Avid Assistant

This is a 'simple' post to help explain how to use  Ultra High Definition (UHDTV) material in Avid Media Composer. We're all very familiar with using High Definition content. This resolution is now the defacto 'norm' for editing with. But let's not forget the transmission from SD to HD . At the time there was a lot to get your head around. HD could be either 1920x1080 or 12080x720 . It could also be either Interlaced or Progressive , it could be shot at higher varying framerates from that of SD, such as 50 or 60fps and higher. It took a while for us to become used to the format. And here we are again with UHD.  UHD has become more and more common as an acquisition format. Even your phone can capture this 4K content. But what do we need to know about it, to work with it in Avid? Is UHD 4K? Is UHD the same as HDR? What's 2020 colour space? What's HFR? Let's have a look with respect to using Avid Media Composer... What is UHD? Ultra Hi...

Avid had to create a set of high-quality High Definition codecs back in the mid-2000's to allow them to move High Definition video content over their I/O connection pipe of choice for the time, a domestic 400Mbs Firewire cable! This was the birth of DNxHD codecs. DNxHD became a very popular finishing and editing codec as it was a Media Composer friendly format and the compression also allowed users to store HD content on drives which, at the time, had limited performance and capacity. With recent UHD formats becoming more widely used in cameras, users now need to edit in 2K, 4K and even 8K. As a result, Avid revised its codecs in line with this demand and released an updated DNxHR codec set. While this new codec has been released this does not mean the end of DNxHD. Let's look at them both and what they are suitable for. Avid DNxHD As we have mentioned already DNxHD is widely used by video editors but it is also used by other manufacturers and is supported within the ...

One of the key roles of the Avid Assistant to ingest media, at the right Avid Codec , into the Project. It's important that you understand how Avid uses Media and how it is stored. Leaving the idea of AMA and linking to source files to one side for now here we will be looking at how Avid stores media it actually creates through either Consolidation, Transcode, Import or even Digitising. Media Types  Avid has been around for almost 30 years and has seen a number of formats come and go, but the 2 main formats that Avid has and still usee are listed below. OMFI Open Media Framework Interchange - OMFI - is now a legacy digital format that was introduced by Avid in the Mid 90's on its ABVB systems, when most media was ingested by digitizing from tape. This format is limited to PAL and NTSC ratios and sizes. For example in PAL, OMFI media can be stored as 4x3 or 16x9 Anamorphic with a frame size of 720x576. It does NOT support High Definition Formats. All current Avid editin...