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I installed the (free) LE version of Avid’s DNxHD onto bothWindows and Mac, in order to round-trip between Sony Vegas and FCP.  Having received no responses to my threads on forums for Sony Vegas and for FCP, I tried Avid’s forums.

• The “Avid on Windows” Forum:
  • PC MediaComposer to MAC FCP http://community.avid.com/forums/p/74442/416691.aspx#416691
    • Thread from August 2009.  Might well be out of date now.
    • If you export DVCProHD from your PC Avid you’ll want to check the “Use AvidDV Codec” box.  This will encode the file as AvidDV100 (which is Avid’s DVCProHD codec).  With the Avid codecs installed on your FCP system you’ll be able to read them.
    • Why don’t they mention DNxHD ?
• The “Avid on Mac” Forum:
  • Search on [fcp dnxhd]
    • http://community.avid.com/forums/p/84564/477328.aspx#477328
      • Error while loading DNxHD QT .mov into FCP
      • Someone with same issue as me: they rendered from Sony Vegas to DNxHD to import to FCP, and the media wasn’t recognized.
      • Thus far, that thread is inconclusive, with suspicions focussing on the precise format settings etc. and the fact that the media was rendered from Sony Vegas (as I guess the latter is relatively “unknown territory” to the Avid/DNxHD folks).
      • I copied this info (& thread link) to the Sony Vegas forum http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=720994&Replies=11.  Useful replies:
        • …a smalll but critical point; the codec DNxHD does all the encoding of the video stream, vegas does not touch the encoding process. At most, vegas may update the file headers and starting meta data as it closes the file. If Sony has an issue it will be there, but I would question FCP file handling when it opening the file.
      • ?

http://digitalfilms.wordpress.com/2010/06/12/will-cs5-and-mc5-toast-fcp

• Great article comparing their pragmatics for various kinds of business and workflow situation.
• Also speculating on their likely future developments.

Some further tips found online:

• [http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=704856]
  • You have more than a dozen choices in the DNxHD codec…  (but you might not see them) because of the little display bug. When you select the Avid DNxHD codec, a window pops up. At the bottom of that window is just a little sliver of a pulldown menu. Click that and all should become clear.
• [http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=701760]
  • DNxHD is a broadcast codec. And types that are not broadcast standards are not included.
  • …in the “Custom Settings” you can … set the Frame rate and the Field order to suit your … footage.
• [http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?MessageID=712102&Replies=1]
  • Settings for HD interlaced:
    • Color levels should be RGB
    • Size should be 1920×1080
    • Pixel aspect 1:1
    • Field order Upper
    • DNxHD-TR 175 8-bit template
    • Be sure to click OK (the dialog may fail to display it)
  • Variation for HDV:
    • Thin Raster is supposed to be better for stretched pixels like 1440×1080
• [http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=710761]
  • You will be able to preserve aspect and gamma with DNxHD. Be sure to select the right bit depth and color levels for your originals. (For a) 1440×1080 source, (i.e.) HDV, … you will want 8-bit, 4:2:0 RGB output to match the originals.
  • One user’s experience (not mine):
    • Here’s the file settings for … m2t files (as provided by MediaInfo):
      • 25Mbps, 1440×1080 (16:9), at 29.97fps, MPEG video component version 2,(Main (high @1440)) BVOP
    • Here’s what it reports for the .mov generated by DNxHD:
      • 220Mbps, 1920×1080 (4:3) at 29.97fps, VC-3, DNxHD
    • I’m not sure where it got the 1920×1080 frame setting from, though. In the frame size box, I had custom frame settings of 1440 x 1080 with a PAR of 1.333.
    • Reply:
      • 1440 X 1.333 = 1919.52 which rounds up to 1920.
      • Your render frame size should be set to 1920×1080 to preserve the aspect. As gets mentioned a lot in these forums, MOV does not respect PAR.
• [http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=709379]
  • Change your color space to RGB. Click the little pulldown window at the bottom, select 1080i/59.94 DNxHD 220x. And when you say OK to this window, change the slider from the current 50% quality to 100%. Then render out. The file will be slightly less than 2 minutes per gig.
  • Avid 1:1 is an uncompressed codec designed for SD video. DNxHD is an HD codec and the only one Avid uses.

From article “NAB 2010: AVID MEDIA COMPOSER 5.0″ of 2010-04-25 at [lfhd.net], as of 2010-05-15:

•  Avid Media Composer 5.0 now works with the Matrox MXO2 Mini (not main or LE), not for capture, but for monitoring on a large monitor.
• New advanced Avid Media Access (AMA).
  • This new version of AMA now allows Avid MC to access Quicktime files directly, and allows MC to EDIT those QTs without converting or transcoding them. So things like ProRes, the new Canon XF codec…they are directly accessed via AMA and you can just start editing them right away.  For example from files recorded on a KiPro unit or a QuickTime-based camera.
    • But move the files, and the connection is broken.   So, if you want to work with the footage natively, then move it to the folder you want it to reside in on your media drive, then import.
    • A possible FCP+AVid workflow: Utilize FCP to capture the footage (ProRes), use AMA to import that footage into AVID MC 5.0…edit (e.g. by Avid-only editing people) …then send that sequence back to FCP (via Automatic Duck) linking to the original media…send to Color to color correct, then output from FCP?
  • This also includes native RED files. Media Composer can edit them without the need to transcode.
  • You can adjust the color of the footage before you bring it over…apply a general look while you edit.
• A FCP look&feel approximating mode called Smart Tools mode.  Can toggle between this and Classic mode.
• AVCHD import. Before now you had to use third party applications to convert the footage to DNxHD, like ClipWrap. Not anymore. Now you can import the AVCHD footage directly into Avid MC via the IMPORT feature.  (But) there are multiple types of AVCHD (can it cope with them?).
• Audio improvements:
  • You can now SOLO and MUTE on the timeline.
  • You can now access the Audio Suite plugins directly from the timeline.
  • And (for screen update speed) you can turn on Audio Waveforms on SELECT TRACKS ONLY.
  • You can now make a stereo pair appear as only ONE TRACK on the timeline. This works for stereo sound effects too.
  • Direct access to many audio suite plugins directly on the timeline. No need to go digging in the Audio Tool for them.

The  [lfhd.net] article also reported something about Avid remote editing using cloud computing, but that sounds to me like a whole other topic.

Horses for Courses – Avid vs. FCP:

• http://dylanreeve.com/videotv/2009/horses-for-courses-avid-vs-fcp.html

• http://www.fcp2avid.net/blog/?m=200802

• The mix&match feature of the Avid (e.g. MC4) assumes bringing in footage in corresponding projects. After that, you can instantly access that footage from any other project (or project type), and playback in real-time
• http://lfhd.net/2009/10/01/avid-mc-4-0-inside-look-at-mix-match
  • Your sequence setting is what you tell it.  1080i, 720p, 525i…whathaveyou.  And whatever clip you add to that that ISN’T that format, gets scaled to that format…using a filter called a MOTION ADAPTER.  This add interpolation to match the sequence settings, and this is added automatically when you add new footage that doesn’t match.  And there are all sorts of interpolation modes…these are all user selectable.  AND you can change your sequence settings to match something else later.
    
  • If you want the interpolation to better then you can “promote” the motion adapter to a full blown TIME WARP (that has been there for many years) and the footage will benefit more.
  • Works in software-only (no Mojo required) and takes advantage of multi-core (e.g. 8 core)
  • Avid’s ‘open timeline’ implementation is much better than FCP’s.  Avid MC automatically adds a plugin that is designed to do this upscale in very smart ways. It isn’t just scaling it and then repeating a frame.
  • The editor does need to have certain “switches “ turned on to see the highest quality output, such as: -Full Quality 10bit output, -HQ RT Scaling Decoder, -Advanced Polyphase image interpolation.
• For example: “you will have to import NTSC clips in an NTSC project and 720p60 clips in a 720p60 project. If you try to import 720p60 files into a 30i project, you will be downconverting upon import, which is not as nice, and will not be able to handle certain metadata correctly”
  

How easy is it to use ProRes in Avid MC4 these days?  Obviously relevant to using FCP-generated media in AVid but also for establishing the practicality of using the Aja KiPro recording device - a hot topic for lots of people.

I am an extreme newbie on Avid, though experienced in some other NLEs, and I am not yet au fait with the basic Avid quirks and ways.  I read that it is possible to import ProRes but that there can be issues with level shifts (gamma & 709 etc.).  Is this true and is there a workaround for it?  If levels issue was solved then would there be any further issues?

I did try searching via Google and in the Avid forum but precise intelligence on this subject was thin on the ground.  Most people seem to just convert ProRes to DNxHD; what I’d like to know is whether it’s practical to avoid that and just use ProRes-encoded media directly.   Maybe that’s a very naive perspective, as my experience below hints at…

I did a quick experiment to Import some ProRes to an Avid project (on Mac).  The ProRes I had available just happened to be SD (35 sec clip, 180MB).  The project was HD (I just accepted this as default).  Importing it caused it to do “Creating video from QT”.  [Avid:(bin)>Clip>Reveal] showed that this “creation” had produced (in a generic Avid scatch area) a set of three MXF files, two of 3.5MB (the stereo audio channels maybe?) and one of 500MB, which I assume is the upscaled version of the original media.  It was not playable by QuickTime or recognized by VideoSpec.  Meanwhile, the bin I imported to listed a QT (.mov) file of the same name as the original ProRes file but its datestamp (in the bin) indicated it had been created just now and it was listed as being of type DNxHD 120 (not the original datestamp or codec i.e. ProRes).  I wonder if it is a Reference file, just pointing to the content in the MXF files, and in that case whether the original ProRes file could (in principle) now be deleted, if that original file is not being used by the project.  I wonder where the reference file (if that’s what it is) is located.

Next I tried a more sensible experiment: Import SD ProRes (PAL DV 50i LFF, 27MB) into a matching project.  Again got the “Creating video from QT” message but it completed more quickly (presumably because it didn’t need to upscale and involved less data).  The resulting (created) MXF files were two of 772KB and one of 19MB.  The bin listed the imported file under its original name (.MOV) but being of type DV 25 411.  The “411″ is news to me - PAL DV uses “420″ colour sampling whereas “411″ is for NTSC.  Makes me want to call “911″…    I guess (and hope!) this message is just the result of a “lazy” bit of coding in Avid, i.e. that it hasn’t really re-sampled my media’s colours into colors…  Even if it hasn’t done that, DV is a lossy format (hence I suppose the slightly smaller file size than the original ProRes) and I would have preferred some kind of “visually lossless” format (can DNxHD also handle SD resolution?) here.  Maybe I need to attain some Avid-Wrangling skills. On a hopeful hunch I briefly tried Avid’s AMA but it didn’t recognize the folder containing my ProRes files as an AMA-compatible volume.  On a previous occasion I had used AMA successfully with a folder of XDCAM-EX footage and that had worked fine, so I just hoped … but my hopes were dashed.

It looks on the face of it like there’s no choice: Avid generates its own equivalent files in its preferred format (MXF-Avid) automatically, not just re-wrapping the “rival/alien” ProRes stuff but transcoding it into DNxHD (for an HD project) or DV (for a DV project).

But it’s early days in my Avid experience and I will find out more…

When to use each kind of DNxHD format?

•  [http://community.avid.com/forums/p/17160/96889.aspx#96889]
  • “Use DNX 185 for all your transcoding, consolidating and rendering in AXP when working with 1080i/50″

Someone switching from Vegas to Avid, seeking advice:

•  http://community.avid.com/forums/t/78524.aspx?PageIndex=1

Example advice from that thread:

• (Implicitly, from the following) Try AMA as a first port of call.
• “Import” is used for file types that can’t be accessed via AMA (Avid Media Access). There are two types of Importing: fast and I guess what I’d call slow.
  • Fast Import rewraps the file in an MXF container, but it does not transcode, so it takes very little time and there is absolutely no quality hit. 
  • Slow Import is necessary when the codec is not natively supported inside MC or one of the import settings dictates a transcode, e.g. going from 601 to RGB color levels (hard remapping all colors so 16 becomes 0 and 235 becomes 255).  Slow importing can take time
• Avid will most certainly accept (content in) a MOV container, but will always generate new MXF mediafiles when you import these MOVs into the system.
  • Indeed that’s what happened when I imported a MOV file containing ProRes content.  The MXF was about the same size as the MOV.
  • I guess this would have been an example of Slow Import
    
• Avid works mostly with its own codec, and with some other codecs. Not with ProRes.

The comment about ProRes conflicts with advice I have read elsewhere (and repeated elsewhere on this blog).  Possibly it is context-dependent (e.g. PC/Mac, Avid version, QT version, workflow) ???  I will reserve judgement until I have tried it.