Canon 7 d and Avid
- Thread starter lucy22ray
- Start date
WhiteMonkey
Well-known member
I think you may need to transcode your footage to DNxHD. It's available for free at the AVID website.
PerroneFord
Deals in Lead
You can bring the files straight into MC5. No third party tool is needed.
man_bites_dog
Member
Well, that's true, but not entirely accurate.
There are two options to import:
1: Import through the bin / file/import function, which will transcode your media to whatever resolution codec you require. which would most likely be a DNxHD variant.
2: Import as an AMA. This will not transcode and allow you to work in the files native codec.
Option 2, although nice, doesn't work very well as the playback is very stuttery. (At least on my i7 950 12 gigs RAM). Avid unfortunately doesn't have CUDA acceleration like Premiere so editing natively can be done, but it's frustrating to work with. For short form projects, I'd recommend Premiere CS5 for native editing. My workflow when working with Avid is to use MPEG Streamclip and encode all my media into Avid DNxHD, then do a fast import into MC.
Hope this helps.
Cheers
If you want maximum quality, then you probably want to avoid using quicktime (which will mess with gamma curves and suchlike, depending on what version you're using) and use the mpeg streamclip workflow that man bites recommends. However, like PerroneFord, I've been importing canon h.264 files directly into various avid platforms at work, and the files look pretty good to me.
PerroneFord
Deals in Lead
Ok, let's correct a few things here.
1. Avid is absolutely CUDA accellerated which is why the specify a CUDA card in their system requirements. It does not appear that AMA playback leverages the CUDA cores though unlike CS5's scheme.
2. I can see zero advantage in transcoding clips in Mpeg Streamclip unless you don't want tie up the editing software waiting for it to happen. I've done this myself, but it doesn't need to be done to get files into Avid.
3. A change of gamma doesn't change the "quality" of the files. And at the outset of editing, before color correction, it's not a big deal.
4. I DO NOT put h.264 on my timeline if I can help it, and I certainly do not recommend that workflow in Avid.
1. Avid is absolutely CUDA accellerated which is why the specify a CUDA card in their system requirements. It does not appear that AMA playback leverages the CUDA cores though unlike CS5's scheme.
2. I can see zero advantage in transcoding clips in Mpeg Streamclip unless you don't want tie up the editing software waiting for it to happen. I've done this myself, but it doesn't need to be done to get files into Avid.
3. A change of gamma doesn't change the "quality" of the files. And at the outset of editing, before color correction, it's not a big deal.
4. I DO NOT put h.264 on my timeline if I can help it, and I certainly do not recommend that workflow in Avid.
JamesRitson
Member
If you are using the Quicktime API to decode your Canon MOVs, you're compromising the quality of your footage. I don't think Apple ever intended for their H264 codec implementation to be used for editing purposes, or indeed for decoding then transcoding to another format. The actual decoding is very half-arsed, and it also adds what appears to be a layer of grain to the image, possibly to cover up compression artefacts. For editing, this results in more noise which hurts compressibility and image integrity.
If you import the .mov files straight into Avid, it will happily transcode them to DNxHD, making your editing experience relatively painless. It does, however, use the Quicktime API to achieve this.
Similarly, if you use MPEG Streamclip to transcode your .mov files, guess what! It also uses the Quicktime API. So with either method, you end up with your footage looking potentially rougher than it needs to.
The only way around this is to decode outside of Quicktime, and transcode to DNxHD. On Windows, you can use ffmpeg or DGAVCDecode and get handy with AviSynth, and if you're a Mac user there's 5dtoRGB (which quite possibly uses the ffmpeg library). There may be other options available (Sorenson Squeeze, for example), but those mentioned above will net you better results than letting Quicktime handle the clips.
I know you can dismiss it as pixel-peeping but you did say you wanted maximum quality!
(You're not going to get it with Quicktime handling the H264 files, basically)
If you import the .mov files straight into Avid, it will happily transcode them to DNxHD, making your editing experience relatively painless. It does, however, use the Quicktime API to achieve this.
Similarly, if you use MPEG Streamclip to transcode your .mov files, guess what! It also uses the Quicktime API. So with either method, you end up with your footage looking potentially rougher than it needs to.
The only way around this is to decode outside of Quicktime, and transcode to DNxHD. On Windows, you can use ffmpeg or DGAVCDecode and get handy with AviSynth, and if you're a Mac user there's 5dtoRGB (which quite possibly uses the ffmpeg library). There may be other options available (Sorenson Squeeze, for example), but those mentioned above will net you better results than letting Quicktime handle the clips.
I know you can dismiss it as pixel-peeping but you did say you wanted maximum quality!
(You're not going to get it with Quicktime handling the H264 files, basically)