Hello guys,

I've been editing on a project for about 5 days and due to an external harddrive crash, lost all of the MXF files tied to my project. Now, how do I reconnect/relink my Avid Project with a new round of MXF files? I transcoded them in Resolve and brought them into AVID afterwards. I can't Batch Re-Import cause the offline files in my "dailies" bin are shown as AMA files. I wonder if I commited a mistake already the way I got the MXF files into AVID. Cause why are they shown as AMA? Amateur hour... I deserve to be doing the work all over again.

Well, I'd appreciate any suggestions. What do I have to watch in particular? 

Thank you,

Vlady

MC 8.9.3

 

You wouldn't have Linked them if they were Avid MXF media from Resolve....you just throw the media into an Avid MediaFiles folder and can use the .mdb file to populate a bin of clips.

Are you saying you've had to create NEW MXF files, or re-copied your original MXF files from some other source? When Resolve creates a replacement MXF file, the metadata appears to be different.

Hey Kevin!

I'm afraid that's exactly what I did. AMA linked the MXF files out of Resolve. Quite stupid.

I lost the original MXF files cause the external drive, where I had them on crashed and I wasn't able to recover the data on it. I haven't made all new MXF. I just made 1-2 new MXF files in Resolve to see if I can relink them but to no avail. AVID won't connect it, neither with the offline files in the dailies bin, nor with the footage in my sequence.

I'm very close to setting up the project all over again. It sucks, cause I have to sync the footage yet again. What a waste of time...

If you've got another idea of how I could create new MXF files with Resolve with the same data/tape id etc. that the old ones have, I'm eager to hear.

Thanks for taking the time!

 

Cheers,

Vlady

I've never had luck, frankly. Whenever I get adjusted color corrected clips, even with the same filename, Avid sees them as different files and don't relink. A "forced relink" option would be nice.

I don't know how many clips you have, but you can overcut if needed. Keep your old bins as they are.

Open a new bin. Place the new MXF files in a numbered folder within the Avid MediaFiles folder. Once the copy is done, click on the app and a new database is built. Drag the .mdb file into your new bin, and clips will appear for all of the media.

Now, if relinking to your old clips doesn't work, you can at least look at your sequence and find the appropriate new clip, mark ins/outs and replace the clip with the new one. It's time consuming, but probably not much different than starting from scratch, except that your edit as is remains intact.

That's a clever idea and something tells me, that I will end up doing exactly that. I don't understand though how an editing system does not allow to replace clips like that. I just don't understand. I can't believe that you have to start from scratch and somehow get by with ideas like yours. It seems so outdated. In this day and age to be matching your sequence with new clips instead of telling the program to replace clip 1 with a new clip 1 and so forth. 

Thank you for your suggestions!

Do you still have the original Resolve project with the original media?
If so you could try exporting an AAF from Avid (without media) from your timeline and opening that AAF in your original Resolve project.  I have not tried this and MC may well not export an AAF from a timeline with offline media. It might be worth a look as it would only take a few minutes to test.

Media Composer can and does allow replacing files if you use it to make the transcoded dailies.

It even comes with background processing to allow a system to bash out transcodes quickly.

MXF files transcoded in MC can easily be replaced with fresh transcoded files from the same sources if from MC.

The complication is using a 3rd party solution to make the transcoded files. MC is then given those files but never aware of the sources so a second batch of them is seen as "new" media and it would be mad for it to attempt to create a relationship.

You cna get sequences to relink but you won;t get master clips to relink. 

Pat Horridge:

You cna get sequences to relink but you won;t get master clips to relink. 

For me if I can get an Offline MC Sequence to relink in my original Resolve project dailies media I get options.

1: I can use an AAF of the edited timeline in my original Resolve project to link to  the original media. Then deliver this AAF timeline  the Avid template to a new "number only" named folder in my Avid MediaFiles\MXF\ folder.  Back in MC after it has indexed that folder I can drag the newly created AAF file from the media folder into a new bin in MC. The newly "transcoded" media will appear. Open the AAF and I have a new MC timeline with all of the cuts and re syncing of the original timeline intact and the media online.

2: If I wanted all of the dailies media in bins identical to the original bins then I can sort the original AMA bin (with offline media) using timecode.  Select all the clips and drop them on a new timeline.  AAF export the timeline without media. Open the AAF in the original Resolve Project. Deliver this time line using the Avid template to a new "number only" named folder in my Avid MediaFiles\MXF\ folder.  Drag the AAF from this folder into a new bin.  Sort the bin by timecode.   I now have the offline dailies bin and online dailies bin with identical clips in the same order.  Now relatively easy to recreate the original edit by duplicating it.  Arrange the offine and online bins side by side. 
Step through the duplicate edit whilst marking each edits IO.  Then use go to Mark in and Match Frame /Find bin. This gives me the Offline clip displayed with its In time. Swap to the online bin, visually find and select the "same" clip. Type in the Mark In time from the match frames Source windows TC display and edit the online media into the duplicate sequence.

 

There workarounds but for anything approaching a large complex project its a lot of work and prone to error.

I've never understood the reluctance of MC to allow ingest of other NLE projects. It would be such a killer feature.

The ability to suck up Premiere (and in the old days FCP7) projects complete would have set MC as the solve it tool.

And to do that it needs a more flexible media association tool. The ability to seek media relations and then allow the user to lock them in place.

We still today end up, even with 100% Avid managed media, clips that fail to re-link. Everything the user can see matches but MC refuses. We need to be able to take control and force a relink and know MC has corrected whatever was wrong.

 

Pat Horridge:

I've never understood the reluctance of MC to allow ingest of other NLE projects.

IMO because they Avid would have to solve the inaccuracies of each of the other NLE's media systems to be able to provide frame accurate repeatable edits. And then redo this exercise whenever another NLE changes anything.

Pat Horridge:

The ability to suck up Premiere (and in the old days FCP7) projects complete would have set MC as the solve it tool.

IMO neither Premiere nor, the much later introduced, FCP were designed to have reliable, frame accurate repeat ability.

Pat Horridge:

to do that it needs a more flexible media association tool.

The whole original Avid Media capture and later imported media that required accurate continuous Timecode and an obscure (to us) media file naming system that included project and media source information that is manage by those pesky little media databases. The databases that for decades allowed us to send sub a 5MB files to other MC users in the world that allowed them to recreate our complete project.  No dependency on File paths. Batch capture and Batch import both either asked which machine the "Tape" was in or let us select any file-path for where imported media was.  MC was smart enough if a Files path A changed to B it first looked for file path B for all files that originally had File path A.  Originally neither Premiere  FC /FCP) had basic systems capable of providing thha data.  This Avid 100% reliable repeat ability was IMO (experience) what kept us spending far more for our NLE systems.

FWIW AMA broke all of that. It has radically improved since day one but much as I would like it to I still do not find Linking robust enough for my large offline online workflows. (with the exception projects using only Sony EX or XDCAM HD media) 

Pat Horridge:

We need to be able to take control and force a relink and know MC has corrected whatever was wrong

I Think Avid would have been better to use a modern HTML based data process for AMA. Then include an app that allows us see and modify our existing Linked Source clips meta data fields match our new file locations, names etc that Avid now requires to allow successful, reliable re linking.