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?

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@pacbell.net [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@...