Avid Hardware Interface

So unlike FC, Avid requires an acceptable hardware interface? Now they've certified Matrox and Aja.
So, is the software alone not very useful? I'm worn out on the buzz terms a la nitrus, symphony, mojo etc... Still don't understand if I have to keep throwing more money after the software expense.
Having Pro tools, I kind of get the drill.....

...can't monitor & output on software alone...

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

It's the same as FCS- if you want external monitors (no, not talking about a second computer monitor, Apple), you need an IO card. I heard that Avid is opening up to even more 3rd party cards. I hope Avid does an equivalent of the digital cinema desktop preview mode feature. That would be useful for a home rig.



www.strypesinpost.com

AJA Io Express and a Matrox unit work today with MC 5.5 As Avid has alluded to both to me personally and at recent events, more third party support including AJA is coming soon.

We all take that to mean they will include the AJA Kona boards but the exact timeframe for this to happen is not known at this time. But if you don't have any third party hardware yet, the Io Express is a sweet little box.

You can also download a 30 day free trial of MC 5.5 from Avid's website to try it out before you buy. Same with Adobe Production Premium CS 5.5.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

Boy...if Avid MC 6.0 opened up to all KONA / BM boards...they would really grab a huge marketshare hovering in FCP limbo right now. I still have that "Avid Proprietary-ism" stuck in my head and kinda prevents me from going that way full tilt.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

I have heard good things about the AJA io express. I know a company that is using them now without any problems running full hd in the offline.

Best to have hardware so you can input and output to and from tape if needed, also for monitoring. The only thing with the AJA io express vs the Nitris DX is that you only have two channels of audio out as opposed to four and it's not XLR. I am waiting for a third party four channel XLR out. That would be cool. I really think the Avid hardware is the best hardware but it is mad expensive but it is nice to have the big shiny lights on the front of the Nitris DX box because it makes you feel like you are driving a spaceship

Avid does an equivalent of the digital cinema desktop preview mode feature if I am interpreting correctly but it's for viewing and not editing.

apple or control 3-other-full screen playback ( must be mapped ).

I keep hearing that term "offline". For me in my market, that does not exist. I go from rough cut to finished Master on the same system (FCP for the last 8 years). Around 9 years ago I used to be on the old G3 Avid ABVB systems where I had to cut in a reduced "offline" resolution because of drive space. Technology has made off-lining obsolete for me. Adobe's round-tripping of After Effects CS 5.5 within Premiere CS 5.5 is a game changer for a lot of folks.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

You keep hearing the term offline because every so often a television editor will chime in. I do hope that is okay.

I think the offline/online separation is mostly a division of labor/television thing. Offline today in television really just means what it meant ten years ago, that you cut the show and someone else color corrects but today not necessarily cutting in low resolution with the need to bump up.

The place I am at now has about ten shows going with 40 media composer bays and 2 symphony bays. It would just be too expensive to have 40 symphony bays so we cut at DNxHD220 on MC and send it off to the money room to finish. But even on FCP jobs you bump it off to an Apple Color room for someone else to finish even though it's on your system with FCS. You cut in full resolution but it's still the offline.

There isn't really any jack of all trade work in TV or LA for that matter; just a big factory. I also think that there is a theory that someone who colors and only colors five days per week every week will do a better job than the editor because at best if that was the case they would spend only ten percent of the year coloring which isn't quite enough to be a master. Ya do one thing and one thing well and that's it. Also a separate graphics guy, audio mixer, composer, footage loader, rights and clearance etc ...

Actually just read that at the big town hall they had in LA last week these vendors were present:

-AJA.
-BlackMagic
-Matrox
-Motu
-BlueFish

And Motu does make a 4 channel XLR out.

Yea, what Ian said. Offline has evolved to mean the process of creative editorial or storyline editing as Loren mentioned. Even if I work as both the guy doing the offline and online, I still work with the mindset that I only bother with story while I am editing and I'll work on touching up effects, color, and titles after the offline lock. This is so I don't have to worry about broadcast safe and white balance when I am working to tell the story.



www.strypesinpost.com

I kinda figured that...that it's the market that dictates that...because I do the "soup to nuts" on all my work...rough cut to finishing. There is no "offline" in our vocabulary at this studio. I do worry about broadcast safe / color correction as well as story line & timing throughout.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

When I online I never really even see the story. I'm busy watching the technicals. Sometimes people ask me what I think of the show, and I often honestly have no idea. I mean, I know what it was about, but if I'm on a deadline, I'm not really taking in the meaning of the words.

Exactly. The offline/online workflow is still very much unchanged from what it was ten years ago (though you might be conforming to R3Ds now instead of film scans) because it works. The offline is all about the narrative; the online is all about everything else.

Is it possible to alternate between focusing on one and the other? Maybe. I just know whenever I've tried, I've ended up making a disorganized hash of things and having to go back to what works.

There is probably soup to nuts folks in LA for short form but I think high volume long form still kicks it old school with the different divisions of labor. I know at Pink Sneakers ( reality tv company ) in FL they still divide things up so maybe it's a short from long form thing.

I don't think it's just limited to the high end. Division of labor happens in many markets. You get a graphics person, an editor and a producer. That's division of labour. You want to liaise with the client and arrange for the audio session while you churn out that 15 min corporate video and do the lower third and send the idents out for approval while keeping to a proposed schedule you drew up? That's lots of work there...



www.strypesinpost.com

Back to the OP, yes, you need hardware. For Avid, there is the mojo and the nitris. These are like your IO (AJA Kona, etc) The Nitris is a lil higher end and features hardware acceleration for DNxHD and (optional) avc intra as well as analog outputs. Mojo does SDI monitoring and you can go to tape with it. Adrenaline is pretty much history and that was midrange, somewhere between mojo and nitris.

Then there are the softwares- Media Composer (for editing) and symphony for finishing. Naturally, for monitoring, you need some kind of hardware. Not sure if Symphony is able to go standalone or if you can get mojo for it, but as the nature of work suggests, you tend to want to spend some bucks on a finishing suite than have your clients wait all day for the renders.



www.strypesinpost.com

Oh yes....damm...I fell asleep for a while there....

So it's 1,000 bucks for the software suite and a minimum of 500 (Matrox) for an HDMI I/O. Of course I paid for a bunch of FC plug-in's that shall go unnoticed. I have a Black Magic PCIe card now. Possibly that will get certified.

DM Wrote:
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> I have a Black Magic PCIe card now.
> Possibly that will get certified.

Don't bet on that happening before MC 6.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
More tools...