This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] Can't AMA F55 footage on a mac Avid Editor Services Not Running?

Monday, July 21, 2014

Re: [Avid-L2] Can't AMA F55 footage on a mac Avid Editor Services Not Running?

Okay back at my desktop and I can see your whole post now. My Blackberry is problematic with the L2 ever since they changed the Yahoo Groups.

At any rate I did see that once ama link worked the original source files IIRC showed AVC100 in the Video column, does that make sense for an F-55?

When I was not logged in as an administrator and I pointed to the Root folder on the backup drive with ama auto detect plugins nothing happened. I'm pretty sure I always right clicked inside my active bin to choose ama link. I also tried mxf folder, mxf and one other. I'm not at the system so I think they were all listing flavors of XDCam/AVCHD. There were 3 choices that seemed in the XDCam/AVCHD flavors and then a separate just MXF choice. When I tried these ama plugins and drilled into the folder I got a few error messages but I didn't have time to note them as I was shooting in the dark on a system that I'd been told had already been used to ama link and transcode this material.

After a google search on Avid Editors Services I saw to go to tools and services, which turned out to be background services and I tried that with no luck.

Then I logged out and back in as administrator and then I could start the services. I think I logged back into the non administrator user to access a public folder with a bin and then went back to the administrator user. Then with it set to auto detect pointing to the root folder, meaning on the surface of the backup drive, which contained all the original material in various folders I linked ama and 4 bins popped up, blank at first, and then they populated. When I went to relink the sequences which were audio only I did my usual don't match case, link to media not from the project and the default time code and tape or file name choice and bingo all the clips that were originally ama'd in Avid and transcoded popped online. The clips that didn't relink I later found out had been converted to mxf with a 3rd party software and I guess then imported into Avid.

I may have a chance tomorrow to get back on the system and do some further research and I will report back what I find. I don't recall ever restarting the mac mini during the process but perhaps just logging out and back in as another user made the Avid ama wake up. I do recall previous threads that IIRC mentioned it was now important to be logged in as an administrator. I don't know if that is at all pertinent with my ama issues. Being in a new ad hoc bay setup with two systems one V6.0.3 and the other V7.0.3 and bouncing FW drives back and forth because only V7 would ama link is not my ideal testing situation, especially sitting with the producer trying to reconstruct a project I've never worked on because their media drive crashed. Thanks for asking the right questions and I hope tomorrow I have the time to play without an audience.

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <cutandcover@...> wrote :

Hmm. You still didn't say what happened when you tried to link files. Did you get an error? Because there's an easy explanation for that. Did nothing happen? Maybe I have another explanation for that. Excuse me for being blunt, but I have to answer these questions every day. Someone says 'I tried to link files and it didn't work'. My very next question is always "What exactly happened? Show me the error." Because there's usually an easy solution when I have this next bit of information. None of it has to do with Editor Services - in fact, I always require that Editor Services be set to OFF unless someone has a very specific reason for using them. Editor Services (Background Transcoding) is generally a hassle to get going and much slower than a live transcode, so if I have a free station, I always prefer a live transcode offloaded to the free station to any kind of Background transcode. Background transcoding causes issues with editors who don't know how to use it, and I get calls about media being offline when it's the transcode clip that's not yet transcoded - you can see how this can get out of hand.

The AMA Link window shows the status of Editor Services because Avid thinks you'll always want to use fancy background transcoding. I don't mind that the status is shown, but it is a complete misdirection for the dialog to prompt you to start them when you're just going to link. I don't care about Editor Services, so I freely and happily ignore this warning and you should too.

If you go to link via AMA and you get this error:

"There were errors linking AMA files."

Go to Macintosh HD / Users / Shared / AvidMediaComposer

and DELETE the AMA Management folder.

That's it. No admin logins, no permissions changing, nothing else is needed. You don't even have to restart the MC application. Just trash the folder, switch back to MC, and try linking again. It works.

If you go to link via AMA and you get a blank bin with no errors, my usual advice is 'give it a minute'. Some AMA plugins take time to parse and link, and it looks like nothing's happening, but it is. Clips will populate.

One other point of advice is that if you're linking files and you're sure nothing happens, you may have to specifically choose the AMA plugin in order for MC to link properly. Instead of the AMA Link window set to "Autodetect AMA Plugin", set it specifically to the type of footage you're intending to link.

As far as your F55 specific questions go - the timecode discrepancies are a new one to me, but not surprising. Maybe as you say a plugin upgrade will fix this reading error (if it is a reading error) or maybe the camera is doing this. Maybe there's a camera firmware upgrade. I haven't researched this business because I have yet to encounter it.

AMA Link to Active Bin might only really work if you have the bin active and right-click inside it to AMA Link. To me, it's always been weird behavior, so I more often just option-drag for AMA linking. In fact, option-drag to AMA link was a specific request of mine to Avid a few years ago that they finally granted in v7.

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 10:28 PM, bigfish@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

The issue I was having was I could not ama link to Sony F-55 footage or anything else even QT's that would ama link on the other system in the bay that was a mac pro running 6.0.3. It turned out that on the mac mini with os 10.9.4 and MC 7.0.3 I was not logged in as an administrator. I logged out and back in as the owner of the computer who is an administrator and then I could turn on the Editor Services. After logging in as an administrator the ama link worked. This is my first time at the wheel of V7 and I don't know why the bottom of the ama link window says that I need to turn on Editor Services but when I did everything started working. Perhaps it was only due to me being logged in as an administrator and had nothing to do with Editor Services, but then why did the ama link window list that as necessary at the bottom of the dialogue window?

Once I got it working then I noticed that the F-55 footage had 8 tracks of audio and the audio time codes for the tracks did not match the video for the clip. All the audio matched but didn't correspond to the Video or Data time code WTF? I seem to recall someone mentioning something like this a while back. I don't recall the ama plugin version, I think it was 3.02 or 3.20 when I listed ama plugins in the console. I think Sony had a new pluging just a few weeks back I wonder if this is fixed. I noticed when I was over cutting footage that one of the audio tracks time code matched the audio from the ama'd footage and not the video time code wise. So whatever the discrepancy is it carries through when cut into the timeline.

The good news is once the administrator log in or turning on Editor Services as an administrator, not sure which was the fix, the sequence linked up to the ama master clips. The ones that didn't I found out later had been converted to mxf by a 3rd party program and not through an Avid ama transcode. That made me understand why those clips didn't relink properly.

I set the ama settings to use Active Bin but when I used the ama link to the very top folder it opened up 4 bins corresponding to sub folders in the main folder. Is this normal even when I set it to use active bin? Perhaps there are a few more options I haven't explored in the V7 ama settings?

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <cutandcover@...> wrote :

This:

At the bottom of the ama link box it says Avid Editor Services are not Running. Please start Services from the Avid Edtior Services manager.

does not matter for AMA linking. That's only for Background Processing - which you're not (yet) trying to do.

What is the issue you're having? Getting an error?

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 4:28 PM, John Moore bigfish@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

I'm on a friends system running Mac OS 10.9.4 media composer 7.0.3 and I've been told they have successfully ama linked and transcoded F-55 Footage. After a drive failure I'm trying to get some clips back online but I can't seem to ama link to the clips off the backup drive. I can't even seem to link to .mov's that ama link on the Ver. 6.0.3 system. At the bottom of the ama link box it says Avid Editor Services are not Running. Please start Services from the Avid Edtior Services manager. I went to tools background services and checked always start with avid starts and restarted but when I go back to ama link I get the same prompt and when I check tools, background services it says stopped.

I was told this is the system they did the ama linking on but something seems messed up. Could it be that this is a different user without admin priv's? Stuck in the mud with mud on my face.

John Moore
Barking Trout Productions
Studio City, CA
bigfish@...