Try the following links to:

- Perform a general search of the whole Avid site use this link: http://www.avid.com/search

- Perform a general search of the Avid Support Knowledgebase use this link: http://www.avid.com/US/support

- Perform a search on a specific product range: http://www.avid.com/us/support/find-support

Mac OSX Snow leopard and Lion: The top half a dozen:

1/VMWare fusion: If you have a mac chances are you will need or want to run windows at some point; If not to use applications that are not available on Mac, then to run other operating systems, like various distributions of Linux that you need to run or test with. However great boot camp is, the fact that you have to boot into one or t’other is an inconvenience to say the least.
In my humble opinion VMWare Fusion is the answer. Some of my root6 colleagues swear by Parallels, but in my experience over the last few years, running it in anger every day Fusion has not let me down.  I run it in parallel with my native OS, it hibernates when the mac does, picks things up when it wakes up, and I have not rebooted either OS in a while (other than last weeks patch tuesday offerings for Win7

2/Google: Chrome, Reader, Earth, Docs, Google+;
Google dominates all our lives to some extent (read a rather worrying extent.)  If you are a so called information worker, or even if you aren’t, Google is the go to for everything from buying your next gadget to finding alate night  taxi home using the utility bill stuffed into your back pocket. Scary, but scarily good, Chrome is fast and easy- the all in one search/address bar saves  time and clicks all day and you don’t have to go through the whole syncing bookmarks drag because your history is stashed as part of your account. Truth is though, not all things play or work in Chrome’s html5 world. You may have to revert to Firefox or Safari now and again for good measure. Keep them all up to date. You never know when you may need ‘em.

3/Dropbox. What on earth did we do before Dropbox? Well,  the truth is I messed about with all sorts of things;  Custom scripts, rsync, Synctoy, Karens Replicator (more on that later) but for sheer ‘no brain required’ ease of use and reliability across machines and platforms,  Dropbox is the business. And as an aside, I dont think I would own an Ipad if it wasn’t for Dropbox either.

4/ VLC Plays nearly every video and audio format around, cross platform, plugins galore and stable and easy to boot- what’s not to love? – snag it here- At the same time, you are going to be ripping stuff right? Turning all those DVD’s you bought at the HMV sale from atoms to bits. The most sensible way to do this as a standalone personal user is Handbrake; Again, it is one of the best at what it does, especially at creating playable content for your handheld Mac devices like Iphone and Ipad.

5/Messaging- you need to talk to people online over a messaging client,but not impressed with your typical options- Meet Adium. It is a multi-protocol messaging client that allows you to talk to all your friends wherever and whatever they may be on. IM, Ichat whatever.

6/ Productivity and mind management; Evernote is a fabulous piece of software that solves all sorts of typical issues; Most commonly, tracking down that snippet of vital information you cut and pasted into a page or clipboard somewhere on your computer. Evernote solves this dilemma by allowing you to have local or cloud based repositories for your notebooks, snippets and all the rest of your content. Evernote repositories are synced for you when you are online and you can access them wherever you have a connection. You can also send information to Evernote via other applications courtesy of Growl. 

6a/ FTP Filezilla and Transmit- There are many occasions  when a browser wont do, and you need a decent FTP client, Filezilla is a great FTP tool and Transmit is another but the big difference is it is not free. If you are sending large anounts of stuff via ftp you probably already own it.

So on a Mac, these would be the basics, followed by Adobe CS 5.5, Avid Media Composer and helper apps (EDL Manager, Filmscribe, etc..) Motion 5  (one of the best graphics creation tools for 50 bucks imho) As well as Omnigraffle, VNC (chicken of the VNC is best on mac platforms), Mac Office 11, Pages, Numbers via the Appstore, and last but not least Smultron – a text editor of note-

Next time, we are going to look at the top half a dozen windows apps- followed by the top NETWORK utilities and tools for Mac and Win.

We would love your feedback- hit us up via twitter @root6support or on the blog below via comments:

Of course there is Avid’s most recent innovation in this regard – Avid Media Access (or AMA), whereby 3rd party manufacturers can author a plug-in for the Avid editing software that enables the editing platform to use the manufacturer’s acquisition media directly, thus giving much faster access to clips and metadata.

Avid also has their Interplay environment which offers several innovative services for the acquisition of material from 3rd party capture, archive and storage environments. Avid Interplay Transfer and Avid Interplay Web Services (with Avid Media Transfer or AMT) both offer very flexible methods of getting material into an Avid workgroup environment. The latter being a very open environment for 3rd parties to customise delivery of Avid friendly media files to Avid shared storage while simultaneously checking in metadata for each clip to the Interplay asset management database.

How then do you get MXF files into Avid environments if your workflow sits somewhere between these two camps?

Perhaps you are faced with the challenge of working with non-Avid native file based media in a small non-Interplay workgroup on shared storage and you need to create a workflow that enables you to edit this material? Possibly you have looked at workflow automation platforms such as Root6 Technology’s ContentAgent to convert 3rd party media formats based on pre-defined rules and processes or “workflows”, into media that can then be handled by Avid editors. The question is how do I get the media from these 3^rd party platforms into the editing environment in a predictable and consistent manner?

I describe a solution to this challenge below but first some background information on how Avid stores media files.

Avid Media File and storage Folder Formats

Avid announced that it would be adopting Material Exchange Format (MXF) as the file format for media interchange in 2002. In order to create a mechanism that delivers high performance for both the reading of and processing of media files, the Op Atom format of MXF media was adopted as the underpinning file technology for Avid editing software. This format uses a group of individual but linked media files, with one file for each component “track” of the media clip (for example, for a clip that has stereo audio and a video track there would be a total of three linked MXF media files – two audio track files and one video track file). When an Avid editing platform creates media files it uses this method to create the media files that represent the captured clip and it stores these files in a structure that is unique to Avid on the target media storage device. The editing application normally uses a pair of small database files to track the contents of the media files in these storage folders which contain a table of each file’s Media Object (MOB) Data which describes the relationship between each file and the higher level “Clip” information and it is this information that is used to link these media files to clips displayed in the Editing Bin.

File based media from non-Avid environments can be delivered to the editing stage in a bewildering variety of formats, some purporting to be MXF while others might be in any number of other proprietary or even “standard” formats. Since the task of converting media files is a processor intensive and complex job, there are several excellent products available now that can be used to convert media files. The task of conversion of media files is split into two slightly different mechanisms depending on the source of the material.

- The first is converting media file formats from the source format to the destination format and is known as “transcoding”. This is most often encountered when using proprietary acquisition format files from a third party device such as a camera which must then be converted into media that can then be used in Avid Composer based workflows (for example the conversion of material from High Resolution digital cameras into Avid format files might be handled by a transcoding platform).

- The second is the unpacking of “encapsulated”, “interleaved” or “wrapped” media formats used by Media Archive and Media Transport systems such as the MXF Op 1a format. Here the source media file is one packaged media file which contains the media information to play out the clip as one composite “transport” file and which must be “un-wrapped” to extract the individual OP Atom format file-per-track format media files required by Avid editing software.

Once a third party device or platform has been used to convert the non-Avid media files into Op Atom MXF media files (which the Avid editing application will understand), these files must then be presented to the editing software in a format that will enable the editing software to find them and extract the metadata to list in Bins.

This process of presenting the media files to the editing application requires creating a folder structure into which media files are then placed. There are then two methods of populating the bin information with the clip information.

The first can be used if the device creating the OP Atom media files also created an AAF composition file for each clip. The second can be used when there are no AAF files and which relies on the Avid application extracting media clip information from the media file MOB information.

Creating the Avid Media Storage Folder Structure:

1. Exit the Avid Media Composer / Symphony / NewsCutter application (if open).
2. On the target Media storage location, create a numbered folder using the appropriate formatting (described in the following) depending on whether the folder is located on local storage or shared storage.

Local Storage – The Editing software will create a folder structure on a target drive to store Avid Media Files starting at the root of the drive with a folder called “Avid MediaFiles”. Nested inside this folder will be a folder called “MXF” and inside that folder, the system will create incrementally numbered folders to accommodate the actual media files. By limiting the number of items in media folders, the editing software keeps the resulting database file sizes manageable; the software limits the number of items per sub folder to around 5000 items. Once a target folder approaches this number of files, the software will create a new folder with an incremented number (1, 2,… 99 etc). The full structure looks like this:

[drive_Letter]:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\[folder_number]\media_file.mxf

Example: A firewire drive is mounted as drive letter Z: on a Media Composer platform. The editing software is used to import a graphics file.

Z:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\1\media_file.mxf

To use this structure in the suggested workflow, create a new folder under the MXF folder level, named with a unique number that fits your needs for example on the Y: drive create 4 folders for cameras 1 and 2 for days 3 and 4 of shooting. Populate each of the created folders with the appropriate files:

• Y:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\31\
• Y:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\32\
• Y:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\41\
• Y:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\42\

Shared Storage – Here again, the Workspace will contain a folder called Avid MediaFiles, and in here will be an MXF folder. This MXF folder will contain a folder structure where the platform name of the device creating the media will be used to name the folders into which media files created by that platform will be placed. By limiting the number of items in media folders, the editing software keeps the resulting database file sizes manageable; the software limits the number of items per sub folder to around 5000 items. Once a target folder approaches this number of files it will create a new folder will an incremented suffix ([platform_name].1, [platform_name].2 etc). The full structure looks like this:

UNC Path:

\\[System_Director_Name]\[Workspace name]\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\[Platform_Name].1\media_file.mxf

Drive Letter:

[Drive_Letter]: \Avid MediaFiles\MXF\[Platform_Name].1

Example: The “Ingest” Workspace is mounted by a platform called Ingest-1 as drive letter Z. This machine creates media files as a result of capturing several clips from tape:

Z:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\ingest-1.1\media_file.mxf

To use this in the suggested workflow create a new folder under the MXF folder level, named for the creating platform and with a unique numbered suffix that fits your needs, for example on the Ingest Workspace mounted as the Y: drive by platform named edit-1 create 4 folders for cameras 1 and 2 for days 3 and 4 of shooting. Populate each of the created folders with the appropriate files:

• Y:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\edit-1.31\
• Y:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\ edit-1.32\
• Y:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\ edit-1.41\
• Y:\Avid MediaFiles\MXF\ edit-1.42\

Placing the Media Files:

1. Place the .MXF media file items inside the new folder location (you should aim to limit the number of items in this folder to 5000 files).
2. Launch the Avid editing software and allow it to index the contents of this newly created folder (thus creating the necessary .pmr and .mdb media database files for this folder).
3. Once your project is open, create a new bin and open it (or select and open an existing bin).
4. If you have an AAF file that was created at the time of the creation of the MXF media files and which describes the Media information that “points” to the media files you placed earlier, drag that/those AAF file(s) into the opened bin. The editing software will link to the media files and clip information will be created and listed in the bin.
5. If you do not have an AAF file for the MXF media files, navigate to the folder that you created and populated in the previous section, locate the msmMMOB.mdb media database file in the newly created folder and drag that file into the bin – this will process and list out each of the clip items in the folder location that your created (note that if the .mdb file does not exist in the newly created folder location, launch Media Tool and have it scan the drive letter in which you created the new folder  – this will force creation of or updating of the msmMMOB.mdb media database file for your folder).

Thanks to Bob Russo who is an Avid Editing specialist working out of their Burlington USA office and to Simon Cull of Serious Facilities in Glasgow.

The following new features are introduced in this release which as well as filling some gaps for owners of ISIS 5000 systems delivers 64 bit compatibility for the shared storage client for owners of Mac platforms running Avid editing applications.

- Avid has qualified dual client connections with two ISIS infrastructures and the following list summarizes the support:

An archive by contrast, is the long-term storage of original data that is designed for easy and fast retrieval by users needing to access this legacy data. In an IT as opposed to a production world view, current production content would be consigned or managed via a backup mechanism, while the production companies’ or users’ original and master program data and collateral material would be consigned to the archive once completed.

There are many approaches to backup, some simpler than others. You could argue for example that you have a ‘backup’ if your disks are RAIDED to allow for disk failure without data loss. But RAID or duplication will not help you in the event of a fire or theft of your equipment. Thus the adage that ‘if you don’t have three copies of something, you don’t have
it at all’ is a stark reminder of this challenge. In essence this prescribes that you have your primary copy, a secondary copy on another media type, and then finally a third version, preferably off site. The challenge though, is that very few companies and users follow the three copies rule, and even fewer take material offsite. So how do you make sense of what to backup and what not to worry about? A few simple common sense rules will help.

1. Identify what is critical to your production or business. If it is project data, critical graphics files, material that cannot be re-digitized, then it is essential that is backed up. Follow the 3 versions rule if you can. Look for large capacity raid protected nearline storage devices that offer capacity at a good price per terabyte. If this becomes your second copy, and critical project assets are taken offsite, then at least you are 2.5 x on the way to the 3.x rule.
2. Have a strategy for your camera originated files. If you are involved in file-based acquisition you will already have an on set backup environment. Ensure that the camera originals exist in at least two other places on different media types.
3. Understand the longer term role that this data will play in your environment.

When talking about the longer term, this brings us to archive, and the considerations are somewhat different. We are not concerned about backup, but rather a strategy for dealing with the long term view of what we need to achieve in terms of content management.

If, as a production company, all camera originated material needs to be moved to archive once production is complete, then it is common for this to take the form of offsite offline archiving – that is an archive or repository which cannot be queried or browsed. This could take the form of a set of labelled data tapes for instance. To view the material, it all has to be restored first, and then brought online under the project or viewing application before it can be accessed. Although this is an archive, it is not managed via an asset management system and is not easily viewed, or searched. A big limitation.

In environments where the archive is actively managed, searched, queried and re-used, a different approach, one of a managed online archive is common. Typically in this realm, the archive is part of a greater whole in an asset management environment. Content is actively managed, tracked and then consigned to the archive on a managed basis. If necessary the archive can even be taken offsite. The asset management system (AMS) will still know, from its database, what the status and whereabouts of each piece of material is. Often proxies and metadata can be viewed without recalling the assets.

Increasingly, many companies are beginning to appreciate, that given the flood of digital material that they are forced to deal with, that an active managed environment (i.e. an environment where all material being ingested, edited, played out exported and archived via a central database) is the way to deal with the increasing volume and complexity of busy production environments. As volume and complexity inevitably grows, so will the need for these integrated environments.

In the field you’d typically copy footage from the removable media on which the camera records, to a laptop or FireWire disk. Ideally the disk would have been mirrored, like the G-TECH GRAID mini, which is also bus powered so ideal for location shooting.  Typically an additional backup is made to a second hard drive, as even RAID can’t protect you from those rare but heart-stopping moments when a drive is accidentally dropped, drowned, crushed, smashed or stolen. Most backup software supports simultaneous copying to multiple devices, so the added security of a separate physical unit shouldn’t cost you any more time.

Even with the arrival of solid-state memory based drives, you can’t beat the security and
robustness of LTO tape. There’s an old IT maxim – “unless you have three copies of your data, you don’t have any data”. So an LTO copy will complete your trio and also makes
an ideal long-term archive solution, as well as potentially satisfying your insurer’s requirements.

To recap then, at the end of each day’s shoot you’ll have one hard drive for editorial, another drive for the production office and an LTO for archive.  On long shoots it’s useful to keep an archive of all footage on set, for reference, too.  Relatively compact and inexpensive RAID storage, like the G-SPEED es, fits the bill nicely. Good Luck!

- The document “What’s New for Media Composer v6.0″ discusses each new feature and change and can be downloaded from the Avid Knowledge Base here.

- Avid have also published a nice guide entitled “Make The Most of Your Media – 5 Ways Media Composer 6 Transforms Your Editing”which may help you identify 5 areas where the new version will assist you or your organisation. This document can be downloaded from the Avid Website here (registration required).

Sony AMA Plug Ins for Avid platforms running Windows OS can be downloaded from Sony’s Support site from this link.

Sony AMA Plug Ins for Avid platforms running Apple OS can be downloaded from Sony’s Support site from this link.

In addition to Avid support these releases offer the following compatibility:

• Release 3.0 (Mac) provides support for: Apple iTunes v10.5, Apple GarageBand v6.0.4, and CPC MacCaption v5.3.7.
• Matrox Mtx.utils 6.0 (PC) provides support for the following applications: Adobe Media Encoder 5.5.1, Encore 5.1, After Effects 10.5, Photoshop 12.1, and Flash Media Live Encoder 3.2, Autodesk 3ds Max 2009 and Combustion 2008 (32-bit only), eyeon Fusion 6.1, NewTek LightWave 3D 10

More information and links to download documentation and software can be found here on the Black Magic Design website.