Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

Log in
  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Fast import in avid with 601 SD or 709 HD

N

Nefrix

New member
Joined
Jun 27, 2009
Messages
4
Reaction score
0
Points
0
I am working as an assistant at a film shot on red, and I am taking care about the work flow of the material.

I used the simple away.

R3D -> imported in RedRush -> exported MOV DNX36 \
imported in Avid the ALE->
-> exported ALE /

->Batch importing the MOV.


My problem in this workflow was, why does not avid fast import the material. I discovered that if you import the material with RGB (0 - 255) the media will be recreated again, but if you use 601 SD or 709 HD (16 - 235), the media will be fast imported.
I think it is because RedRush encode the material 601 SD

I hope this post is gonna be useful because is less time waisted.
 
Avid MXF in an Avid project is 601/709. If you import from RGB, the import tool has to convert the contrast ratio, so that's slower. If your QTs are rendered as 16-235 (601, for example) the import tool just re-wraps and copies the media.

And, if you use MetaFuze, instead of redrushes, you don't even have to fast import - metafuze generates avid-ready MXF (also, no duplicate media that way.) We're all Mac, and haven't used the metafuze path for a big project yet, but check out that workflow, too. Avid.com/red

Avid is also working hard on something called 'AMA,' which allows you to direct-attach-and-play, without even importing, multiple codecs (the way FCP can play almost anything that's QT.) It works great now with XDCam, and a few other formats, but don't be surprised if a whole new Avid red workflow comes from some hybrid of metafuze/red sdk / AMA. And depending where red rocket fits into the SDK workflow... well you can see the possibilities. (Of course, you wouldn't really want to cut with proxies in Avid anymore than you do in FCP, at least on the feature level, but converting to DNX36/ProRes/whatever will be really, really fast.)
 
I don't recommend avid metafuze.

For 30 minutes of material i waited about 3 days. Redrush has the light power comparatively with the metafuze (even though it make's you directly MXF).
 
v2 of MetaFuze has the performance increase - we had to do some work with the SDK to get multiple cores working. also, there is no real need to a full debayer from 4K for HD dailies, a 1/2 debayer is more than fine and will cut down on the render times.

Not all of the benchmarking is done, and there are so many variables in what affects transcode times, but running MetaFuze v2 alpha on a Mac dual quad via Bootcamp and Vista 64, reading and writing to the same firewire 800 drive, 4K as 1/2 debayer was about 2.25x longer than real time. And you get the native MXF wrapped DNxHD to start editing directly. I also think some of the gamma is better done without QuickTime in the way, but those tests have been done very quickly, but nothing definitive yet.

Michael
 
It is a fast import as along as you set the input settings to REC601/709 for color space and that the source file is 1920 x 1080 and you select "input size is correct for project type."

Michael
 
Yes, in Media Composer. In REDrushes you want to make sure you are making 1920 x 1080 with the proper Avid DNxHD codec.

Michael
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top