Import scene boundaries from MC

[belasoul]

What do you think is the best/easiest way to import scene boundaries from Avid MC and import to PT? Maybe a midi track with all edit desiciouns?

[henningaround]

Imo an EDL works great together with EdiLoad and a script to have scene descriptions. I create memory locations to have a good overview of scene boundaries while mixing. A scene change track with scene descriptions is a great way to locate specific scenes via "find clip" and clip list (to find sounds used before).

[belasoul]

Unfortunetly i don't own Ediload. It would be great to have what they call 'picture cut track' or 'scene change track'. ATM i cut by hand an unused dummy video track to get scene boundries, it works well but takes time..
Is there a way to generate a 'picture cut track' without third party software?

[BScout]

AAF of Video track from the Media Composer sequence. And then ask for no media (as you don't need it.) You'll get a dummy video track with all the edits and the regions named by the video clips cut to make that sequence.

I ask for that all the time and set that on video track 2 (with the final/finished video on video track 1 -- putting that one only online) in Pro Tools. Then I can quickly put markers to cut changes by tabbing to region boundaries on the second track.

[belasoul]

Ah great. :) I will ask for that.

[Frank Kruse]

Speaking of Video track in AAF. I noticed that currently PT is having a lot of trouble reading these from MC correctly. Our show has 5 relevant video tracks but PT only ever sees one of them and after import about 70-80% of the clips are usually missing. (Could be nested clips, but it's fairly random and more or less unusable).
EDL/Ediload or conform to itself via Conformalizer is the more reliable way to do this.

F.

[belasoul]

Ok. Too bad that the 'Video Dummy AAF Import' seems unstable.
At least this time it worked great for me (25 min Feature), all the Video Clips sit where they should. Very useful, especially for spotting BG's and general navigation. :)

[Frank Kruse]

Originally Posted by belasoul

Ok. Too bad that the 'Video Dummy AAF Import' seems unstable.
At least this time it worked great for me (25 min Feature), all the Video Clips sit where they should. Very useful, especially for spotting BG's and general navigation. :)

Yes, it's possibly workflow related. Nested clips etc. so if it's a rather small project with straight forward cuts it could still work. The ironic thing is that other applications can read these video tracks from the same AAF file just fine so it's ProTools specific.

I still prefer the Ediload scene change method as you can search for scene descriptions / locations not just abstract slate numbers but the AAF is obviously less work to get into PT.

I do use Video Universe a lot by chopping the QT track up with the scene changes so I can visually find scenes in the command-7 window.

F.

[Ayush Ahuja]

I too feel that an EDL and EDILoad is still the fastest way to do this, for all the reasons mentioned above.

I've found that editor's video tracks can be all over the place until the project nears its first or second lock. On a recent film some big sequences used 'Tower Edits' which had tons of tracks and nested clips

Ayush

[henningaround]

What are nested clips?