I'm having issues playing media in the composer window. It's not playing properly and it's making it almost impossible to check if pic and sound are in synch.

I just increased my MacPro tower's memory to 14Gb, and that hasn't helped the problem.

Are there settings in Avid that I should change?

What are the rest of your system specs?  Which specific version of MC are you running?  What is your project format/frame rate, and what is your footage format/frame rate?  When you say "not playing properly" what exactly does that mean?

2008 MacPro, dual processor, quad core, 16Gb RAM.

MC 6.5

project is using DNX files from R3D files, 23.98 fps.

when i play clips the picture isn't keeping up with the sound so there's a time lag. essentially it's not playing picture back in real time, so picture is always behind the audio.

The media is not on the C drive? how full are the harddrives? How much memory is on the videocard? You need 1 gig on the video card for adequate performance.

As TVJohn alludes to, you should NOT be writing media files to your system drive. It has enough to do just running and managing a very demanding program, let alone be additionally tasked with writing, storing, retrieving, cueing and seamless playback in realtime of media stream fragments. The drive quickly becomes overtaxed and can't keep up with the demands placed on it. You should be writing media to a separate drive, either internal, external or a RAID array.

No, the media's on an 8TB external drive, but it is getting full. I have a spare external drive, I'm going to move some of the non R3D media to that drive to free up some space. I've noticed the playback issue is getting worse the fuller the drive becomes. Thanks.

julesnurrish:

I've noticed the playback issue is getting worse the fuller the drive becomes.

That is correct. In my experience, I have found that over 85% and you start getting performance and response time related errors. If you have multiple media drives, it's best to use the hardware tool for an instant at a glance assessment of occupied vs. available space on any given drive, both in percentages and gigs. Do your best to spread the load evenly across all drives/partitions for the best performance.

Thanks Larry

If I move all of the R3D media to another drive, and keep all of the MXF media on the original drive, is this likely to cause any re-linking issues?

Hi Jules:

First, make sure you are following the Avid Media Folder Management Ground Rules:

1) The "Avid MediaFiles" folder (for MXF media) and the "OMFI MediaFiles" folder (for OMF media if you have any) MUST reside at the root level of the media drive, never inside any other folders or the system will not find the media. The directory should be X:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\1* where X is the specific media drive.

2) The folder names must always be the exact factory default names listed above (minus the quotes) or the system will not find the media.

3) There can be only one of each folder type on any given media drive.

When you move media around between drives, you'll need to rebuild the media database to update the system to the new locations. Quit the application. Then, from each numerical folder inside the MXF folder inside the Avid MediaFiles folder, delete the two files that identify by type as "MSM Media Database" also identified as "msmFMID.pmr" and "msmMMOB.mdb" . If you have an OMFI MediaFiles folder, delete the same two files. On re-launch, the system will detect the missing files and build new ones at the "Initializing Media Streams Manager" stage. You will see the system go into a scanning and indexing mode at this point. Depending on the number of media drives and total amount of media on your system this could take a while, so good time for a meal break.

*There is a 5,000 file limit on numerical folders. When 5,000 is reached, the system will create a "2" folder, move all the contents from "1" into it, and then repopulate "1" with new files. And so on.

Larry

Thanks so much, this is really helpful.

My only question is do I still need to rebuild the Avid Mediafiles folder if I'm only moving the R3D media onto a new drive? The MXF files will remain on the original drive. Avid is obviously re-linking to the MXF media only, rather than the raw R3D files.

Jules

julesnurrish:

My only question is do I still need to rebuild the Avid Mediafiles folder if I'm only moving the R3D media onto a new drive? The MXF files will remain on the original drive.

Assuming you're still AMA linked with the R3D files, the answer is no. Database rebuilding is only necessary when Avid MXF associated media files are involved. However, you will probably need to redefine the path to the raw R3D files to re-establish the AMA links. Or go ahead and transcode the R3D files to Avid media, if you have the time. That's what I would do. I prefer to work entirely inside the rock solid Avid media management system. I along with many other users have found that AMA linkage, which is very processor intensive, becomes unstable and unreliable as timelines get longer, with more video layers and effects intensive. This will change when MC 7 is released with the introduction of dynamic folder structures that bring AMA files into the Avid media management system.

Thanks Larry. Just to be clear, if I move the R3D media to a separate drive, I should redefine the path to the raw R3D files. is that correct? Seems to make sense. Only thing is I don't know how to do this. Any pointers will be super helpful.

Re my workflow, I am importing AAF files into Avid, then the .ale file, then re-linking to the MXF files.

julesnurrish:

Just to be clear, if I move the R3D media to a separate drive, I should redefine the path to the raw R3D files

That is correct, and you would use File>Link to AMA volume... targeting the specific drive you moved the R3D files to, to re-establish the path.

It doesn't seem to be working. I tried it with one file, and linking to the file itself, its roll number, and the top level volumes folder. I get a bunch of options when I try to re-link. I've tried all of them. Any ideas?

That's strange. I haven't used R3D files, but I have moved AMA media between drives and this workflow has always worked for me. If it works with R3D as it does with other file formats, you should be able to target the root folder without opening it and "Link to AMA volume..." should create a bin and populate it with AMA linked R3D files.

Two questions: Do you have the Red Avid AMA plugins installed? If not you can download them from here. And, are you targetting the root R3D folder?