Contemplating Video Satellite

[soundworx]

I have a copy of AVID MC 6 and I'm trying to work out if there's any point in buying a Video Satellite license.

At the moment I work with whatever video is being delivered, in the PT session, playing out of a Decklink Extreme to my plasma. I've got a spare Mac Pro on which I can run MC with the satellite license.

I understand that I save on horsepower doing that, which comes in handy on some longer form projects, but I'm curious what the possibilities are when working with outside AVID-editors. Do they deliver a project with cuts intact, or still have to "bake" me a complete file, how about if the source material is divided over several disks? Is it handy for recuts in combination with an already started PT mix? Other pro's and cons?

Any input from Satellite users welcome!

[JMDNYC]

Here's a nice feature: you can have one session with six reels, each at their respective hour timecode (reel two starts at 2:00:00:00, reel three at 3:00:00:00). Then you can open and close reels on your main system and they will all link to the same satellite session.

I know that sounds a bit unexciting, but I think it's cool. I love having Video Satellite.

[soundworx]

Nice, but I always work in supersessions anyway, so that's not going to do it for me ;-)

Originally Posted by JMDNYC

Here's a nice feature: you can have one session with six reels, each at their respective hour timecode (reel two starts at 2:00:00:00, reel three at 3:00:00:00). Then you can open and close reels on your main system and they will all link to the same satellite session.

I know that sounds a bit unexciting, but I think it's cool. I love having Video Satellite.

[MIKEROPHONICS]

In my experience external avid editors give me a video mixdown at DV25 for my vanilla mojo - their sequences often have too many layers and fx/plugs ob=n them to run the project straight from avid. One file, rather than a disk full of media.


I have MC 4.x (can't remember) and thought of doing the same, but quickly decided that the satellite workflow is best for film and or facilities with fast turn arounds and a big unity/isis set up rather than me as a boutique single studio set up (I do not work on features)

cheers

[Postman]

If you are considering Media Composer without video hardware, forget it. With proper supported gen-locked video hardware, Media Composer may provide picture quality and synchronization improvements, when there is a SyncHD attached to Pro Tools. MC is good at playing out every frame on time, which is less true of Pro Tools with Blackmagic (based on reports I've read here). PT and MC can generally play together with "near sample accuracy" (with hardware). That part works very well.

Media Composer with hardware can do some nice tricks, that may or may not be of value. My favorite is realtime generation of a timecode window. This is great for Foley work. The window can be moved out of the way or turned off instantly if it is hiding some action. Resize it at will. You can do a quick "color correct" if a scene is too dark to see the action.

You can run anything from a simple flattened QuickTime movie to a complex edit sequence with many layers and realtime effects, up to the limits of the MC system. Running a sequence is probably a nice benefit (no render time needed!) in a medium to large facility with central storage. I get all work from outside editors who only give me flattened high def movies, never a sequence. Most of the time I just copy the movie to a MC local drive and import as an "AMA File" and quickly go to work. That is almost as efficient as importing into Pro Tools directly.

The biggest downside to me is the start/stop delay that it adds to Pro Tools operation. For instance, Pro Tools 10 can be VERY snappy with ram cache. That snappy feeling is gone as soon as I link to Media Composer. Suddenly I wait about 1/2 second every time I press play or scrub. This is such an annoyance during editing that I now generally run QuickTime movies in Pro Tools while doing heavy editing, and link to MC only to check critical sync. The delay seems slightly less for some codecs than others, and is the least when all video is transcoded/imported to DNxHD. During mixing I use MC exclusively because the time lag doesn't bother me as much. It is nice that the satellite link does not prevent QuickTime movies in Pro Tools at the same time.

Looping of video while Pro Tools loops a selection is generally horrible. It will almost certainly be out of sync while looping.

There are random errors between the two systems. Sometimes you can dismiss them from Pro Tools (shift-click on the link button corresponding to MC), sometimes not. Media Composer is not bug-free, neither is Pro Tools.

Any satellite is an extra burden when conforming (more than one system to manage), or it can be a help. When conforming by hand I like to run the new version on MC, and keep the old one that gets conformed along with audio in PT. As I conform I see the old conformed video playing in a QuickTime window while also watching MC. Hopefully the two match exactly!

There are lots of smaller pros/cons. I think in the long run Media Composer as a video satellite is a powerful addition, when you've got the hardware you need, but it is not a solution for every problem.

[reichman]

When conforming by hand I like to run the new version on MC, and keep the old one that gets conformed along with audio in PT. As I conform I see the old conformed video playing in a QuickTime window while also watching MC. Hopefully the two match exactly!

This is something I wish PT could do by itself. I had a huge conform job years ago which required me to run two channels of video to do what Postman is doing here. I used VVTR and extended desktop to figure out where the cuts were.

[soundworx]

So... not encouraging so far. As far as conforms, I would love it if Pro Tools could switch videotracks really fast. Large conforms I do with Conformalizer, small ones by hand, but it would be great to be able to flip back and forth between 2 videotracks to compare whilst playing the session (often just for my own peace of mind). The way things are now, it takes about 3 seconds to switch (coming out of the decklink card).

Actually I think conforming a PT session to a new AVID sequence should be automatic. These days where budgets and allocated time are still decreasing, AVID could seriously have a bigger advantage over competitors if MC and PT could "talk to each other" about this.

I'm not getting paid to buy Conformalizer, being a tollfree hotline for the video-editor who doesn't know how to make an EDL, babysitting PT & Conformalizer through the conform, checking it against the new picture, importing new AAF's, checking them against the old one, extending all my atmos and cleaning up the automation mess...