Today I visit the office of a company I might work for them at some projects and they have had DX Nitris.

They have also MC which they gave them as a present for buying the very expensive DX.

The channel my wife is working as a chief editor TV Makedonia is replacing its edit bays with MC...

It seems that Nitris is using another software editor from MC that is more close to the other editors in timeline.

Symphony.

 

All Avid systems use essentially the same software interface. They all have the same timeline structure. If you know MC you know the whole product range except for the additional features in things like Nitris and Symphony which have more finisihing tools.

It's not the same at all Lew.

Yesterday I saw Symphony and played with its timeline.

It has noting to do with MC's timeline.

There you can move freely the clips and below its clip there is a small bar at the same size as the clip which you can drag as with Liquid clips and

trim them ON the timeline. Nothing in common with MC's timeline. It has a button that takes you at the editing stage and another that turns it to fx

editing and others too but I didn't have the time to see it all. I think it was DS not DX. It costs 50.000 euros.

George,

 What you are seeing is the new release (Version 3) of the software. Lew is right that all across the board, except for DS that Avid is the same. Symphony Nitris (Nitris is the Hardware, Symphony the software) brings mastering tools, speed, more realtime and better color correction...other wise Symphony and MC are the same.

I work on a Symphony Nitris at work and on MC at home. Before, you could buy an Adrenaline for MC, now you have to choose between MOJODX and NitrisDX. You can only run Symphony with Nitris hardware, whereas MC runs with both. The trimming on both Symphony and MC is identical. The audio tools are the same....the media management is the same....the colour correction is drastically different and far superior on the Symphony....Symphony has the best colour correction tools of any system that I have ever seen or worked on.

I'll be going now, just wanted to clear that up

 

At DS or what they call it I tried and trimmed the clips by just holding the bar below the clips and dragging.

This is not the same with MC. You can't do that. You have to enable trimming.

Those things are not the same.

Avid DS has a different code base than other Avid editing softwares.
Check here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avid_DS_Nitris

Priit

maharvey:

George,

 Lew is right that all across the board, except for DS that Avid is the same.

I get it...

maharvey:

I'll be going now, just wanted to clear that up

Didn't seem to work...George didn't get it...

 Tim

We are saying the same thing with other words.

The impressive is that those two different interfaces can cooperate.

This meas that Avid has a reason already known for having MC's closed interface.

They thought that it's better to control their users having a base that knows only this kind of timeline.

But at the expensive DS it doesn't matter to have something "equal" with others as interface.

George,

DS is a compositing machine that does editing and finishing. MC and Symhony are editors that do some compositing, DS has arborescant trees to control filters and flow of effects etc..DS was also created here in Montreal by Softimage and was acquired by Avid when Avid purchased Softimage. The two products are not aimed at the same user, nor were they created to do the same type of work.

I would suggest some reading on your part to better understand Avid's product lines, are you clearly do not understand what you are writing about. Avid's MC timeline has been known for years to be a very effective way of cutting film and video....learn it and you will apreciate it...don't learn it and continue to discount it...I hated it before I learned it, but then thought to myself that there must be a reason why so many broadcast shows and award winning Hollywood movies use it....I now know it and can say that it is by far the best interface for editing that I have ever used.

As you say I don't know what I am talking about I am sure you don't know what I meant.

I am learning fast MC now.

I am more familiar to its timeline editing.

I can still be sure that is a slower designed timeline than Liquid's.

Liquid flies when it comes to timeline editing for me.

Today they brought me some DVD files which they needed me to make a new 2 minutes DVD out of 1.5 hour footage (.vob's).

Those files where brought to me in a USB flash. From what I know MC can't import them.

With Liquid it took me not more than 1 hour to import edit and deliver to DVD.

People were really happy for this because they needed to send the new DVD to a music festival right away.

How much time it would have taken MC to do this?

Are you working with Media Composer or Avid DS?

For sure, Liquid has some avantages over MC, but the opposite is also true.

I like to edit in both because I can appreciate their strenghs. I like to discover similar features in MC that I am used to use in Liquid.

 

I am not comparing.

I am asking Sylvain.

If someone brings you vob files on a USB stick and wants you to edit them as I did in Liquid,

how you would do it and how much time its going to need for the whole operation till DVD?

Liquid is super fast. The only problem I had was that Liquid couldn't import the vob's UNTILL

I changed the extension to mpeg.

P.S. As for DS I am only sitting in front of it not working there. I just scrub the timeline some times.

About DVD files. Yes, Liquid can import them. But I had some problems with the vob 3 file that Liquid could not import.

And also, I noticed that between two vob files, the is sometime a jump.

So, now, when I want to work with VOB files, I simply put the DVD in my DVD player and capture it via the BOB using the Y/C input.

In this case, I can simply do that in MC using a camera as a pass through to capture the footage.

 

sverkalo:

. . . Liquid couldn't import the vob's UNTILL

I changed the extension to mpeg.

. . .

 

sverkalo -  

 

Try using an  *  next time.  Your vob files should appear just fine. 

 dspboy,

The change of the extension is to help Liquid to import vob's files that can't be imported.

It has nothing to do with vob's extension that Liquid can't see right away.

Instead of * It is the same to scroll down to mpeg files to the list of the importing extensions at Liquid's dialog.

Sylvain as many others that want to escape a question you are doing the same trick and answering something different.

I asked what if they brings you files (vob's) at USB stick. Then MC is useless if you don't recompress it with another

program at another format MC understands.

I really can't see why MC costs 2500 instead of 500 for Liquid. I think the price should be the other way.

Or to say it differently if both products would have the same price and marketing what someone would choose?

sverkalo:

 Sylvain as many others that want to escape a question you are doing the same trick and answering something different.

I asked what if they brings you files (vob's) at USB stick. Then MC is useless if you don't recompress it with another

 

You are very right George, if you want to reedit other users dvd discs , MC is nothing for you to use , it demands other apps to reencode the mpg file to a file that MC can import.

So, if that is your way of measuring the goods and bads of an editing app , you might want to use Liquid for that, I think that windows movie maker and Studio also is able to do this directly on the timeline.

and for those interested, I just did that, a 1 gig vob file took me 15 minutes on my core 2 duo XP SP3 sys to convert to avi using windows moviemaker , the created avi file fast imported into MC

It's not a matter of measuring anything.

It's a matter of how you are going to work on something they will bring you in a USB stick wit MC if they are in a hurry.

This brings back the matter that MC isn't designed for quick edits. You need more time than what you will need to

make 2-3 days editing even on Premiere or Liquid.

Otherwise I am beginning to like the timeline of MC. Everything is a matter of how you use to it.

WMovie Maker isn't a professional application and I never use it.

The lowest thing in the scale I use is Studio which isn't that low anyway.

sverkalo:

It's a matter of how you are going to work on something they will bring you in a USB stick wit MC if they are in a hurry.

As I don´t need to create any file , I can export as a quicktime reference from within MC , the customer could have been drinking a cup of coffee whilst making some easy edit on that 1 gig clip and the customer would never know that I had used windows moviemaker, just had to pay the bill

First of all mpeg files and vob's can't be imported and have you tried to import a 90 minute clip that is not capture within MC to MC?

You have to drink the whole cafeteria not one cup only.

sverkalo:

Sylvain as many others that want to escape a question you are doing the same trick and answering something different.

I am not escaping the question. I am just saying how I work with a DVD. Even in Liquid.

I never got someone bringing a vob on a USB stick. But if it's the case, I will use the tool that will get the job done faster. In this case, I will use Liquid. I really like Liquid and will continue to use it a lot.

MC is powerful, but cannot do everything. Liquid can also do a lot of things, but not everything. Same thing with any other NLE out there. And MC comes with about $1500 of additional softwares. And with the upgrade deal, I got it for just over $1000 CAD.

And by the way, Avid can fast import an .avi file. You have to change the "File Pixel to video mapping" from RGB to 601 SD... in the settings of the inport dialog box. In this case, it will simply create a copy of the file on the hard drive without any transcode.

 

The point I want to make is that isn't possible for such a well known editor to not have such simple tools or a more wider files support.

MC was never meant to be a consumer NLE, it was meant for use in professional environments where using VOB files as source material would be considered highly unprofessional. If you must use such source material and MC, you need to convert it to a supported file format either with another program or through an analog breakout box and a player. Even Liquid, while it will allow the import of VOB files, does not offically support this file format anymore. Media Composer also does not include Mpeg2 as an import file type as that is also not considered a professional source format. Again, every NLE has restrictions on the type of file formats it will work with.

 

You think that mpeg2 is a consumer codec?

I don't think so and if this is the logic of Avid concerning MC or its editors this is far from realistic Lew.

What is consumer or not isn't decided by any company but from the user base.

Remember that miniDV started as a consumer format and it has been accepted and used by major TV broadcast stations all over the world and still does in more than 80% of their news gathering.

I remember seeing a trailer for the new MC 3 features and the man demonstrating one of those features was bragging about the ability of MC to move freely clips at timeline.

By telling to someone that MC is for professional use, doesn't really mean anything.

It's the same attitude as mine toward Liquid.