Avid problems.

[DavidBeier]

I'm having some workflow issues. I take the MXFs off the P2, burn a back up to DVD, then give them their own folder in the Avid Media Files/MXF area (1,2,3,4). I've been told that the whole point of doing this is so that you can keep groups of files seperate and not have ALL your media pop up when you open the media tool. Unfortunatly, it doesn't seem to make a difference. When i open the media tool, I'm only able to specify the drive I want it to look on and thus every P2 card I've ever shot pops up. This is becoming somewhat of an organizational nightmare. How do I pick which folder I want to look in? I'm using Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.23.

 

[eLeventy]

Well, in short, you can't. Not in this way anyway. For Avid, the 1-2-3-... mxf-subfolders are just one big mediafolder. Originally, Avid goes to folder 2 automatically when folder 1 becomes to big( >10.000 files). People started to use this hack to organize their media outside Avid. It works outside Avid, but not inside.

One possible alternative way to organise media, is by using virtual P2 cards created by the P2 viewer:

-Create a folder on an Harddisk. Like 'D:\virt_PROJECTNAME'
-In P2-viewer, turn this folder into a virtual P2 card.
-Use the 'split window' in the P2 Viewer to copy your cards: in the top bin put your real P2 card. In the bottom one, your virtual one. Drag&drop from top to bottom. This will copy them to the folder. You can keep adding files from different cards at different times. In this way you create a supercharged P2-card.

Okay, now they are organised on your HDD, how do you get them into Avid? Create a batchfile with notepad, named 'virt_PROJECTNAME.bat'. In it, put:
subst p: /D
subst p: d:\virt_PROJECTNAME

What does this do? The first line removes any previous substitutions. Next, it creates a new driveletter 'P:', which lookes like a HDD, but contains your super-P2 card.

Fire up Avid( or do an unmount p:, mount all). Go to your media tool and select only th e P: drive. Now you only have only those files. Granted, it might still not be enough of a management, but once you get the hang of it, it's quit easy.

You can have more than just the P:-drive. Pick your favourite letter from the alphabet and subst away... In fact, when you run out of letters ( at Z, I think you can actually use 'AA:', 'AB:' and so on. But I never tried it.

 

[DC]

That's a good workaround. But Avid really needs to step up to this.

 

[DavidBeier]

Thanks for the solution. Avid really shouldn't make this process so cumbersome.

 

[smelni]

This isnt really specific to the hvx footage i think.

Any footage that you put into avid will be all available in the media tool - avid keeps the file system transparent - what you need to do is organize your footage in avid. Create bins for your p2 card and then drop the files into those - use your timecode notes if you need help splitting the footage (you did track timecodes right? - if not you can use the p2 viewer to log those)

For our project we had 50 hours of footage and we created a bin for every location (we had over 45) - that way it is easy to find the clips.

Basically you are looking for a file sys organization and that is not how avid works - the organization is by bins. We split up our cards into 1,2,3,4 etc also - but that is just so that we can solve problems if a clip is missing - we can lookup what reel it was on and copy it in.