision was taken to permanently reserve all projects that get checked-in to Interplay. Deletion is then done on a project by project basis…

‘When clicking delete at the next turn, you should never override a reservation, as this will override all reservations for that clip’

If a newsroom journalist user creates a new NewsCutter project and bin from the NRCS tool and drags a master clip in to the bin from a project that is about to be deleted, and checks that bin in, it will be automatically permanently reserve the master clip again. Why? Well, the workflow for TV2 Fyn is that we have created a site setting for each machine that ‘points’ every new project created into a subfolder of ‘Projects’ called ‘Projekter’ (Danish for Projects). ‘Projekter’ is permanently reserved, which means they have a similar workflow to the one they had with Media Manager, in that association with a project protects the media, until the project is deleted.

We have also created a folder in Interplay called ‘Trash’. When a NewsCutter project has been checked-in and is no longer needed, the deletion cycle is 3 days here at TV2, then the project is cut and pasted into the trash folder, where the reservation is removed from the folder and the project folders and associated media is deleted.

Summing up, there are many considerations when designing a workflow with a customer, and for me workflow is not just about how the media gets from camera to screen to archive, that’s what I would call ‘media flow’. Workflow is about people; journalists, editors, designers, anchors, camera operators, librarians, viewers and advertisers. There are always two sides to every project; is this a technology project that involves people, or a people project that involves technology? My view is the latter. Technology may drive the change, but managing that change involves a symbiotic effort between the customer and Avid, this is why having been a customer and operator of Avid products (as well as ‘other’ providers), the Professional Services Workflow Teams can approach and work with customers and understand their needs from a real-life newsroom perspective.

Article by Richard Bentley, Avid Professional Services Consultant, EMEA.

Upcoming Certification Courses

Avid Community Team — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:47:00 GMT

If you are interested in obtaining Avid Certified Support Representative (ACSR) certification, please note the following dates for the pertinent offerings. Recertification dates are also included for those who already hold current certifications which are about to expire. To enroll, contact the Avid Training Coordinator at 800.867.2843 or at trainingservices@avid.com.

WG433 Avid Interplay ACSR Certification - April 6-10 - Tewksbury, MA
WG433 Avid Interplay ACSR Certification - May 18-22 - Tewksbury, MA

WG422 Avid Unity ISIS ACSR Certification - April 27-May 1 - Tewksbury, MA
UN442 Avid Unity ISIS ACSR Recertification - May 4-5 - Tewksbury, MA
UN442 Avid Unity ISIS ACSR Recertification - June 22-23 - Tewksbury, MA

UN402 Avid Unity MediaNetwork Certification - May 11-15 - Tewksbury, MA
UN412 Avid Unity MediaNetwork ACSR Recertification - May 7-8 - Tewksbury, MA
UN412 Avid Unity MediaNetwork ACSR Recertification - June 25-26 - Tewksbury, MA

400 WIN Avid Editor ACSR Certification - May 18-22 - Tewksbury, MA
410 WIN Avid Editor ACSR Recertification - May 6-7 - Tewksbury, MA
410 WIN Avid Editor ACSR Recertification - June 24-25 - Tewksbury, MA

Get your Avid Interplay ACSR -- 20% off

Anonymous — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 17:05:00 GMT

If you've been putting off immersing yourself in the world of Avid Interplay, here is your last chance for 2008...at a discounted rate!

The December Interplay ACSR series of classes still has a few open seats. We are offering a 20% discount on each of the three classes that earn you Interplay ACSR certification. The full two-week series runs from December 8-19 in our Tewksbury Training Center. It includes: the WG213 Interplay Admin, WG112 Avid Networking and WG433 Interplay ACSR. The full value of the courses is $6,500. With the 20% discount, you can save $1,300 by booking now for $5,200!

All courses have ample hands-on time built-in and one-on-one instruction, as needed, to offer the complete training experience.

Course Highlights

WG213

Extensive hands-on and lab time with all Interplay Applications
Install and use Interplay Access, Assist and Interplay-enabled editors, i,e, Newscutter or Media Composer
Create and customizing an Interplay database
Learn the basics of the Interplay Engine, Framework and Media Indexer

WG112

Acquire basic networking knowledge and skills for design and troubleshooting
Learn to configure Avid-supported switches (Cisco 4948 and Foundary X424) in hands-on lab time.
Learn about routing configurations and dedicated and virtual router interfaces.

WG433

Learn the Interplay and Avid Workgroup pre-sales and installation process
Setup Microsoft Active Directory and DNS servers required for Interplay and Interplay clusters
Install both single and clustered Interplay Engine systems from scratch with your lab team
Get inside the Interplay system with hands on experience for back up and restore processes
Learn how to properly spec, install and configure Interplay Media Indexers (32 and 64-bit)
Gain invaluable hands-on troubleshooting skills!

Customers must have current Unity MediaNet or ISIS ACSR certification to be Interplay ACSR certified.

Please contact trainingservices@avid.com (978-275-2071) to book your seat(s)!

Avid Interplay: Not For Just Your Avid Media

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 07:36:00 GMT

One of the overlooked features of Interplay is the ability to bring all sorts of "non-Avid" files under your control and make them available for all your users (or a select few) to collaborate on. That's right...the Interplay Access application can track any kind of file, in addition to all those Avid masterclips, subclips, sequences, effects, etc. Beyond that there is also native support for Adode Photoshop and the entire Microsoft Office Suite of products: you can actually check in and out files from these products, into Interplay, from their file menus.

Microsoft Word with the Interplay Plugin

The workflow for using these assets is simple:

Create the file on your local system.
Import the file into your Interplay database using Access or Avid Interplay plug-in for Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop.
When you want to edit the file, check it out of Interplay using Access, Office or Photoshop.
When you are done editing the file, check it back in to the database using Access, Office or Photoshop

At this point, other users on Interplay who have been granted the proper "roles" or permissions could view and edit the files. There are somewhat different rules for file assets as opposed to Avid assets in Interplay. For example, with file assets, a user can do an 'exclusive checkout' meaning no one else can open the file for editing. There are also features with allow for version control of the assets where you can look at the history and differences between different versions of a file, for example some color correction to a Photoshop file. There is actually one use of this versioning aspect which you could use for Avid assets. Different versions of Avid sequences get checked into Interplay and you can use this version control to view and rollback to previous version of a sequence.

For system administrators, there are some consideration for implementing use of this non-Avid assets workflow. First, you must get an idea of just how popular it will become once your users catch on. I've already mentioned Office and Photoshop files, which are supported natively, however MP3s and other audio files, QuickTime movies, Windows Media files, JPGs, GIFs, etc. can all be imported and tracked in Interplay. So, if you are going adopt Interplay for a 'graphics' workflow which may entail large files...where are these files going to be stored? By default, they go to Interplay Engine server and depending on whether you are on a single or clustered Interplay system and using an SR2400 or SR2500, the available space will range from 70GB up to a little over 900GB on the raid array that comes with a cluster. My recommendation for anyone who thinks they may want to use this workflow is go with the 'split database' method. It's easier to do this before your system has been installed and in use for awhile. So if you are just getting an Interplay system be sure to tell your Avid installer or reseller this is something you want to do. They will create a separate workspace on your shared storage system where these 'non-Avid' assets will get stored.

Administrators will also want to know how to configure certain types of assets to open up when launched from Interplay Access. You can do this from the Tools->Options->Asset Types in Access. For a .JPG for example, while you can view head frames in Access, you may want to have it open in a specific external application. That's configurable with Access. You can even chose different applications for viewing and editing.

You can play non-Avid Video directly in the Access window and play audio files there as well:

To use file assets, there are no special bits to run at install time. The Office and Photoshop plugins come standard as well with all Interplay systems. However, you do have to install the plugin. Not all sites and installers are aware of this. Make sure you do a custom install for Access from Interplay installation DVD and choose the plugins you want. After that, any future upgrades should automatically pickup the plugin from the local machine's registry and upgrade it accordingly.

Post by Stacy Saveall, Avid Training Services Instructor and Curriculum Developer

Improved Delete Behavior in Latest Interplay Release

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 06:52:00 GMT

Many editors are familiar with the “Lock Bin Selection” option in the editor to protect their media from being deleted.

For those that have adopted the Interplay workflow, however, locking clips in a bin is not the recommended best practice. Reservations are time-based permissions applied to folders in Interplay Access, and should be applied to protect media.

If a user locks a clip in his bin and forgets about it, Interplay doesn't have a way to delete the media file off the system. Media Managers would likely see the following error when trying to delete certain files off the system.

The file gives an “access denied” message because it is in a “Read Only” state on the Windows level and even an Interplay Administrator cannot override this permission. We’ve seen several sites in the past that have hundreds of clips appear in the “Orphan Clips” folder in the Interplay database that could not be deleted because of this. The possible workarounds would be to drag the clips into a bin and unlock them from the editor, or to hunt through Windows Explorer to find the “Read Only” files and remove the flag. Both options could prove time consuming.

With Interplay 1.4.2, we have included a new Site setting called Delete Behavior.

This setting allows the Administrator to decide how to treat media that has been locked in the bin. As you can see from the setting below, Administrators can leave it up to the delete user’s discretion, or create a default setting for everyone.

Allow user choice in Delete dialog: Two options are available in the Delete dialog box: “Skip” and “Force delete.”
Always skip (default): In the Delete dialog box, the “Skip” option is shown but cannot be changed.
Always force-delete: In the Delete dialog box, the “Force delete” option is shown but cannot be changed.

Now when a Media Manager plans on deleting assets he or she will see the following “Delete Options” dialog:

Note that an Administrator will always have the option to Force-Delete or Skip locked media.

Remember, it is a best practice to apply Reservations through Interplay Access to protect media from being deleted. However, if media had been locked in the bin and was never unlocked, Media Managers now have a much easier option to purge that media from the system once it is no longer needed.

Post by Ryan Nadeau — Field Trainer, Avid Training Services