Fastest workflow to SD DVD??
 

I am shooting a long interview project with my EX-3.
The interviews are 2-4 hours each.
After each interview I need to submit a review copy.
What is the fastest, most efficiant way to burn the footage to SD DVD?
Right now I am converting the footage to AVI through clip browser,
then taking it into Avid DVD for burning. Takes FOREVER.
Any ideas??

Thanks!

If the footage is going to be reviewed on a computer then try outputting it as a QuickTime movie or Flash file. For TV output then you will need a graphics accelerated card such as the Matrox RTX2, this converts an avi file to a DVD ready file.

Well, this is for TV review, so I need the DVD.
Is Avid Media Composer 5 able to output Quicktime reference files
without transcoding them to DNxHD first?
This way i could use the AMA feature and to make QT ref. to DVD software.

Hi Arbel,
I am not sure about DVD that way. 1h of SxS card is over 16GB and if you are going to have min. of 2h +that is over 32GB of media.
What I do with some files that needs to be send to MGM for instance (dailies) I use VLC some time. Under VLC Streaming/Exporting Wizard I use Stream to Network (when I am of fiber optic or better connection) or Transcode/Safe to file. If you can't use the network option try the Transcode/Safe to file option. Choose your file (stream), choose your codec and bit rate (I'll recommend MPEG-2), then audio options with codec and bit rate. Choose your Encapsulation format and follow the rest of the wizard. For Encapsulation format I usually use TS format. This is a broadcast format with higher compression and higher quality picture. If the other party is not familiar with TS format you need to point them to any free software that would play TS. MPEG Streamclip does it very nicely.... It's available free for MAC and Windows. The compression is greater then 35:1 I was trying to upload a small clip, but TS is not supported here. The file I was trying to upload was 755MB original - down to 21MB.TS file
The conversion time is very fast. Again CPU and HDD speed matters.
Hope this can help you
P.S.
You could make a data DVD of the file/s

Thanks Luben.

but does the VLC or the MPEG Streamclip read the original MP4 on the BPAV folder,
or do I have to transcode the clips to AVI no matter what?

VLC does play MP4 from the BPAV folder. The MPEG Streamclip does not play MP4, but it does play the new outputted file from VLC - the TS file - much smaller in size and with very good quality.

P.S.
I uploaded to a FTP. If you have Streamclip installed you could choose to play and after a minute or two (up to your Internet speed connection) would start play, or choose a option save as and play it from there.

Use Edius 5.5. Open BPAV files from EX3 on timeline - organise or edit if you want to - burn to disc - done.

Edius - fastest NLE in town.

Paul

Well, I run two Avid suites, so I can't use Edius at the moment...

Do you know if MC 5.0 can do the same?

Can't you run Edius free 30 day download on a laptop to fulfill the job needs? Why so difficult?

Just a suggestion, don't use Avid, its a bit old fashioned!

Paul

"Just a suggestion, don't use Avid, its a bit old fashioned!"

Maybe old fashioned, but it is still an industry standard.

Not as much as you might think... And it can still do 100 things Edius can't.

You can bring the files into MC5 with AMA which will get them into the timeline faster than Edius can. BUT if you do that, you can't then export a reference file to Avid DVD.

I suggest you create a project that matches your footage then import the footage native. In other words, when you do "import" select "XDCamEX 35". This will do a re-wrap which is like a fast import. Then you can export a reference quicktime file for Avid DVD which will take just seconds, and remove your render time.

If these are long form interviews, have you tried just coping the native .MXF from inside the BPAV folder structure straight into Avid DVD? I have not tried that, but that might speed up your workflow considerably. Without doing that, I don't think you're going to find much of a faster workflow.

I don't find that ClipBrowswer takes all that long on converting files, what kind of computer are you doing this on?

Perhaps a plain old DVD recorder would work for you?

My approach is always question the purpose and playback of the deliverable. I know you already said TV review BUT WHY are they locked to that?
With a real time H.264 encoder card you can encode to HD in real time or faster. An inexpensive file player by Western Digital can play to an HDTV. Of course computer playback is easy too. Fast, great quality.

As Duncan said, the other fast way is to play out real time to a DVD player/recorder. Of course if they're going to react negatively to the quality . . .

DVD otherwise is NOT fast and I do hope you're charging them for the time to make screening copies.

BTW, I checked to see if you could in fact just drag the source files from the CLPR folder into Avid DVD, and no, you cannot. It also does not understand the .MXF files you create from Clipbrowser (on the PC). So that's out as a workflow.