*This document is applicable for Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 as well.  Check out the slight changes in the Avid Media Composer 4.0.5 README for more information.

Avid Media Composer Cheatsheet Version 4.0.4

Matt Stratton turned me on to Clicky Stats awhile ago, and through Clicky, I’m able to see what web searches come up with my blog as a result. I also see when these searches lead them to my blog – but then they leave because they didn’t find the answer. I thought since the search engines think I already have it on my site, perhaps I should.   Below is a sampling of the search queries that my website supposedly already has the answers for.  So, I present to you:

It came from the Searches, Volume 1.

dnx-36 firewire 400 and bandwidth requirements DNX36
Yes, DNxHD36  (aka DNx36) can certainly work through a firewire400 pipe. DNxHD36 runs at a 36mbps, while firewire400 has a theoretical max of 400mbps. This makes firewire400 a fine choice as a transport for DNx36 offline workflows.

29.97 and dnx36
This is a source of confusion for many Avid users, and I’m in the process of authoring a blog on this. DNxHD36 is a “family” according to Avid. While the “36″ label refers to the data rate for 23.976 material, the DNxHD36 “family” codec can be applied to 29.97 material. This would be technically known as DNxHD45 (45mbps as opposed to 36mbps).

“episode engine” cpu restriction
This is kind of vague. Within Episode, you can assign priority of encodes and cpu usage. Quicktime already is pretty poor with processor usage to begin with, however.

Metafuze Lossy?
Yes. After all, you’re transcoding from one codec to another – there will always be quality loss. In addition, DNxHD is a lossy codec – so, yes.

edit room day rate
This varies wildly. Depends what gear is in the room, what the room is used for (editorial, audio, finishing, color, etc.) your experience, and geographical location – and hell, what your rent is! Normally a reputable rental rate at a good facility would be a couple hundred bucks per hour or even much more.   As a side note / soap box,  don’t sell out the rest of the industry by undercutting other facilities.  Talent and experience are worth the money.  That’s a majority of what the client is paying for – not the gear.  By undercutting everyone else, the industry is forced to adopt your lower rate as a standard, then everyone has to drop their prices.  And the cycle continues. You’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Does clipster support facilis
Clipster runs on Windows XP 64bit, which Facilis has a client for. Fibre is the best choice (Ethernet won’t deliver the bandwidth needed), and it should be a recent version of Facilis software to enable file locking – volume locking will cause organization issues, but can be done.

convert red footage cluster setup
I wish I could do it better than these guys have:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcp_homepage/compressor_multi_cores_stitzer.html
http://www.fcsoutlet.com/home/Studio_Outlet/Entries/2008/9/1_Virtual_Clusters_-_Compressor.html

fcserver script
Good luck. Most everything is manual at this point. Try CATDV as a more GUI based alternative.

QIO-PCIE sonnet tech
The QIO comes with either a PCIE host card or a E34 (Express slot) host card. Unveiled at NAB 2009, and finally shipping now! Mac only support for now. List Price is about $1000.

FTP, KiPro
Well, once the KiPro encodes to ProRes, you can certainly FTP the file – although it’s gonna be huge. Your best bet is to offload it to a portable drive for transport or use a transfer solution like StorageDNA.

share msm database avid
I can only assume you’d like two or more machines to access the same Avid Database at the same time, in order to share media. Nope – the functionality you are attempting to do is achieved through Avid Unity, ISIS, and Interplay.

final cut server frontend
Final Cut Server (FCSvr) clients have a front-end based in Java; it looks the same on Mac or PC – and the administrator can restrict what functions a client can have. A popular alternative is creating a web page interface which ties into the database and media of FCSvr. The functions on thew web page are usually limited and typically only used for “review and approval” functionality. Several companies out there can create a custom web based interface – although it is far from cheap.

episode pro pro res 422
Yes, If Episode is running on a Mac, you can encode and decode into any of the flavors of “ProRes” (1 word). Decoding is only available (currently) on the Windows version.

Avid Announces Support for New Apple® Mac Pro Computers for
Avid Media Composer® and Avid Symphony™

Qualified Configurations:

Apple Mac Pro Configuration One
- Two 2.66 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
- 6GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM (6×1GB)
- 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
- One 18x SuperDrive

Apple Mac Pro Configuration Two
- Two 2.93 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
- 6GB of DDR3 ECC SDRAM (6×1GB)
- 640GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512MB
- One 18x SuperDrive

Notes
• Avid will not support the single Quad-Core models, or the dual Quad-Core 2.26GHz model
• Configuration testing was done with Mojo-SDI, Adrenaline, Mojo DX, and Nitris DX.
• Qualified local storage includes Avid VideoRAID® ST, VideoRAID SR, and VideoRAID RTR.

Mac OS X Avid 3.5 Cheat Sheet v. 2: mac-os-x-cheatsheet-ver-2

Click for larger image.

Here is what is going on with your media, as you work within the Avid:

• Almost everything you are doing in Avid (from launching the Avid, saving any bins, leaving capture mode, or closing the application ) is causing the system to read and write data to your media drives simultaneously.
• Each partition will have one OMFI MediaFiles Folder and/or one Avid Media Files Folder (for MXF media).
• Each media files folder contains two database files (msm.MMOB and msm.FMID) which keep track of all of the changes to media files; keeping them constantly linked to the master clips in your bins (pointer files living on another drive in your applications folder).
• Every time you launch the Avid, save any bins, leave capture mode, or close the application it is forcing those database files to index all of the files in that media files folder.
• By having 2 database files on one very large partition containing 500GB 1 TB, etc of media , the Avid is indexing the hundreds of thousands of files included on that partition . That, in turn, taxes the database files beyond a reasonable level and they begin to either lose track of media, or fail to complete their updates.
• Media Databases no longer update correctly, causing things like “OMFI HP Domain INIT Failed” errors as well as ‘Media OffLine” messages, among others.
• By creating more, yet smaller Drive Partitions, the Avid can more efficiently and reliably maintain its Media Database files, giving overall stability and speed back to the system.

Avid Customer Support has found that partitioning down larger striped sets to sizes of approximately 250-300 GB has TREMENDOUSLY helped overall performance and stability. We recommend this for systems setup with larger than 300 GB partitions, in use with a 12 or 24 way stripe.

A note about Windows File Limit:

The Windows OS starts to slow down after 10,000 files. This is a limitation of the OS itself, not of the Avid. After 10,000 files, the system cannot buffer it’s file count fast enough, as well as the Avid’s Media Databases also not updating correctly, if at all.

More info available at:  http://avidtechnology.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/avidtechnology.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=71457