MC 7 Prores / quicktime workflow

S

Steve Lewis

Member
I just switched to MC 7 coming over from Premiere Pro. I will be shooting Prores files with the Blackmagic camera and h.264s with a Canon DSLR camera.

From reading the manual I gathered that.....

A) there are two ways of importing: traditional and "AMA" linking
B) traditional means that you make a DNX (transcoded) version of the original media and it gets added to the project (this takes time)
C) AMA linking means the original media is simply linked to or "pointed to" and no transcoding is done. That "link" to the media is added to the MC project and you treat it like a clip

Am I on track so far?

My question is: What is the best way to get my prores/h.264 media into MC7?

Does performance suffer when using AMA linked clips vs clips that were imported the traditional way?

Also, can you combine different codecs into the same timeline when using AMA linking?
 
A question ..the BM cams record , raw, quicktime or DNXHD. So why not shoot in DNXHD ?

Obviously this cant work for the canon but it gets you half way there.
 
I would AMA to the files. From there you can decide whether you need to transcode to a smaller file due to storage, or just consolidate the media as is for editorial. How much are you estimating to shoot? How much storage do you have? Does that include backup on a separate set at a different location, etc?

Michael
 
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your response.

My upcoming project is a 12 minute documentary which will include 4 interviews. (among other footage like b-roll/promotional materials/etc...)

Someone on the AVID forums told me the best method is to AMA to the prores files, then "consolidate" to Prores MXF which would make a copy of my files, wrap them in the MXF wrapper, then place them in the Avid project folder automatically.

This sounds good, but I have an internal 750GB drive in my Mac Pro for media, so storage will be a problem if I have duplicates of all my media.

Is there a way I can do this AMA > Consolidate process without keeping the original files on the drive?

PERHAPS....

Maybe I could leave the original prores files on an external drive, AMA link to them in AVID and then IMMEDIATELY consolidate those files within avid. At that point could I remove the external drive containing the original prores media and just work with the consolidated files on my internal drive?


Hope that scenario made sense!

Thanks for any assistance.
 
How much footage do you anticipate for a 12 minute timeline? For smaller projects like this one, you can just go ahead an edit with the AMA linked clips. Although there is no hard and fast rule, I find a transcode is needed when going over 6-8 hours of sources and there is a complex timeline of layers or you are using multicam. For straightforward work, AMA all the way can work well. Once you have a final sequence, you can transcode from there for all yor finishing and output just the 13 minute piece.

Michael
 
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