Hi all, here's the deal. (deep breath...)

i've been working on a project - feature length, on Xpress Pro HD 5.2.4, for some time now.  It's finished and we are having it graded on a DS Nitris as this is what's available to us and we are on a serious budget so the old post house i used to work for is helping us out.  It's HDV so the media is MXF.  The project is finished and so far this is what has happened.  Transcoded the finished sequence to DNxHD-185 (DS doesn't seem to like the Thin Raster of HDV - this sorted that problem), consolidated onto a portable 500 GB HDD with the bin file and an AFE for Nitris.  So far so good.  Next up, the sequence loads into Nitris fine (I think they're on version 7.6? or 7.8 so it does support MXF media) HOWEVER although most media is present and correct we are finding that certain clips are replaced with random other clips from the timeline and that some clips even change halfway through playing to another scene - all within the same clip.  We think we've put our finger on it being down to me being a huge novice when i started to project.  I failed to assign original tape names to each tape and all the media has one name "restaurant".  We've found that although, say, a media composer has no problem opening the full sequence, the DS looks at the timecodes and gets confused when there are more than one similar timecode seemingly from the same tape - it doesn't take into account durations ect to work out that it's not the right media for the clip.  So  10 or 15 clips came up wrong.  We made an EDL which i took back into Xpress Pro to identify the clips that were missing, i renamed the tape names for them and re-consolidated - they took it in and it seemed to work, but overnight, new clips have been thrown up - we think due to the Nitris going off and on and re-indexing the clips and finding other errors.  this seems like it could be a never ending circle so I'm going to go back to the original media (not transcoded) and rename all the tape names to their corresponding bin names - ie. Tape 001, Tape 002 etc. We think this will work and we'll just reimport the whole thing  and hopefully the new tape names will help Nitris tell whats what.

So i'm now at the stage of re-naming the original clips in Xpress Pro but this is where i'm having problems. 

What i've been told to do is highlight the clips in the bins with the original media, unlink, change the source name to the name of the bin, Tape 001 etc and then relink. 

I opened bin Tape 001, highlighted one clip to test, unlinked it, changed it's name and relinked.  The media went offline and when i relinked showed up again and the tape name heading now showed Tape 001.  Great i thought.  Funnily all the other clips in the bin had also changed to Tape 001 without me selecting them, but they were still online so i though cool, and moved onto Bin 2.  All the clips in bin 2 were called Tape 001, and in all the other bins too, they've all changed to the source name i assigned to the first clip.  So have the clips on the external drive

First question - Why?

I selected a clip from bin 2 did the same unlinking and this time only that clip changed it's name to tape 002 but it wouldn't come back online when i tried relinking.  I eventually refreshed the media directories and reloaded the media database and it reverted back to being called tape 001 and was online again. 

Question 2 - Is this the right thing to be doing?  When i look in the MXF media folder on my Avid drive the actual MXF files themselves have the bin names attached to them and not "restuarant" but for some reason all the consolidated clips on the portable drive are called restaurant?  Why, at what point are these files losing their original media names and becoming the ellusive "restaurant"?  Changing the tape names in the bins doesn't seem to affect the MXF files names at all, just the tape name under the tape heading in the bin - even though when i change the names Avid tells me "This operation changes the source to which a clip refers".  I'm very confused as to why i cant simply change the tape name in the bin and have Avid rename the media the same as the tape name? 

This is actually turning out to be really hard to explain so i hope someone has some idea of what i'm talking about or has been through this before.  All i want to do is give the media and clips distinct names so that DS doesn't get confused when it tries to fit them into the sequence.  Can anyone help?  Does anyone even know what i'm rambling on about?  God its late!  I'll be up for hours so any swift responses would really help as i'm meant to be getting the renamed clips back to them tomorrow for the final days work on monday. 

At the moment i've given up on renaming the original media and i'm working on the transcoded, consolidated media on the portable drive and going through all the transcoded clips and finding which tape they were from originally and renaming the clips without unlinking, just by going to "modify" and changing the source name to say Tape 001.  This seems to keep the clip online and the "Tape" heading displays the new name i've given it.  It doesn't however change the MXF name in the Avid MediaFiles folder on the HDD, that stills says "restaurant".  Will this mean DS is still confused because the actual media still has the same name? 

Any explainations or help would really be helpful and hugely appriciated.  This has turned into a real pain in the *** as i'm not attending the gradings, i'm working across town at my new place.  Most of the film is graded but it's these few clips that are screwing everything up.

Many, many thanks,

Andi

 Is there any reason why you can't lay the project out to tape, recapture it in DS and chop it up with and EDL?

Andi,

I've read that DS 7.6 had a problem with indexing if MS XP fix KB 908531 is installed. I don't believe this issue was ever fixed in 7.6, so it may be part of the problem. You can delete it from the Control Panel... Add or Remove Programs. Be sure to click the box "Show updates."

Also, have you ever imported an HDV originated Xpress Pro project successfully into DS? If not, I suggest creating a really small, easy project and test it out. There are a lot of things involved in terms of naming directories and file locations, etc.. Try to get it to work with a small subset. Then you should be able to realize what's going wrong with the massive project.

I would also look at the DS Conform Guide for the version you are using. http://www3.softimage.com/

HTH. GOOD LUCK.

Hi Andi,

Sorry for you pain.  Your analysis of the problem seems pretty good.  Reel names and no redundant timecode within a reel are the base building blocks for DS.  Violate that and all is lost.

I agree with Gus on this.  Is there a reason you just don't want to give a finished show to DS for grading?  You could do it via file (uncompressed QT, DNxHD, or something) and an EDL if you do not have access to a deck.  This would be a lot easier on you.  Set up a render and go to sleep.

Good luck,

Jef

ripvanmarlowe:

At the moment i've given up on renaming the original media and i'm working on the transcoded, consolidated media on the portable drive and going through all the transcoded clips and finding which tape they were from originally and renaming the clips without unlinking, just by going to "modify" and changing the source name to say Tape 001.  This seems to keep the clip online and the "Tape" heading displays the new name i've given it.  It doesn't however change the MXF name in the Avid MediaFiles folder on the HDD, that stills says "restaurant".  Will this mean DS is still confused because the actual media still has the same name?

The names of the MXF files themselves don't matter;  You are changing metadata.  Keep doing what you're doing.

So long as you get all your original clips sorted out so that they refer to unique source reel names as they should be, it should go into DS just fine.

The reason is that MC/XPress and DS's media management are totally different;  To an MC, the clip-to-media relationship is basically 1-to-1, whereas DS can be many-to-many.  DS indexes the media based on reel number and timecode, and then the clips dynamically "attach" themselves to whatever media files they find at the time that fall within the reel and timecode of the clip.  When you capture 2 clips with crossing timecodes from the same reel, DS shows whichever one it happened to find first.

Everyone, thanks so much for all the replies, even once i'd changed all the reel names the nitris was still finding problems with some of the clips and because of time constraints we havent really had a chance to test too extensively.  We ended up making uncompressed QT's of the clips and just dropping them in to get the job done on time.  This has definately been a good way to learn though - screw everything up and then be forced to figure it out!

The best line from original post is..."it doesn't take into account durations ect to work out that it's not the right media for the clip."

Why would it?  :)

ceffoavid:

The best line from original post is..."it doesn't take into account durations ect to work out that it's not the right media for the clip."

 

Why would it?  :)

I'd been told that Media composer takes into account durations in order to diferentiate between media in a more thorough manner, which DS does not.  Maybe this isn't the case but it seems to make sense doesn't it?  Glad i gave you a laugh though mate.

DS will allow you to associate multiple resolutions of media to the same clip. It looks to 3 things in order to track this media association. Reel name, timecode and quality. This allows for instance, media at differing DNX resolutions to co-exist with uncompressed. You may have a timeline that contains mainly DNX while you are cutting, with uncompressed sections that are critical for keying/compositing.

If you forget to change reel names, and believe me it's happened to us all, the DS will update the timeline with the most recent media digitized and will delete the older media.

Also, DS will link media to a clip, when only a portion of that media is available. MC/Symphony has to have the whole piece of media. When you recapture that clip, DS will only recapture the missing frames. This also allows purging of clips where only the exact frames used will remain. It's a pretty advanced way of media indexing compared to what Composer/Symphony have. What they do have that DS doesn't is a relatively easy way to change reel names, and modify the captured channels and still keep the media linked.

I don't know how they are going to work all this out, but with all the development resources now available (compared to the last few years), I'm sure it's something that will be looked at.

Michael

mrmikster:

If you forget to change reel names, and believe me it's happened to us all, the DS will update the timeline with the most recent media digitized and will delete the older media.

This is not true.  DS does not delete or even overwrite the media unless you manually delete it yourself.  You simply have multiple media files that all refer to the same tape and timecode but can obviously only see one of them at a time.

Start a new project, create a new tape, and capture a video clip.  Don't change the timecode or reel, and capture it again.  Capture it a third time.

Now right-click any one of the captured clips and do a "Show Media".  3 media files will show up, from all 3 captures.  When this happens, you will typically (but not necessarily) 'see' the most recent of the captured media files, but all three are there.

If you discover the error of your ways and delete the incorrect media file you just captured because you forgot to change the reel, the old media will re-appear.

Sorry, my bad, ManChicken is correct. Ds will in fact keep both sets of media. The DS Database gives priority to the last captured clip so it appears that the older media is removed.

For fun you can capture a clip for a duration of say 15 seconds, then put in another tape with the same timecode/tapename/quality, capture  a duration of 5 seconds, now you will see 10 seconds of the first tape mixed with 5 seconds of your second tape.

Michael