It is nowhere near like importing tiff sequences. Tiff sequences have no metadata to indicate frame rate, so when you import them, each tiff frame equals 1 frame of the rate your project is in when you import it (as you describe). Also, Tiff and Targa frames are usually 16 bit, and take a considerable time to import.
I have never done "import" of DPX frames, but I believe, since there is frame rate metadata, that AVID would muck with the frames just the way it does when you import a non project frame rate QuickTime. Frame dropping or doubling, no consistent cadence or blending, etc. Personally, I only do imports of even QuickTime files as a last resort. AMA Linking and transcoding is so much faster, and allows me to review the color space prior to transcode.
When I am called upon to deal with DPX frames I take them in via AMA~Avid Image Sequencer (.dpx). One advantage here is that if the drive they are on is fast enough you can actually play them back in real time without importing. As anyone who has dealt with importing TIFF or TARGA sequences...they take forever. Even if your media where the DPX frames reside isn't fast enough for playback, you can still view the clip, adjust it's color space, size/cropping (frameflex) and frame rate all in source settings and then transcode. The transcode is much faster than imports (other than fast imports where the source file is a native AVID codec). My experience is that transcodes are about 8 to 10 times faster than quicktime imports. I haven't done exact tests with tiff or targa sequences, but since they are even slower, I am sure the speed is even greater than 10 times faster to AMA link and transcode. I wish I could AMA link TIFF and TARGA sequences.
One caveat...When AMA linking to DPX frames, if they are located on very slow media (over a busy ethernet share for example) you may have problems with the AMA link, and it can fail. Solution is to copy the frames to faster local storage or a solid high speed SAN or NAS. This storage doesn't need to be fast enough for playback to do the AMA link and transcode.
Dave Hogan
Burbank, CA
__._,_.___
Posted by: Dave Hogan <mactvman@yahoo.com>
| Reply via web post | • | Reply to sender | • | Reply to group | • | Start a New Topic | • | Messages in this topic (4) |
this is the Avid-L2
.
__,_._,___
No comments:
Post a Comment