Gidday all,

We are experiencing a quite debilitating recurring bug when attempting to to directly edit XAVC-I from our new Sony FS7 using AMA.

Regularly, and usually within minutes of starting to edit, the video element of the playback engine will stop working. Sound will still play, though the system is very unresponsive. Task Manager shows that all processor cores are suddenly red-lining at near-100% capacity. The process causing the load is Avid itself. The grunty GPU in this machine (Quadra k4200) meanwhile shows almost no load. 

Restarting Avid, even rebooting the machine, usually will NOT fix the problem. The only partical workaround we have found (short of transcoding) is to delete the AMA folders and relink to them. This SOMETIMES cures the problem, though never for long.

The problem occurs across multiple projects. It happens regardless of whether monitoring is via our MX02 or internal. We are using the specified versions of the Nvidia drivers. We have the latest version of the Sony XAVC AMA plugin. The exact same machine is editing XD material from our Sony EX3 (on the same AMA plugin) perfectly happily for weeks at a time.

We are at a loss here; it definitely looks like an Avid bug, though one of this magnitude would surely be affecting many people and would be well known... is any of this ringing bells for anyone else?

We would definitely appreciate any ideas anyone may have!

Tony Sutorius

Unreal Films
Wellington, New Zealand

Tony Sutorius:

...when attempting to to directly edit XAVC-I from our new Sony FS7 using AMA.

Hi, Tony,

You don't mention what project type you're using, but are you attempting to do extensive layered edits straight from AMA?  Becuase if so, the demands placed on the processor will clog most machines, I think.  Most editors I know wlil transcode the footage first for anything other than very simple edits.

Tony Sutorius:

The exact same machine is editing XD material from our Sony EX3 (on the same AMA plugin) perfectly happily..

Yes, but that's XDCam EX, a completely different and less demanding codec.

What AMA plugin does avid think its using (should display in the bin)
If its showing generic avci then its a known bug. It will crash avid.
Currently I cannot use 831 with any xavc footage from f5, f55 or fs7, works fine in 83.