Avid Media Composer 3.0 Messed up My Captured Files
 

Hello,

I recently got into Avid and am still a beginner with it.

I edited an HD project together and everything came out just fine. I closed the program and restarted my computer but when I started up my project all the files were read as "Offline Media".

I tried working around it but nothing seemed to work. Then I created a second bin but decided to delete it, then Avid decides to delete my sequence from the first bin. When I try to close Avid, it saves it on it's own so I just lost my entire edited sequence.

My files ran just fine before I restarted. So when I tried playing my captured files in various video players none of them seem to work anymore. They all say file is in use when Avid is closed and no other program is using it.

I tried restarting my computer and even went into safe mode as administrator to delete them but windows just won't let me.

Seems Avid did something to the files where I can't even access them. I can't recapture because I don't have access to the footage anymore.

I don't have access to the HD footage anymore and am really low on time so any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Xerxes

Xerxes,

I understand that you're freaked out, but could you please write more specifically. It's kind of hard follow exactly what happened.

Avid has a folder called the Avid Attic. Search for it and read Help about how to use it. It should have old copies of your bins and all thier contents.

"My files ran just fine before I restarted. So when I tried playing my captured files in various video players none of them seem to work anymore. They all say file is in use when Avid is closed and no other program is using it."

This makes no sense to me. When MC 3.0 captures media, it creates its own MXF files and places them in an Avid folder at the root level of your media creation harddrive. You can't play these files in a normal media player anyway.

Good luck and I and everyone here will be more than willing to help. But please try to be a little more descriptive. Thanks ;).

sorry to hear about your problems.

do you have plenty of disk space to redigitize your project? if its a space problem you might try working at a lower resolution.

most likely its a corrupt file, try deleting the msm.mmob and msm.fmid files from the OMFI MediaFiles on all of your drives (external/internal). reboot, when they rebuild it could fix the problem.

i use external drives and if i boot the avid before i turn on the external drives i get the media off line and i have to close the avid, get everything turned on and boot it up again. i have never had luck reconnecting media. but i am a self taught beginner also.

i found a avid book by Sam Kauffmann to be very helpful when i first started out. he seems to explain a little of how the avid is working (thinking) along with the normal stuff. Avid is a tough program that allows you to do what you want rather than limiting you to a few predetermed funtions, you learn it by reading the manual, books and using the forums but you have to put in the work/time. i think this is one reason that expereinced users seem so terse in their replies.

you also need to monitor the avid forums for avid problems. DVinfo is probably the best overall forum, but avid is good for quick responses to avid problems. the Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com is more for broadcast types, i lurk there, but on the few occassions i have posted i have been ignored.

good luck fixing your problem keep us posted, because tomorrow it will happen to us.

aloha

tito

Xerxes - we can help but you have to be more specific about your workflow.
Firstly when you trash a bin there is a subfolder created in Avid which has you deleted bins. Unless you empty the trash they are still there and you can drag themout of there.

I suspect you have inadvertantly deleted the wrong bin, as Avid does not delete sequences on its own. Alternately you meant to delete the bin but instead deleted your sequence. This is difficult to do as Avid pops up a warnng saying "do you want to delete" and you have to check boxes to do it. You can also use the Attic to retrieve lost bins - Avid is an extremely "safe" program - it is almost imposssible to lose more than 15 mins worth of work if you know what you are doing.

Media offline can be a problem for beginners. Firstly we have to esablish how you were working. If your media files are stored on an external drive and you remove the drive or change the name of he media files directory on a ocal drive, Avid won't see it. Avid looks for media in specific directories Avid MediaFiles and OMFI MediaFiles. Please do not modify these directories in any way - if you wish to delete media use the inbuilt Avid media tool.

Finally Avid has a new way of working from version 3x on it can use AMA - in this mode it access's the media directly on P2 and XDCam disks. You must consolidate this media to a local drive if you plan on removing the media or it will go offline. I think AMA is extremely risky unless you are under extreme time pressure such as news environments. I would always transfer my media and import it or consolidate it to a local drive first.

A corrupt database is the least likely reason for offline media.