VidSat is cool but...

[Postman]

There is much to love about Media Station's Video Satellite option. There are some features that I think should be changed or added in VidSat but that is another discussion. Now I have a couple of complaints.

Complaint 1. Some of the error messages in VidSat do more harm than good. VidSat, like Avid and Pro Tools, throws up error messages that must be manually dismissed before operation can resume. I do not want to have two keyboards and more monitors in front of me just to babysit VidSat. I want to use a KVM switch to control VidSat for startup, and then switch to PT for working. Some error messages are frequent. Most of the time it is a message that VidSat failed to synchronize itself. When this happens, which is randomly regular, an alert goes up in VidSat, waiting for dismissal “OK”, at the same time PT simply stops playback instantly without a message or any indication of a problem. I then press play again in PT, because it seemed not to play the first time (or I think I had a very short selection by accident perhaps), but this time VidSat already has a message box up, which means it cannot respond to PT. PT puts up a dialog to tell me there is a problem with VidSat that must be resolved. Now I have to dismiss a dialog box in both applications before I can continue. Scroll to the bottom of this post to see the two error messages I see quite regularly here.

Please allow VidSat to stay online. Leave the most recent dialog up if you like, but let work continue without dismissing it. How about some clever programming to make my image flash or show a temporary graphic that has meaning. If this briefly occurs each time I press play I will check on the problem when I’m ready. You could go further and give VidSat enough intelligence to remember whether it just got a play instruction remotely from Pro Tools, or from the local controller or keyboard. VidSat could/should reset itself and be ready for the next remote instruction, in other words stay online if at all possible. Only when a local operator is present should it demand immediate attention (if ever!).

Complaint 2. Is there any way to stop the Capture Tool from opening when I open a project? Most of the time I want to continue work on a project I’ve already received, and honestly, capture from tape is not the only way to get video these days. The Capture Tool must be dismissed before VidSat can be used which is why it is annoying.

Complaint 3. The video deck list built into VidSat is shorter than the Avid document that Digi points to as to what is supported. Digitizing with my only DV deck, a Sony HVR-1500, has caused many problems here. The deck is on the Avid list, it is listed in Media Composer 2.8, but it is not in VidSat’s list. Can I pull a file from MC2.8 and update VidSat? The Digi link to that Avid doc no longer works but a similar doc is still available elsewhere on Avid’s sprawling site, I found it over the weekend. I still have the original doc that I downloaded in February on my system, so I know that deck was supposed to be supported then as well as now. Anyhow, the deck works without a hiccup in MC 2.8, but caused problems in MediaStation at first. It had trouble locating to a preroll position and it aborted timecoded captures. (Manual capture start/stop when the deck was already rolling worked.) Deck control through 1394 was almost impossible to use, regular 9 pin control was much more stable (I did not have to re-launch every time there was a failure) but still not acceptable. By telling the deck to never go into EE mode, things got much better. Now it basically works, but I have to use a generic DV deck setting. As I said, this is not a limitation in MC2.8. Is it possible to update MediaStation?

Following are 2 error messages that stop VidSat/Pro Tools regularly and that must be dismissed before one can continue:

“Loop pre-roll, in point, and out point provided by Pro Tools must all reside within the sequence”
Let’s say I have a Pro Tools session starting at 59:50:00, and a VidSat sequence starting at 1:00:00:00. I cannot loop playback starting at 1:00:00:00, regardless whether pre-roll is turned on or off. I can turn off loop playback and select a section that begins before 1:00:00:00, it is only a problem when loop playback is turned on. The work around is to insert black ahead of the video, and adjust the sequence times accordingly.

“Synchronization error. Aborting play.”
I hate this one most of all. All it does is waste time to dismiss. It happens randomly, often after trying to play a very short section of audio, but sometimes it just happens. I get it maybe 10 times a day.

Video Satellite 2.7:
HP xw8400 Dual Quad core 3G
8G RAM (XP only uses 3 gigs!)
Nvidea Quatro Fx3500 (2nd DVI port used for remote monitor through switch, 1st DVI port for projector or local monitor in the machine room)
Slot 1 H.P. p/n PA997A (Avid P/N 7030-20154-01) 1394a Firewire Card, PCI 32-bit/33MHz, slot 1, MOJO
Slot 5, ADS Technologies PYRO PCI 64R2 (API-315) (RoHS), for dv deck and 1394 drives
Slot 7, Atto UL4D PCI-X u320, 2x15k 500gb stripped set for video storage
Sintech RS232 to RD422 converter on serial port 1, for machine control.
LOCAL MEDIA STORAGE ONLY (no Unity)

Pro Tools HD+++ 7.4:
G5 dual 2.5 (PCI)
OSX10.4.9
ATTO UL3D, 10k drives for audio
PCI Firewire card for storage
Digi 7 slot expansion with Magma 64 bit expansion chassis for TDM cards

[Postman]

More:

Complaint 4. The yellow/green quality selector button disappears whenever the project's format is changed. One needs to change the format to enable real-time downres/display of HD through MOJO. The only way to get it back is to close and relaunch MediaStation.

Complaint 5. Okay this is not only a MediaStation or Avid problem, but why on earth can I not import things like DVCPro HD (Apple's DVCPro100) or Windows Media? What happens now is I get audio and all-white video. "Native DVCPro HD" is a supported format, but apparently not DVCPro HD from Apple? Same result with Apple Pro Res, which I suppose is to be expected. So, what codec is actually supported for HD from Mac/FCP, that I can open on MediaStation on a PC? I'm using Photo JPEG at the moment. I want to ask clients for something that doesn't take all night to render.

Complaint 6. How about a way to add a timecode burn to the video? This is functionality that is built into Express Pro and has been disabled in MediaStation. So how, exactly, shall I add visual code to an HD project? Buy another Avid system? SyncIO's overlay is standard def, composite signal. Beside, it only updates position in playback, which is a hinderance.

[Gordon Lyon]

Thanks for your detailed notes. Allow me to respond as best I can:

>Complaint 1. Some of the error messages in VidSat do more harm than good.
This is a common complaint and we are looking into ways to both reduce the dialogs and make it easier to dismiss the ones which are inevitable, preferably from the Pro Tools UI.

>Complaint 2. Is there any way to stop the Capture Tool from opening when I open a project?
This is not normal behavior, so either it's a bug, or there is some system setting which is causing this to happen. I will forward a question to Customer Support.

>Complaint 3. The video deck list built into VidSat is shorter than the Avid document that Digi points to as to what is supported.
If your deck was available in Media Composer 2.7, it should also be available in Media Station 2.7. If it was not added until Media Composer 2.8, it will be available in the next video Satellite release. Again, I'll forward a note to CS to see if the HVR-1500 was supported in MC2.7, and what to do if it wasn't. In general, we're working to eliminate these types of compatibility lag-times in the next Video Satellite release.

>“Loop pre-roll, in point, and out point provided by Pro Tools must all reside within the sequence”
This is a known limitation. I'm not sure what the possibility is of fixing it, but I'll ask Engineering.

>Complaint 4. The yellow/green quality selector button disappears whenever the project's format is changed.
TI'm not seeing this on my system, but I'll send a note to our Test department to see if they can recreate it. That would certainly be a bug.

>Complaint 5. ...why on earth can I not import things like DVCPro HD (Apple's DVCPro100) or Windows Media?
Importing QT or WMV video is supported, just as it is with Media Composer. However, you must have the required QT codecs installed on your system for Media Station to perform the import. Some QT codecs, such as DVCPro 100 and Pro-Res, are not included with your basic QT install. You must either install FCP on your system, or copy the required codecs from another system into your QT folder. If that doesn't resolve your problem, please contact Digi Customer Support.

Complaint 6. How about a way to add a timecode burn to the video?
We hope to add this capability in the not too distant future.

We believe that the Satellite architecture is a pwerful foundation. This first release obviously has some growing pains. Thanks for the feedback.

-- Gordon

Gordon Lyon
Sr. Product Manager, Post Production

[Postman]

Thank you for your reply Gordon. The manual states that "Native DVCPro HD" is a supported format for import. I was surprised that I cannot import any flavor of DVCPro HD that I have available to me (all created from Mac QTPro). Is it possible to copy codecs I have on a Mac to the PC (which runs Vidsat)? I'm thinking no. Final Cut most certainly cannot install on a PC, so my best fix now is to import on a Mac and copy all the media and project over to the PC. (no unity here). Wait, does a purchase of QT Pro authorization for the PC help me? I only own it for Mac at the moment.

As to the machine list, a document from Avid states that support for the deck I mentioned (Sony HVR-1500) was added to "MCA HD 2.7". When I upgraded here I was sent 2.8, so I cannot easily check this detail.
Video Satellite is already a very powerful addition that will become moreso. With the addition of timecode display (realtime), streamers (maybe), and more, and better user interface through Pro Tools it will be amazing. Thank you.

[Matt Stutter]

If only vid sat ran on a mac eh. Then you could install FCP codecs...

Are there any plans to make a mac version of VidSat digi/avid??