1) How do I know my External Hard Drive is recognized?
2) What does “Media Offline mean”?
3) My deck isn’t being recognized by Avid
4) I get an error message that says all the media drives are filtered out
5) I can’t hear any audio.
6) I can hear the audio, but I can only see black, but when I move my cursor, I can see the video
7) How do I get my project open?
8) I get an error message when I boot up Avid about my power scheme. What does that mean?
9) My footage isn’t coming up
10)How do I set-up Avid to save all my files to my external HD?
11)How do I burn my project to DVD?
1) How do I know my External Hard Drive is recognized?
To properly save your files to the external, like you should be doing, you need to verify that your external hard drive is in good, working
order, and is going to work with Avid, you need to make sure you have your hard drive properly initialized and that the edit machine has recognized
the drive, before you enter Avid. If you are already in Avid and you were not sure your hard drive has been properly connected, you may get an error
that all the media drives are filtered out. If you do, go to question 4
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Once you are in Windows, follow the following steps
1) Plug the power plug into your Hard drive, and into the wall unit
2) Plug in supplied 6pin to 6pin into the back of your hard drive
3) Turn on the hard drive
4) If your hard drive is properly set up, a window should pop-up that asks what you want to do with the newly detected drive. You can cancel out of
that.
5) To verify your hard drive has been connected, do one of two things.
6) Click on My Computer
7) Your hard drive should be listed as one of the local disks
8) At the bottom of the desktop, in the toolbar, you should have the "Safety Remove Hardware" icon visible. it looks like this:
9) If you click once on this icon, your drive should be listed in the drives that can be shut down. Click anywhere outside the pop-up window to get
out of this list
The Safety Remove Hardware tool is the tool you should use to properly disconnect your hard drive once you are all done working.
2) What does “Media Offline mean”?
Are you getting the following error on your "Composer" menu?
This error means that the video clip you are trying to play has lost the link it's associated with in the OMFI MediaFiles folder, located on each
hard drive you have used, including your external. To fix this problem, you need to understand a few things about how Avid organizes the media
files.
Avid puts all the media files from all projects into one folder, the OMFI MediaFiles folder. It then uses a database that it creates and "links" each individual clip to the clips you see in your bins. This way Avid does the organization for you. When Avid goes to play anything that's video in nature, it will look up in the database where the actual video file is located, and use part of the clips, based on your in and out points. When the link (just like a hyperlink found on a website) is broken, you will see "Media Offline". With audio, you will not hear anything.
During Avid's start up protocol's, it searches all available hard drives for the Media Folder, and then more specifically, the database files. If none are present, Avid will "Re-Link" the files by creating a database. It is with this system that we can fix most Media Offline errors. Here's how.
First, you need to browse to your hard drive and open up the MediaFiles folder.
1) Make sure you're at the desktop by minimizing every open window
2) Double-click on "My Computer"
3) Browse to your external hard drive (it's usually going to be the "E" drive)
4) In this folder, you can find the database files, which are named msmFMID and msmMMOB. The icons look like a linear editor with two monitors, and
a little hand on the right.
5) Delete both files
6) Say YES when you get prompted.
7- Re-Start Avid!
3) My deck isn’t being recognized by Avid
This problem is due to Avid not recognizing any Audio/Video input signals. All the edit suites have been pre-programmed to accept an I/O signal
from the Sony DSR 11 NTSC video deck over the OHCI channel. If you go into your project window (bottom-left hand side of the screen) and click on
the Settings tab, this brings up your project settings. Scroll down to Deck Configuration. Double click on that to bring up the Deck Configuration
Properties window
This is what you should be. If you don't, follow the next steps to fix it
*NOTE - verify that the deck is on and Windows has recognized the deck before continuing. Be out of Avid and turn off and on the deck until Windows recognizes it, similar to how to verify an external hard drive is recognized (Question 1)
1) If, when you open the properties menu and you see something different from the picture, delete what you see by highlighting the item and hitting
the delete button.
2) Once the slate is clean, click 'Add Channel'
3) On the pop-up menu, select "Channel Type" as Firewire, and "Port" as OHCI.
4) Click OK.
5) With the next pop-up, select no. You do not want to auto configure the channel.
6) click "Add Deck"
8) In the Deck Settings pop-up, make sure that the Device drop-down menu is "Sony" and the drop-down menu next to that one is "DSR-11-NTSC"
9) Click "OK" in the Deck Settings menu to return to the original menu. Make sure that "Verify configuration against actual decks is clicked on.
This will check what's plugged in to what you've told Avid. Then hit Apply!
If this does not work, please come to the depot for more help
4) I get an error message that says all the media drives are filtered out
By default, Avid does not like to create the OMFI media files on the hard drive that has the Operating System installed, and "filters" out that
drive. The computers in every edit suite have one internal hard drive, so Avid has defaulted to not allowing you to capture to the "C:/" drive.
Avid's hardware-based systems have huge hard drive systems for HUGE storage, and Avid has this default coding so you record to an external device.
Since we use external hard drives, Avid is looking for it.
Something else you need to know about avid to help with other problems you might encounter. Avid loads everything it's going to need (hard drive
space, video decks, input and output streams, ect.).
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5) I can’t hear any audio
Some of the edit suites have been equipped with an interface that allows for a microphone to be connected to Avid (This microphone is not 100%
operational right now so don't rely on using it for voice over’s). When The device is set up, and recognized by Windows (Via a USB cable to the front
of the tower) that device becomes both the playback and the record source for all of Windows, which means that your audio mix is going to this new
device, and not to your computer speakers. Simply unplug the USB from the front of the tower. If that does not work for you, follow the following
steps
1) Go to Start - Control Panel
2) Double-click on Sounds and Audio Devices
3) In the Properties window, click on "Audio" tab
4) Under the Sound Playback drop-down menu, change it to anything but "Fast Track"
5) Click OK, and re-start Avid.
6) I can hear the audio, but I can only see black, but when I move my cursor, I can see the video
This error is caused by Avid running on a PC, instead of a MAC. PC's have the chance to run out of system resources much quicker then Mac's, so
this can be resolved by a simple re-start of the computer. Save everything in Avid and shut down. Make sure you select 'Shut Down' instead of
'Restart'. Let the computer sit for at least 30 seconds and then boot up again.
Sometimes you might get lucky and all you need to do is switch the video effect mode. If you were in "Blue" mode (the orb above your timeline is
blue and not green), this means you are in "Real-Time" effects play-back, which will not play any video effect that has not been rendered. If you
click on the orb to change it to Green and you have the same result, then a re-start will fix the problem
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7) How do I get my project open?
NOTE* Before opening an already created project, please see Question 10
To open your project, you need to verify that your External Hard Drive has been properly connected and is being read by Windows (for help on that,
see question 1). Assuming that when you set up your project in Avid properly and have all your settings on an External Hard
Drive, you can continue. If you are not sure, please see a depot assistant
1) Open Avid
2) Once you can select a project, browse to your external hard drive by clicking on the browse directory button (looks like an open folder)
3) Find your project's folder and open that. Then select your project and continue on!
8) I get an error message when I boot up Avid about my power scheme. What does that mean?
Are you getting the following error?
This error is just letting you know that the PC's power scheme might interfere with some aspects of capturing into avid, and recording out to tape.
Basically, the hard drives could turn off during some periods of inactivity, the screen saver could come up, or the computer can go into "standby"
mode. This can mess up a few things, so let's this fixed. First Thing to do is quit out of Avid.
| 1) Click "Start" at the bottom left-hand corner of the computer 2) point to "Settings" 3) point to "Control Panel" and click on Control Panel" to bring up the panel |
 |
| 4) If you're control panel looks like this: | Then switch to "Classic view by clicking "Switch to classic view" on the top-right hand corner |  |  |
9) My footage isn’t coming up
If, when you open your project, and you do not see any of the video clips in your bin, then you probably do not have your hard drive properly
recognized by Avid, and you also saved your project settings to the local hard drive. Please see Question 1 to set up your
hard drive for an Avid session, and Back to top
10) How do I set-up Avid to save all my files to my external HD?
This quick step-by-step sequence will properly set up your avid project to go entirely to your external hard drive. But before we get started,
you need to be aware of a few things.
When you start an avid project, there are two sets of files that you will be working with. One is the OMFI media files, which are your video and
audio files, and then there are your project file. All of your project files, which include your project file, settings file, database links, log
information, and other Avid-based files, are all located in a folder, which is named whatever you name your project. The very first window you find
when you enter avid is your Project Selection window. This step is critical to ensure your project gets saved to your external hard drive.
1)When this window pops up, click on the Folder Button next to the path text box (highlighted in a red "circle")
2) This will bring up the browse window. Here you should browse to your external hard drive and click
3) Since this is a brand new project, click on the "New Project" button and name your project.
4) Once you name your project, click "OK". Your format should be 30i NTSC (30 frames per second, interlaced scan ratio, and video format of NTSC)
5) Select your project from the window and click "OK". FYI - you do not need to worry about clicking on any of the buttons on the side to change to
"external". These are preset directories, so just don't bother with them.
6) Once in the project, locate the project settings window, normally on the left-hand side of the screen. It looks like this:
7) Click on the Settings tab - scroll down to Media Creation, and double-click on Media Creation.
8) This will bring up the Media Creation settings. Click on the Capture tab.
9) This is where you can set where your captured videos, your titles, imports, and any mixdowns you create will default to go to. Make sure that the
Video and Audio drive are linked to the same drive. The arrows toggle between linked or separate. In this image, they are linked.
10)In the drop-down menu, select your hard drive, then hit apply to all. Now you're all set!
NOTE* You should follow steps 6 through 10 every time you enter your project to verify the settings are still good, as the computer could revert to
an old setting.
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11)How do I burn my project to DVD?
Directions for Burning to DVD
Once you’ve finished editing, there are three steps needed to create your DVD; exporting from Avid, Encoding, and Authoring.
When you finish your timeline, you need to export the timeline into a QuickTime reference file. This is a database-style file that ‘references’ the OMFI media files, and creates an audio mixdown. Encoding is the process of turning your QuickTime file into a MPEG-2, DVD compliant video file. And authoring is the process of taking the MPEG-2 file and burning it to DVD with menus and titles.
Exporting from Avid:
1) Highlight your timeline, in Avid
2) Click on File – Export
3) Under “Save in:” browse to your external hard drive, and give your export a file name
4) Click on “Options…”
5) “Export As:” should be set to “QuickTime Reference”
6) Make sure that “flatten video tracks”, “render all video effects”, and “mixdown audio tracks” are selected
7) Your audio format should be “AIFF-C”
8) Sample rate of 48 kHz
9) Sample Bit Depth should be set to 16 Bit
10) Make sure that you select to Use Avid DV Codec
11) Click Save
12) Click Save again
Encoding using TMPGEnc 4.0 Xpress
1) Open the encoder application
2) Click on “Start a new project” under the Project Menu
3) Click on Add File
4) Browse to where you saved your file from the export in Avid, it should be on your external (if it’s not, please move the file to your external, to free up the space on the local hard drives. Thank you!)
5) Open your exported QuickTime file. You’ll only be able to import the video file, this is normal and expected.
6) Now you should have the clip addition settings pop-up window. You want to change the display mode to Interlaced and field order to bottom field first.
7) Change the framerate to 30 FPS
8) Click OK
9) Then on the top, click on Format
10) Select to use the DVD standard MPEG file by double-clicking on the brown disk on the left-hand side
11) In the next window is where you make the bitrate selections. Rule of thumb, the higher your bitrate, the larger the video file. You can use the calculators in this menu to figure out how big your file needs to be, if you have a longer video clip.
12) The important part is to set your Maximum bitrate and minimum bitrate in the Encoder settings based on your calculations. Generally, setting your bitrate at 8000 kb/s or greater is fine and standard
13) Once your settings are correct, click OK
14) Then click on Encode
15) Save the output file (the .mpg) on your external hard drive. This file will be anywhere from 1 GB to 4 GB, so please save them on your external
16) Click on the encode button (the button with an icon that looks like a piece of film with an arrow pointing up)
Authoring with Sonic DVDit!
1) Authoring in Sonic DVDit! works the same as it has in the past, with one minor change. Instead of importing your QuickTime file, you now import the .mpg (MPEG-2) file
2) Create your project, again saving the project to your external hard drive
3) Go through the authoring process like normal!
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