Hi guys.... this is my first post in this forum and it seems the best for Avid.

I'm an Independent filmmaker and I trying to figuring out the workflow for Combustion with Avid media composer. I currently own and Avid xpress pro HD but I will get next week the upgrade to M. Composer.

We are planning to shoot a feature film with a Sony pmw EX1 and transfer to 35mm at the end.
I will be having tons of VFX and compositing with Combustion and editing with Avid media composer.

Now...this is the situation.... I will be using my laptop for everything. My machine is a Dell Precision M90 with Intel Core 2 CPU T7600 @ 2.33GHz, 2 gigs of ram and a 512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 3500M graphics card.

The footage will be 1920x1080p/23.976 (I'm guessing) transfer to Avid DNxHD codec. I read about this codec being great for compositing.

Also I read there's an Avid DNxHD 36, is a high-quality offline resolution supporting full 16x9 aspect ratio and is in 1080p/23.976, 1080p/24.

So I'm guessing I can do a perfect conform of all effects and then replace the footage for the High quality footage in combustion and that's it. Then render and export as what??? I guess not Targa because I have to go back to the timeline in avid, so I'm guessing as Quicktime DNxHD 220.

If anybody knows or worked with this workflow please let me know.

Thanks guys

Tana

HelloOOO!!!!!  Holaa!!!!!!  Nijo Maaaa!!!!!!  anybody there.....

T

 Hi,

Patience.  You asked a specific question about a specific workflow on a day when a lot of people are still on holiday.  I'd give it a day before bumping the thread.

good luck,
Carl

 LOL. 

Thanks Carl,

You're right.

Later

T

First, I am not an expert. I, too, am new to MC (but have been using it), and new to this forum having come from the XpressProHD forum. I have been working in Combustion for the last 4 or 5 years. One of my favorite softwares.

That being said, the workflow for my current project (720P 24fps HVX-200), Avid to edit, 16bit TIFF out to Combustion for compositing. This works great. Are you shooting 8bit or 10 bit? There is an ongoing "discussion" as to whether or not to up the bit rate on 8 bit material. The consensus of the FX people I know (real deal film FX people) is to up the bit rate. They do a great deal of material manipulation, and although shooting in 8 bit is not ideal, taking it up early in the process to prevent further "damage" is the way to go, and this makes sense to me.

I have not tested and compared DNxHD, and have not yet searched this forum for folks who have, but I will.

A side note. I render out of Combustion in sequential TIFF. I have gotten burned too many times leaving a clip/clips overnight to render as a movie, only to wake up to a problem render that didn't finish. All of the render lost. With sequential files, all the frames that have already rendered is good, and you can pick up the render where it left off.

Thanks nogable...

Me too I've been using Combustion for 4 or 5 years, but I was working on a stop animation show that was NTSC D1 720x486. So I do not know the Sony EX1 footage.  We want the best resolution because we're going out to film. 

About the bit rate i'm reading about the camera right now, but I did find in the combustion manual I can raise the bit rate.  Also I was reading about the DNxHD and I found really cool things. One of them, is also choose to encode 8-bit HD media as 10-bit media Avid DNxHD media to maintain pristine image quality over multiple generations of postproduction effects processing.  The increased bit depth provides the additional dynamic range necessary for precise color correction adjustments without introducing signal clipping and rounding-error artifacts.

About rendering, I use to render TARGA files.  But I did find out about the Avid DNxHD 36, is a high-quality offline resolution supporting full 16x9 aspect ratio and is in 1080p/23.976, 1080p/24.  This means I can do the FX a low res and then change the footage. (I'm guessing)  I hope is like that.

I'll keep going digging and reading.

Thanks

T

The best to use in Combustion is 32 bit FLOAT. I'm going to look into the DNA35 for that purpose myself.

I always use 32 bit, is just RGBA.  For sure I need my alpha channel for effects.  About DNA35 I never use that type of file.

Let's find out .

Thanks man

Sorry, best is FLOAT, and I meant DNxHD 35.

LOL...  U mean DNxHD 36

Oh, dear. ha. Yes.