Benjamin, I use the 2021 Avid Media Composer and my Target Video Resolution options are different. I do not have any of the options you have but the following: DNxHR HQ, DNxHR LB, DNxHR SQ, DNxHR HQX, some AppleProRes and some Uncompressed DNx options. Which of these are closest to the ones you are using? Thanks.
Hi Winduct - DNxHR SQ would be the closest to what I used in this video. However, now that ProRes is available for both the Mac and Windows versions of Media Composer, it is also an excellent choice.
Thanks. Have you tried to find what is the fastest codec for transcoding? I have an old MacBookPro mid2012 and tried to transcode to various formats: DNxHD, Xdcam, ApplePro Res... the fastest of all on my system is using Apple Pro Res Proxy. Of course editing with a codec of this kind maybe requires to relink to the original files before exporting (Proxy is not officially intended as a high quality format)... what do you think? I usually have to deliver to XDCAM 50 MXF since I work for TV and they use this codec. Transcoding directly to XDCAM 50 requires more than double the time of Pro Res Proxy, so if I am in a hurry maybe it is better to use this workflow.
The fastest codec for transcoding depends on a variety of factors - including the specific hardware and software being used. It is generally most efficient to transcode into the codec your editing software is optimized for. Then master into the codec and wrapper format required for your deliverables.
So I understand that you can transcode your footage once it’s been linked into your MC project, but what about once a sequence has been made and edited? I’m currently working on a directors tribute to Stanley Kubrick, and the footage isn’t playing back as smooth as I’d like (it’s all 720P footage) looking to try and transcode the footage to DNxHD and seeing if that smooths it out. Thank you!
Yes, you absolutely can. Right-click on your sequence in the bin, and select Consolidate/Transcode. From there, Avid will only transcode material you have used in the sequence - plus handles. This should improve the performance of your project. Kubrick is one of my favorite directors!
@@CelestialCinema Thank you! I tried transcoding all the Stanley Kubrick films down to DNxHD60 with quarter quality and it made the playback and scrubbing a lot smoother. It also helped a lot with the sequences stability, I've been getting less crashes. Thank you very much!
Your instruction is so calm & lucid. Thanks for such patience... Still, I have an issue. My footage won't link. In the Source Browser under "Plug-in" my clips read "Can't be Linked." Is this because my footage is on an external hard drive? I haven't tried to pull my footage folders to my desktop due to them being so large - I don't have enough space. Is there anyway to fix this & link this footage from my external drive? Thanks
Glad you enjoy our tutorials. It doesn't matter if your footage is on an external drive. If your OS can access the data, so can Avid. Your footage is probably in a format that requires an AMA plugin. Try one of these options: www.avid.com/plugins/ama-plugins
SO HELPFUL. I'm going to keep watching all of your tutorials! To clarify: Original raw media doesn't have to be at the very root of the folder, but you can't change the path of the transcoded version of it, which stays within Avid's file path/structuring, correct? One thing I remember years ago hating from Avid (probably just not understanding) was the inability to (unlike Premiere), organize my hard drive into folders (project files, scratch files, media, assets, exports, etc) because all the original media folders had to stay as is at the very root of the drive.
Great to hear our tutorials are helpful! Yes, original or camera media can be stored anywhere on your system or any place on your network that your computer can quickly access (like a NAS drive). Transcoded media must stay in the 'Avid MediaFiles' folder at the root of your selected media drive.
Excellent job! I've been using AVID for years and have been forced a few time to use Premiere Pro and always try to tell co-workers who have never used AVID how solid it is! - They still don't get it, haha - oh well:)
Just a Question : if i shot my video in 2k/4k and transcodes them into DNxHD rather than DNxHR, will it affect my Project in anyway!? Is it gonna reduce Avid performance over a period of time where data keeps on compiling? What should be my approach?
Good question. DNxHD is designed for resolutions up to 1080p. DNxHR is optimized for higher resolution media. Unless you are working with proxy media, it is more efficient to transcode to DNxHR.
Hi… i from SPAIN. Like premiere and davinci resolve... is there any way in avid to select an ssd disk drive to use only for temporary files and cache in avid?
Do you have anything on metadata that will help Resolve find DSLR 00:00:00:00 footage in an exported Media Composer AAF? I know it's not very cool but the reality is people shoot on DSLRs now and they do a good job. The only problem is they cause problems in the roundtrip between AVID and Resolve and I'm struggling to find an up to date workflow that can overcome this
I have not run into this issue when round-tripping between Avid and Resolve. Would have to look into it further before providing any suggestions. You might want to try asking in the Avid Editors of Facebook group.
Great video, really helpful 👍🏼 It would be nice if you can detail how to go about ingesting media if one is using another application (resolve/encoder) for transcoding the footage. Thanks, look forward to the next video 😊
Yes, we can make a tutorial on transcoding with third-party apps and then ingesting into Avid Media Composer. Thank you for the suggestion and stay tuned!
Great tutorial! We need that. We all know that AVID it's the best offline editor but, please, now a CLEAR tutorial about relinking the transcoded clip. As well as in DaVinci its just a flag on the deliver page, in AVID it's always been a mess...(and also the batch for the import it's not always clear). So: how to manage ONLINE workflow? And why the playback of the linked files is it not so fluent as in, for example, Da Vinci?
Thank you. The full offline to online workflow will be covered in the upcoming Avid Media Composer 2019 series: ua-cam.com/video/46hBjFb4uy8/v-deo.html
@@CelestialCinema I've seen the Drastic AMA plug-in before but with your tutorial on linking and transcoding I was able to get my MP4 files from my A7III to work. Is this not optimal?
If you can get your footage running in Avid without an AMA plug-in, all the better. That means Avid has native support for it. We are glad to hear you found the tutorial helpful.
Sorry for a question outside the topic, but I use I am trying to find something other than Adobe encoder that will work great Converting files. Now that Squeeze is dead I'd like to get another one. Is there a third part that will accept AVID Reference files? What would you recommend for AVID users now that Squeeze is gone?
Great question, Scott! Shutter Encoder and HandBrake are free and very good encoding options for both Windows and Mac. If you use a Mac, EditReady and Apple's Compressor are also strong choices. Other than Squeeze, I don't know of any encoder that can accept QuickTime reference files - unfortunately that option seems to be dying out, which is a shame because the concept is fantastic.
What if, for example, I'm using XAVC or XAVC-S files from a Sony a6300, and Avid does not allow me to import them? The only option it offers up is a to link to them. It seems that, in "linking" the files, it simply transcoded them to DNxHD 115. Should I still encounter playback problems or expect a less-than-smooth playback experience since the files did not "import"?
this leads to the elephant-sized question.... what is taking Avid so long to do away with the archaic coding that prevents MC from using all of the cores with the import function? Why not just use the same technology for both import and link/import???
When you look at the import settings, you have a lot more options than the transcode settings. Like color space, resizing, fields (interlacing), alpha channel, ... So I think they serve a different purpose. Importing can upscale or handle pictures,.... as transcoding mainly changes the codec/media drive. It's true that it isn't that well known. And sometimes I still import by dragging files into a bin. Because when I link files I tend to edit with them, and that has been unstable or choppy in some projects. So this is a welcome workflow, with actual timed results that end the discussion. :-) KUTGW
transcoding uses all cores of your cpu, importing does only use one core. so if you have an 8-core cpu, transcoding will be 8 times faster than importing on that machine (hyperthreaded cores do count) easy to figure out monitoring task manager during consolidating, transcoding, whatsover. if you use avid‘s external hardware (nitris dx, artist io) and dnxhr or dnxhd codecs, it even runs faster as they encode as well. make sure your storage (source and target drive) do not bottleneck, if you want best performance. and please do not shoot on these awful long-gop codecs ;)
Thank you for your contributions to this topic. Most of this is correct but it is not a 1-to-1 performance gain by adding more cores. These tests were conducted on a system with 20 physical cores (40 with hyperthreading) and it yielded an 8X return within Avid Media Composer.
then your storage is very likely to bottleneck, you want to have about 2-3 times the read speed compared to the encoded codecs write speed. file system used is also important (avid fs on nexis/isis/unity ftw). on local storage apples hfs unfortunately also performs a bit better than ntfs, due to chunk sizes... i have to admit. if you want to encode/write lets say 100 MB/s in any dnxhd, you should be able to read at 200-300 MB/s+. it also depends a bit on the source material‘s compression type of course (forget long gop avc please :) ). on a 20core machine you need at least a decent 10gig connection, some 64gb+ of ram and capable storage to actually profit from your cpu, then you should easily be able to achieve more than 8 times transcode speed. maybe not 20 times, but 90% cpu usage should be there...
This is all very good to know, thank you. The system does have 64GB of RAM. I will have to test the read/write speed of the media drives. The storage system is configured as a ReFS two-way mirror via a Windows 10 storage space. Five 7200 RPM spinning HHDs working together. The system drive drive is a separate SSD. Do you happen to know how ReFS compares to NTFS for these purposes?
The Post Workshop you can do a test with avids bandwidth utility (abu) to check how good your storage performs. this is i think located in programs folder/avid/utilities. two way mirroring is always a bit slow when having only 5 disks as everything has to be written twice. in this case you will probably only get 150MB/s write speeds for larger files when the buffer is full, reading maybe 190-250, my guess.
access times are also important, you don‘t want to have more than 1ms when editing. I would swap the hdds, get some samsung evo ssds, and use the storage space raid as a backup!
Stay tuned after the tutorial where I compare Avid's transcode times to Adobe Media Encoder, DaVinci Resolve, and Shutter Encoder.
yo such a great tutorial and AWESOME production value, channel should be way higher up there. Sub!
Thanks for the sub!
SO glad I found your channel! I haven't touched an AVID in years and these tutorials are helping scrape off the rust. Thank you!
Glad you enjoy them!
definitely need more tutorials on MC. Unfortunately the old guards have been very closed minded on in depth training on how to work with MC.
Thank you for the feedback. More Avid Media Composer tutorials are in the works!
Very calm tutorial. That really helps when starting on something new that looks daunting.
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching!
👍👍👍 super editing knowledge ,....great
Best avid Chanel. Thank for sharing !!
Thank you - glad you are enjoying our Avid tutorials!
Thank for this! Blessings.
Thanks for your clarity. Very helpful indeed.
Glad it was helpful!
Benjamin, I use the 2021 Avid Media Composer and my Target Video Resolution options are different. I do not have any of the options you have but the following: DNxHR HQ, DNxHR LB, DNxHR SQ, DNxHR HQX, some AppleProRes and some Uncompressed DNx options. Which of these are closest to the ones you are using? Thanks.
Hi Winduct - DNxHR SQ would be the closest to what I used in this video. However, now that ProRes is available for both the Mac and Windows versions of Media Composer, it is also an excellent choice.
@@CelestialCinema Great. Thanks for the quick reply.
Thanks. Have you tried to find what is the fastest codec for transcoding? I have an old MacBookPro mid2012 and tried to transcode to various formats: DNxHD, Xdcam, ApplePro Res... the fastest of all on my system is using Apple Pro Res Proxy. Of course editing with a codec of this kind maybe requires to relink to the original files before exporting (Proxy is not officially intended as a high quality format)... what do you think? I usually have to deliver to XDCAM 50 MXF since I work for TV and they use this codec. Transcoding directly to XDCAM 50 requires more than double the time of Pro Res Proxy, so if I am in a hurry maybe it is better to use this workflow.
The fastest codec for transcoding depends on a variety of factors - including the specific hardware and software being used. It is generally most efficient to transcode into the codec your editing software is optimized for. Then master into the codec and wrapper format required for your deliverables.
Great new subscriptor
Thank you and welcome to the channel!
hey! thanks for all your sharing!
i dont see any input while i do the right click on the bin
So I understand that you can transcode your footage once it’s been linked into your MC project, but what about once a sequence has been made and edited? I’m currently working on a directors tribute to Stanley Kubrick, and the footage isn’t playing back as smooth as I’d like (it’s all 720P footage) looking to try and transcode the footage to DNxHD and seeing if that smooths it out. Thank you!
Yes, you absolutely can. Right-click on your sequence in the bin, and select Consolidate/Transcode. From there, Avid will only transcode material you have used in the sequence - plus handles. This should improve the performance of your project. Kubrick is one of my favorite directors!
@@CelestialCinema Thank you! I tried transcoding all the Stanley Kubrick films down to DNxHD60 with quarter quality and it made the playback and scrubbing a lot smoother. It also helped a lot with the sequences stability, I've been getting less crashes. Thank you very much!
You are welcome. Great to hear the transcoding worked for you!
Your instruction is so calm & lucid. Thanks for such patience... Still, I have an issue. My footage won't link. In the Source Browser under "Plug-in" my clips read "Can't be Linked." Is this because my footage is on an external hard drive? I haven't tried to pull my footage folders to my desktop due to them being so large - I don't have enough space.
Is there anyway to fix this & link this footage from my external drive? Thanks
Glad you enjoy our tutorials. It doesn't matter if your footage is on an external drive. If your OS can access the data, so can Avid.
Your footage is probably in a format that requires an AMA plugin. Try one of these options:
www.avid.com/plugins/ama-plugins
@@CelestialCinema Thanks so much! I'm giving it a shot now.
SO HELPFUL. I'm going to keep watching all of your tutorials!
To clarify: Original raw media doesn't have to be at the very root of the folder, but you can't change the path of the transcoded version of it, which stays within Avid's file path/structuring, correct?
One thing I remember years ago hating from Avid (probably just not understanding) was the inability to (unlike Premiere), organize my hard drive into folders (project files, scratch files, media, assets, exports, etc) because all the original media folders had to stay as is at the very root of the drive.
Great to hear our tutorials are helpful! Yes, original or camera media can be stored anywhere on your system or any place on your network that your computer can quickly access (like a NAS drive). Transcoded media must stay in the 'Avid MediaFiles' folder at the root of your selected media drive.
Excellent job! I've been using AVID for years and have been forced a few time to use Premiere Pro and always try to tell co-workers who have never used AVID how solid it is! - They still don't get it, haha - oh well:)
Thank you!
I have a DJI Drone generated mp4 video clip. I can't manage to even link it! Can you help me out please?
Just a Question : if i shot my video in 2k/4k and transcodes them into DNxHD rather than DNxHR, will it affect my Project in anyway!? Is it gonna reduce Avid performance over a period of time where data keeps on compiling? What should be my approach?
Good question. DNxHD is designed for resolutions up to 1080p. DNxHR is optimized for higher resolution media. Unless you are working with proxy media, it is more efficient to transcode to DNxHR.
@@CelestialCinema Thank you... keep up the good work.
AVID is the best software for movie creaters really
Hi… i from SPAIN.
Like premiere and davinci resolve... is there any way in avid to select an ssd disk drive to use only for temporary files and cache in avid?
Do you have anything on metadata that will help Resolve find DSLR 00:00:00:00 footage in an exported Media Composer AAF? I know it's not very cool but the reality is people shoot on DSLRs now and they do a good job. The only problem is they cause problems in the roundtrip between AVID and Resolve and I'm struggling to find an up to date workflow that can overcome this
I have not run into this issue when round-tripping between Avid and Resolve. Would have to look into it further before providing any suggestions. You might want to try asking in the Avid Editors of Facebook group.
Great video, really helpful 👍🏼
It would be nice if you can detail how to go about ingesting media if one is using another application (resolve/encoder) for transcoding the footage.
Thanks, look forward to the next video 😊
Yes, we can make a tutorial on transcoding with third-party apps and then ingesting into Avid Media Composer. Thank you for the suggestion and stay tuned!
@@CelestialCinema Hi, I am looking for this answer as well but can't find any videos on it, did you end up making one?
Great tutorial! We need that. We all know that AVID it's the best offline editor but, please, now a CLEAR tutorial about relinking the transcoded clip. As well as in DaVinci its just a flag on the deliver page, in AVID it's always been a mess...(and also the batch for the import it's not always clear). So: how to manage ONLINE workflow? And why the playback of the linked files is it not so fluent as in, for example, Da Vinci?
Thank you. The full offline to online workflow will be covered in the upcoming Avid Media Composer 2019 series: ua-cam.com/video/46hBjFb4uy8/v-deo.html
@@CelestialCinema Thanks!!
Thank you so much I was wondering how to get my XAVC S footage from my Sony Alpha into Avid without the need for Media Encoder
Hi Jorge - For any codec that Avid does not natively support, use an AMA plug in. You can find those here: www.avid.com/plugins/ama-plugins
@@CelestialCinema I've seen the Drastic AMA plug-in before but with your tutorial on linking and transcoding I was able to get my MP4 files from my A7III to work. Is this not optimal?
If you can get your footage running in Avid without an AMA plug-in, all the better. That means Avid has native support for it. We are glad to hear you found the tutorial helpful.
Wow, nice job with the test. Interesting results, I was wondering which encoder is quicker with transcoding
Thank you! Very glad to hear you found this video interesting.
@@CelestialCinema oh yes, it is interesting to see different encoders compared to avid, keep up the good work ;))
Sorry for a question outside the topic, but I use I am trying to find something other than Adobe encoder that will work great Converting files. Now that Squeeze is dead I'd like to get another one. Is there a third part that will accept AVID Reference files? What would you recommend for AVID users now that Squeeze is gone?
Great question, Scott! Shutter Encoder and HandBrake are free and very good encoding options for both Windows and Mac. If you use a Mac, EditReady and Apple's Compressor are also strong choices. Other than Squeeze, I don't know of any encoder that can accept QuickTime reference files - unfortunately that option seems to be dying out, which is a shame because the concept is fantastic.
What if, for example, I'm using XAVC or XAVC-S files from a Sony a6300, and Avid does not allow me to import them? The only option it offers up is a to link to them. It seems that, in "linking" the files, it simply transcoded them to DNxHD 115. Should I still encounter playback problems or expect a less-than-smooth playback experience since the files did not "import"?
For best performance, link to the XAVC files - then transcode to DNxHD. Like in the tutorial.
@@CelestialCinema Gotcha. Hopefully some day the functionality to import the XAVC/S files will be there.
this leads to the elephant-sized question.... what is taking Avid so long to do away with the archaic coding that prevents MC from using all of the cores with the import function? Why not just use the same technology for both import and link/import???
Good question.
When you look at the import settings, you have a lot more options than the transcode settings.
Like color space, resizing, fields (interlacing), alpha channel, ... So I think they serve a different purpose. Importing can upscale or handle pictures,.... as transcoding mainly changes the codec/media drive.
It's true that it isn't that well known. And sometimes I still import by dragging files into a bin.
Because when I link files I tend to edit with them, and that has been unstable or choppy in some projects.
So this is a welcome workflow, with actual timed results that end the discussion. :-) KUTGW
transcoding uses all cores of your cpu, importing does only use one core.
so if you have an 8-core cpu, transcoding will be 8 times faster than importing on that machine (hyperthreaded cores do count)
easy to figure out monitoring task manager during consolidating, transcoding, whatsover.
if you use avid‘s external hardware (nitris dx, artist io) and dnxhr or dnxhd codecs, it even runs faster as they encode as well.
make sure your storage (source and target drive) do not bottleneck, if you want best performance.
and please do not shoot on these awful long-gop codecs ;)
Thank you for your contributions to this topic. Most of this is correct but it is not a 1-to-1 performance gain by adding more cores. These tests were conducted on a system with 20 physical cores (40 with hyperthreading) and it yielded an 8X return within Avid Media Composer.
then your storage is very likely to bottleneck, you want to have about 2-3 times the read speed compared to the encoded codecs write speed. file system used is also important (avid fs on nexis/isis/unity ftw). on local storage apples hfs unfortunately also performs a bit better than ntfs, due to chunk sizes... i have to admit. if you want to encode/write lets say 100 MB/s in any dnxhd, you should be able to read at 200-300 MB/s+. it also depends a bit on the source material‘s compression type of course (forget long gop avc please :) ).
on a 20core machine you need at least a decent 10gig connection, some 64gb+ of ram and capable storage to actually profit from your cpu, then you should easily be able to achieve more than 8 times transcode speed. maybe not 20 times, but 90% cpu usage should be there...
This is all very good to know, thank you. The system does have 64GB of RAM. I will have to test the read/write speed of the media drives. The storage system is configured as a ReFS two-way mirror via a Windows 10 storage space. Five 7200 RPM spinning HHDs working together. The system drive drive is a separate SSD. Do you happen to know how ReFS compares to NTFS for these purposes?
The Post Workshop you can do a test with avids bandwidth utility (abu) to check how good your storage performs. this is i think located in programs folder/avid/utilities. two way mirroring is always a bit slow when having only 5 disks as everything has to be written twice. in this case you will probably only get 150MB/s write speeds for larger files when the buffer is full, reading maybe 190-250, my guess.
access times are also important, you don‘t want to have more than 1ms when editing. I would swap the hdds, get some samsung evo ssds, and use the storage space raid as a backup!
No such thing as full hd. That is a term started by TV manufacturers.
Hi, Robert Ober - Thanks for watching! I thought Full HD was used to differentiate 1080p from 720p video. Is that not the case?