Avid Assistant

Media Composer 2018.7 has brought native support for Newteks NDI... Support for NewTek® NDI Video over IP Avid Media Composer now includes support for transmitting NDI streams directly from the application when enabled. Similar to a client monitor, anytime you play or scrub footage others on your network will be able to see the stream using an NDI player. By default, NDI will broadcast only to your local subnet. But what does this mean to you and I? What's NDI? NewTek’s NDI - Network Device Interface - technology allows devices, and applications to connect and communicate over a standard IP network, specifically 1GbE, to share video and audio. This technology has been heavily adopted in the production world but can also be utilised in the edit process through the use of specific I/O hardware, for example, the  AJA Kona IP  or IO IP and with the release of 2018.8 Media Composer you can use the Avid Artist DNxIP  unit too. But if you want to allow p...

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...

The secret to keeping any project on track is organisation. This can come in a number of forms but for this post, I wanted to look at how you can use simple folder structures to help organise and manage the content of your project. For most people, especially editors, when you use the word content they will instantly think of hours and hours of rushes, but in terms of a project, there is a ton of other 'stuff' that we will need to have to hand. The amount of 'stuff' we have will depend upon the type of project you are working on and the experience of the people you are working with too. Even if there is no information being offered to you, there are a number of things that you should be doing to ensure your project runs smoothly. Understand the workflow Make sure you have an understanding of the project's workflow. Talk with the producer, editor and cameramen if needed. Ensure you understand how the material is captured, backed up, delivered, ingested a...

Avid Projects. It's the first thing you are greeted with once you have launched Media Composer. In days gone by creating a project was relatively simple with only 3 types being available. These were basically PAL (25 frames) NTSC (Drop and Non-Drop) and finally Film (24 frames usually). When High Definition formats turned up they added to the muddied waters with various raster sizes (1280x720 and 1920x1080) varying frame rates (50fps was now commonly available) as well as the usual Progressive and Interlaced fields issue. Today we now have 2K, UHD, and 4K to contend with too. These add further issues such as varying colour spaces and a myriad of various frame rates and raster sizes, such as the Digital Cinema Initiatives formats. DCI Flat, DCI Full, DCI Scope and Full Apature  to name but a few. If you are interested in the complete list of varying formats check this  Avid KB article  about currently supported project formats. For this short post, I'd like to lo...

For a lot of smaller productions, typically documentary makers, their projects will shoot with smaller format cameras such as DSLR or small hand-held cameras like the Panasonic AJ-PX270 or Canon XF305. All these cameras can produce stunning quality pictures and produce relatively small files for storing and editing with. This means these productions could work with rushes in their 'Native' format removing the need to carry out a more complex offline and online conform and can help streamline the editing process and more importantly save money and time. This approach still needs some planning as you need to ensure camera rushes are presented in similar, if not identical formats (raster size, framerate and colour space). This can still be challenging, especially when some productions have little experience and may have little technical understanding of camera equipment and formats. So what can we, as assistants, do to ensure the project runs smoothly and can be edited in its ...

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 ...

Media Management is not a widely taught subject but is an important skill to master especially if you are managing multiple projects on a single editing system. Even with large storage capacity at some stage, you will have to delete material! This post looks at the basics of deleting media from within Media Composer (or Symphony) we have other posts that look at managing content while ingesting which also helps maintain a tidy system, which in turn means a responsive editing system. Basic deletions Deleting media is relatively straightforward within Media Composer. You can delete material directly from your bin by simply selecting a clip and pressing the Delete key on your keyboard. You're then presented with the Deletion window asking what you would like to delete the master clip, its associated media files, or indeed both. Choosing Master clip(s) (shown top left) simply deletes the clip information from the bin, but keeps the media (pictures and sound) on the drive...

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...