Media Composer 5.5 with DSLR

LuckyStudio 13

LuckyStudio 13

The Tapeless One
Absolute newbie to Avid here, Can some one educate me on the workflow for DSLR on MC 5.5 please ? Also MC 5.5 is still a 32 bit application on a MAC/OS X ?

what do i transcode the shooting H.264 codec to when editing ? Can i still transcode it to pro res 422 hq or to one of avid's proprietary codec ?? If someone can briefly outline a workflow, i would highly appreciate it.

thanks
 
MC 5.5 is 32-bit. MC 6 will be 64-bit (according to Avid).

Transcode your footage to DNxHD instead of ProRes (Avid will do this for you).

Do some tests - do a straight import and it will transcode to DNxHD. Note the time to transcode then check the colors and levels. See if there's a gamma shift.

Then access your footage via AMA and transcode (this will probably be faster). Note the time to transcode and check colors and levels. Quicktimes can be weird coming into Avid when they're from DSLRs - I haven't used 5.5 yet so I can't tell you whether there are gamma shifts or not.

You can edit natively via AMA but it won't be fun. Pick the DNxHD codec that you want - the higher the number the higher the bit rate. If it ends in x it's 10-bit. Edit away!

Michael
 
Pretty much i need an external color corrector like Davinci ? There is not equivalent to Apple Color with MC 5.5 ? unless I upgrade to symphony which is how much ??
 
If your system is fast enough, you can link all your media via Avid's AMA function. This will allow you near-instant access to your footage so that you can begin editing. This will work if you shot 5D, 7D, 60D, or T2i, but it won't work if you used the GH1 or GH2 because they use an AVCHD codec rather than the Canon h.264 codec. Before you decide to color correct, however, you'll likely want to transcode your timeline to DNxHD 36 or 115 as this codec is more resilient when pushing pixels.
 
I second the above post -- much of your DSLR work can be natively edited with the AMA feature. And yes, AVID is a 32bit app ...although funny enough I have never seen it slow down like Premiere or FCP7. Must be the way it's coded... you don't really ever feel like you're running into the 32bit barrier.
 
tfg said:
I second the above post -- much of your DSLR work can be natively edited with the AMA feature. And yes, AVID is a 32bit app ...although funny enough I have never seen it slow down like Premiere or FCP7. Must be the way it's coded... you don't really ever feel like you're running into the 32bit barrier.
Click to expand...

Avid has always had amazing real time capabilities considering the age of its code. I remember the first time I saw MC hooked up to a nitris dx. It was playing mixed formats, mixed framerates, and about six layers of thin raster and full raster HD in real time. Not bad for a 32-bit app!
 
A few notes. I edit DSLR footage on MC 5.5 all the time.


Import vs Transcode from AMA.
For whatever reason I have found transcoding from AMA to be about 50% faster than importing.
Timecode is more stable when importing. I will sometimes get weird things like Avid showing the clip duration to be :10 when its actually :30. The whole clip is there so its just a timecode display anomaly and has not hindered an edit, but worth mentioning.

Overcrank workflow
This is a bit odd but still no more difficult then the Cinema Tools FCP workflow.
You can only transcode or import to the frame rate of the current project. Meaning if you are in a 24p project and you want to bring in 60p footage to overcrank you need to import or transcode into another 60P project.

It's not as bad as it sounds. My workflow goes like this.

>Link to AMA for instant access to footage.
>Sort by FPS column and move 60p sources into a Bin called 60p
>Transcode 24p sources and go do emails or coffee - like capturing
When that is complete I transcode the 60p by
>Closing current 24p project and opening one I keep called 60p
>In this project open the Bin from my24p project labeled 60p
>Transcode 60p and go do emails and more coffee
>Close when finished and re-open 24p project. All the 60p trancodes are in there now at 60P
>Now I can edit 60P into 24p timeline and If I want to overcrank I just use the motion effects
 
On the same note, when I'm working in a 24p project, but I have 60p footage, I will reinterpret all the 60p footage in after effects to 23.976 and then have it render in the background while I continue to work in Avid. I'll often render the 60p conversions to whatever native media format I'm using in my Avid project (usually DNxHD 36 or 115) that way I can perform a fast import of the footage so that my workflow doesn't have to come to a complete halt.

Hope this is helpful to someone.
 
Pretty much i need an external color corrector like Davinci ? There is not equivalent to Apple Color with MC 5.5 ? unless I upgrade to symphony which is how much ??
Click to expand...


No no no. There is plenty to work with, with Avid's color correction tools.
 
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