Hi,

Which method is better for exporting for DVD (or play out to tape): submaster or mixdown?

I thought it was the same thing but want to check. It seems to me that big advantage with the submaster is that if you make any minor changes to the original sequence, you just need to re-render, instead of creating a new mixdown. So, when picture-lock (yeah, right ) I place a submaster on the highest V track, enable just that track and all A tracks, and export as QT ref (or anything else). Does this not seem much easier than a mixdown, especially since there are always some changes to be expected?

I am asking this because in all DVD tutorials on this site, they recommend mixdowns, but submaster is never mentioned.

Thanks.

Hi Catwoman,

Submaster is meant for a different thing, - combining picture and effects into one unit, and has a limit on how many it will combine (I seem to remember it's 30 something). Mixdown will mix down a complete timeline or part of it.

Changes though are no problem with mixdown, just cut in and out where you have a re-cut, mixdown the new piece, then carry on with the old mixdown.

Yours

Juris

catwoman:

Which method is better for exporting for DVD (or play out to tape): submaster or mixdown?

Either or Neither.  

Mixdown creates new media, Submaster doesn't.  

If a section changes, you can make the changes and re-do the Mixdown for that section and overwrite the existing - same as re-rendering.  

A submaster is certainly faster to perform, but the Mixdown will "lock" all the video into one media file for playback/access.  Whereas, a Submaster will still be seeking and pointing to the original media files.

So, when I first started doing DVD/web deliverables, I did a Audio and Video Mixdown because I wanted my QTref to only have to reference 3 media files (2 audio, 1 video).  This seemed to speed up the encoding as well.  

But in truth you don't *have to* to either.  You can export and playout just fine without Mixdowns or Submasters.  But, if your system hiccups while playing some media, then the Mixdown might be the solution.   

Thanks for the responses. Looks like a will do a video mixdown for when I export for DVD.

Kenton.VanNatten:

Submaster will still be seeking and pointing to the original media files.

Not if it is rendered, though.

Submaster was used in the past as a way for Avid to overcome throughput bottleneck 
during timeline playback that would otherwise cause underrun errors.  Ideally one would
render the submaster to a drive or partition not being accessed by the sequence.

As stated above, a mixdown does create new masterclips so a good suggestion is to duplicate your
sequence, put the duplicate in a separate bin and mixdown the duplicate just in case you still need
to make changes down the line 

If you work in PAL interlaced footage and mix DV and other codecs you will have media with different field dominaces on your timeline, a video mixdown will overcome this issue which could be problematic when encoding for DVD.  

That is the only time I have used mixdown for DVD export and I seem to make DVD's on an almost daily basis for years now.  If you are able to capture and render at one resolution Avid MC should work fine without the need to mixdown before export. 

Job ter Burg:

Kenton.VanNatten:

Submaster will still be seeking and pointing to the original media files.

Not if it is rendered, though.

 

So, in effect this means that as long as I have an effect on every clip (which I do), then the Avid DNxHD120-rendered submaster is the same as a video mixdown. I checked in the media tool and it created one big media file (without master clip, of course). In that case, the submaster is much more convenient to use than a mixdown.

 

Hi, I try to avoid videomixdowns as much as I can because it's an extra (time consuming) step, but, as mentioned above, sometimes You one has to go for it.

The main difference is that a submaster is nothing more than one giant rendered effect, whereas a mixdown is a new master clip. For example, you cannot apply motion effects to a rendered submaster, but you can apply a motion effect to a video mixdown.

luca.mg:

I try to avoid videomixdowns as much as I can because it's an extra (time consuming) step,

Different strokes. I almost never render as preccomputes are a PIA for media management. A mixdown at the end takes only the same time as rendering (less if you rendered multiple levels on the way through) and I have end up with a nice big easy chunk of media to manage (delete when done with).

I tried submasters a decade ago and found that if I wanted to change something it was a major PIA as opposed to replacing a short part of a mixdown.  All depends which way you look at it, and I have always been a huge fan of mixdowns