Can you punch in on AMA footage at 6K?

[Frank Hague]

I've done some tests at 5K on Avid 6 with some AMA footage punched in and it looked pretty good, not great though. Does anyone know if Avid is really producing a 6K Dragon file when it's AMA'd on your timeline? In other words, can I use the Resize effect and scale in 300 percent and still produce a 1080 result when I export?

Seems like an easy question, excuse my ignorance. As I said, my tests were inconclusive as I have an awful eye for this stuff, but it definitely seemed a lot sharper when I punched in on my Red tests than with native 1080 footage.

 

[MichaelP]

FrameFlex was introduced in v7 to allow greater than HD raster and ability to extract or punch-in while preserving the higher than HD resolution of the original file. See demo video here: http://www.avidblogs.com/media-composer-7-4k/

 

[Frank Hague]

FrameFlex was introduced in v7 to allow greater than HD raster and ability to extract or punch-in while preserving the higher than HD resolution of the original file. See demo video here: http://www.avidblogs.com/media-composer-7-4k/

Awesome! Will check out now, so excited for this. Just upgraded to Avid 8.2 and loving it, thanks so much for all your help and encouragement MichaelP

 

[Neil Dearman]

Punching in is great but depends on what you are shooting and what your T Range/F Stop was, I did a shoot for the military/Gun company and had to punch in (because of safefy/live fire and explosions) and the focus was off here and there. I've noticed the more movement the worst it is and what your FPS set at (meaning higher frame rates). Also shows how bad you are a getting focus too lol!!!

 

[MichaelP]

Also see my blog about maintaining the higher resolution quality once you have AMA linked and used FrameFlex: http://24p.com/wordpress/?p=160

 

[David Mullen ASC]

What is "AMA" footage?

Never mind, found out:
http://www.avid.com/US/products/Avid-Media-Access

 

[Frank Hague]

Also see my blog about maintaining the higher resolution quality once you have AMA linked and used FrameFlex: http://24p.com/wordpress/?p=160

Awesome, thanks again, MichaelP. Concerning this topic, in my few tests so far I've gotten seemingly the same results from just using the Resize effect as the FrameFlex effect in my final export (meaning when I've simply resized the image from AMA into a tighter punch-in it's looked to be of similar resolution as when I use the FrameFlex option). Is this not normal?

 

[Björn Benckert]

You are not only punching into the resolution of the sensor but also of the lens. There are lenses that resolve better than 6k reoslution, however most lenses does not. and if you did not shoot it tack sharp and in perfect exposure etc. Then using a 1/3 of the image will be clearly visable as less quality than the cut before or after if those are not punched in. But if all quality parameters are brought up to the rim it might be possible but it also depending on your subject. For example a wide shot with everything in focus will probably hold up for less diigital zoom than a shot with more focus falloff. So if it works or not is basically depending on a lot of things and the only way to know is to check it on a good screening or at least in pixel 1:1 at delivery resolution.

The avid format I do not know much about, but the above is valid for the native files.

 

[Marc Wielage]

You are not only punching into the resolution of the sensor but also of the lens. There are lenses that resolve better than 6k reoslution, however most lenses does not. and if you did not shoot it tack sharp and in perfect exposure etc. Then using a 1/3 of the image will be clearly visable as less quality than the cut before or after if those are not punched in.

It seemed to work for David Fincher on ​Gone Girl.

 

[MichaelP]

Awesome, thanks again, MichaelP. Concerning this topic, in my few tests so far I've gotten seemingly the same results from just using the Resize effect as the FrameFlex effect in my final export (meaning when I've simply resized the image from AMA into a tighter punch-in it's looked to be of similar resolution as when I use the FrameFlex option). Is this not normal?

If you transcode your source clips that have FrameFlex, then it is not that much better than a resize. You need to render the timeline which is not the most intuitive way to work and is the subject of my blog. The other contributing factor is that in many cases, it still an extraction + a scaling operation unless the extraction is equal to the project resolution, 1920 x 1080 in this example. Avid only uses one scaling algorithm and who know if it is the best one for source and target at that time. I had an earlier blog where I ran into the same conclusion of not seeing a difference and be read here: http://24p.com/wordpress/?p=154

Michael