Hi All,
I would like to import from XDCAM to Avid using the deck's FAM abilities. I also need to make dubs of the raw XDCAM footage for the producers to have copies.
What are the best solutions so that I can give the producers copies of the media? Exporting a QT and burning it?...A mediamanager type solution?...
Currently, I have a DVD burner so I have been doing real-time outputs of all the source tapes. Does anyone know of a faster solution?
-LPG
There are a number of options. Technically it's actually possible to edit directly from the disc with Avid's AMA, but in practice disc read and seek times make this impractical.
If you have Media Composer 3.5 or newer you can use AMA to access the XDCAM media. To do this you'd make a folder called "XDCAM Media" or similar, then for each disc simply create a sub-folder with the disc name and copy the entire contents into that folder. You can then point Avid AMA at that folder structure.
Alternatively with earlier versions, if you you've chosen to disable AMA, you can use the XDCAM proxy editing option. You import the XDCAM Proxy video from each disc and edit with that. Once your edit is locked off you simply Batch Import the full-quality XDCAM media to bring the sequence to online resolution.
And the third option, again with AMA disabled or earlier version, simply import the XDCAM clips - using File -> Import and navigating to the CLIPR directory and selecting all the MXF files. It's slower (only slightly faster than realtime for 50Mbit material in my experience) but you get the full quality pictures and sound.
For the client - you could do any number of things, put all the clips on timeline and export QT as you say... But one of XDCAM's great features is Proxy video. You can in fact give your client all the XDCAM proxy clips and let them browse, mark and assemble them in the PDZ-1 viewer software. A number of the productions I work with regularly do this. They copy all the proxy footage to their file-server before we get the disks and they work with that - some of their directors even take the work home by copying the proxy files to a removable drive or even DVD data discs.
Dylan Reeve - Edit Geek // Online/Offline Editor // Post Production SupervisorAuckland, New Zealand
Dude! This is awesome info. Thank you so much. I like the PDZ-1 idea a lot.
Another thing I'd like to figure out is exporting faster from Avid. I have to post a lot of rough cuts on the internet, or make DVDs for transcribers, etc. These XDCAM features are unbelievable breakthroughs for importing and distributing media, but are there any similar breakthroughs for exporting?
For example, sometimes I have to post an hour long sequence on the internet with a TC burn in. This took me 2 hours to mixdown the other day, and 40 minutes to compress with Sorenson Squeeze. God forbid I get a setting wrong =)
With the XDCAM low-res proxy footage, I'd have to mixdown everything in order to export it, or else I'd get the "Long GOP" error because the media is MPEG-4. Does anyone know of options for speeding up exports/compression?
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