Avid Mojo

[Ian Mora]

I'm shooting with an hd100 to the dr hd100. Do I need the AVID MOJO? It's just for capturing the HDV, right? If I'm going direct to disc it's not really needed, right? Are there any other benefits to having it? I'm getting an AVID turnkey system, and don't want to get things with it that I'll never use. Can I use it for audio capture?? No that doesn't make sense. Would I ever use it for event videography or narratives? What the hell does it do!! hehehe. sorry frustration

thanks

[Tim Commeijne]

If you capture and output thrue fire wire only, you DONT need the Avid Mojo.

Avid mojo provides analog interfaces so you can capture (and output) from a divice that doesn't have firewire.

This is usefull if you want to capture uncompressed video. (DV signal thrue firewire has a compression of 5:1)
But the 5:1 dv compression is in my opinion way better then going thrue an analog interface.

The avid Mojo SDI is another story, because it has SDI (Serial Digital Interface) so you can capture formats like digital betacam in full quality.

Other advantage of the Avid Mojo: Real time video playback.

Video in avid sent to an external monitor thrue firewire has a delay of about 14 frames. Plus it doesnt show many effects in real time.
With Avid mojo, jou can view your video on an external monitor without delay and have a lot of realtime effects played back without rendering.

But that feature is not worth the monny

[Michael Hendrix]

Tim is right on the monitor preview but to expand on the deck part, you do need Mojo to output to a deck either component, composite or SDI if you buy the SDI option. Now the other dark side to trying to do high end video with Mojo. You have to have the drives to keep up with the data rate. This will mean buying a RAID if you want to handle uncompressed video. Avid also has some specs on video cards and such so check with Avid on compatibility.

The beauty of Avid is the options for workflow they give you. I will give you an example of what my options are:

My primary job is as a Producer/Editor at a local tv station. I edit on a Avid Media Composer Adrenaline. I also do alot of freelance to which I have a Dell Laptop with Avid Express Pro HD on. Now I can edit DV25 (SD) on my laptop or import M2T files directly. I can output to disc. I can take my media and Bin files to the Adrenaline, relink, output full resolution to tape. Or I can take my media and Bin files down the street to a edit facility with Avid, pay for an Hour of edit and conform my timeline, output to tape.

Avid is absolutley the best when it comes to Media management which to answer your question, may give you more options, like pay an hour of edit at a local facility versus $2,500 to $7500 ivestment in computers and Mojo plus the expense of a deck.

Hope this make some sense.

[Mark Slade]

If I'm not mistaken....Mojo will not ingest HDV. You have to go firewire from deck straight to computer.
Mark

[Jaadgy Akanni]

Originally Posted by Michael Hendrix

Tim is right on the monitor preview but to expand on the deck part, you do need Mojo to output to a deck either component, composite or SDI if you buy the SDI option. Now the other dark side to trying to do high end video with Mojo. You have to have the drives to keep up with the data rate. This will mean buying a RAID if you want to handle uncompressed video. Avid also has some specs on video cards and such so check with Avid on compatibility.

The beauty of Avid is the options for workflow they give you. I will give you an example of what my options are:

My primary job is as a Producer/Editor at a local tv station. I edit on a Avid Media Composer Adrenaline. I also do alot of freelance to which I have a Dell Laptop with Avid Express Pro HD on. Now I can edit DV25 (SD) on my laptop or import M2T files directly. I can output to disc. I can take my media and Bin files to the Adrenaline, relink, output full resolution to tape. Or I can take my media and Bin files down the street to a edit facility with Avid, pay for an Hour of edit and conform my timeline, output to tape.

Avid is absolutley the best when it comes to Media management which to answer your question, may give you more options, like pay an hour of edit at a local facility versus $2,500 to $7500 ivestment in computers and Mojo plus the expense of a deck.

Hope this make some sense.

Michael you seem to know your way around Avid Xpress Pro, so let me ask you the following. When I got my system (PC platform) one of the things I was looking forward to was editing my HD100u(A) 24p-hdv24p footage on Avid Xpress. So I got AvidXpressPro/MOJO, But it turns out that 24p is not supported, or is it? Everytime I try to import M2T files from my DR-HD100 to AvidXpresPro I get a "this type of MPG file is not supported" or something to that effect. What's up with that? So, having accepted the fact that 24p HDV editing is not supported on AvidXpressPro(unless you've got news for me), what's a good workaround? How have you gone about editing 24p? Please give me an idea.

My other question is about Media composer. What advantages do you see in Media Composer over AvidXpressPro? Thank you :-)

[Michael Hendrix]

Jaadgy, what version of Xpress Pro are you running? Make sure you have the latest version which is up to something like 5.2.4 or something like that. They just added HDV support in a post 5.0 upgrade and if you bought 5.0, the upgrade is free. I will check my version to see what the number is.

The first advantage is some of the effects. I actually edit on Media Composer much more than Xpress but Composer has more effects and probably the biggest advantage is the Adrenaline box. If you make that purchase, you can do 4 or 5 layers SD realtime and the High Def version gives you HDCAM realtime editing.

For me, I am a heavy After Effects user so I spend most of my day in After Effects/Photoshop ending up in Avid for final output. But once or twice a week, I have a client that wants to supervise a session and I need a real time editor to work with since they want realtime feedback.

[Jaadgy Akanni]

Michael, I have the latest version which is 5.2.4. The thing that would really help me to know is how you work with 24p hdv24p footage, which is to say 24p-M2T files. How do you carry 24pHDV24p M2T on to the AvidXpressPro timeline? Do you first convert them to a different file type-If yes, what type of file? and with what software? I mean, do we agree that AvidXpressPro doesn't import 24pHDV24p m2t files? Maybe it's just me (i wish)

[Michael Hendrix]

Jaadgy, Right now, I don't have a HDV camera, ordering a Sony Z1U on Monday to begin work on a project. But I have done a lot of research on HDV in preperation for this project. The M2T files I have been using I got off the internet to experiment with.

For this paticular project (a marketing DVD) I am shooting HDV, capturing through DV Rack, and using a program called DV Filmaker to transcode to uncompressed 24p quicktimes.

My reason for this is that I can edit in Avid or do my effects work with these files in After Effects in an uncompressed format.

The M2T files I have work fine in Avid. As a matter of fact, I had my hands on a Panasonic HVX200 for a day and slipped the P2cards straight into my laptops slot, copied them to my hard drive and imported them straight into Avid. I would be considering the Panasonic for purchase but the P2 thing is just not affordable to me on long form projects.

I will not have time today but tomorrow will be able to boot up my laptop and I will look at version and options for you. I even know that my Express exports HDV. Do you have Xpress Pro HD or just Xpress Pro?

[Jaadgy Akanni]

Originally Posted by Michael Hendrix

Jaadgy, Right now, I don't have a HDV camera, ordering a Sony Z1U on Monday to begin work on a project. But I have done a lot of research on HDV in preperation for this project. The M2T files I have been using I got off the internet to experiment with.

For this paticular project (a marketing DVD) I am shooting HDV, capturing through DV Rack, and using a program called DV Filmaker to transcode to uncompressed 24p quicktimes.

My reason for this is that I can edit in Avid or do my effects work with these files in After Effects in an uncompressed format.

The M2T files I have work fine in Avid. As a matter of fact, I had my hands on a Panasonic HVX200 for a day and slipped the P2cards straight into my laptops slot, copied them to my hard drive and imported them straight into Avid. I would be considering the Panasonic for purchase but the P2 thing is just not affordable to me on long form projects.

I will not have time today but tomorrow will be able to boot up my laptop and I will look at version and options for you. I even know that my Express exports HDV. Do you have Xpress Pro HD or just Xpress Pro?

I have Avid Xpress Pro HD/MOJO . My only problem so far has been those damned 24p HDV24p (aka 24p M2T) files. you see, 30p M2T files work fine, but 24p M2T files don't import at all. I have to find away to convert them into a file format Avid recognizes.

[Michael Hendrix]

I will look at my Xpress Pro tomorrow, are you starting your job as a 24p job?

[Jaadgy Akanni]

Originally Posted by Michael Hendrix

I will look at my Xpress Pro tomorrow, are you starting your job as a 24p job?

Yes I tried that too to no avail.

[John Yamamoto]

Hi,
may be try to output to image sequences and then put it on time line and convert to any codec avid likes.

i found m2t captured from FCP only work for fcp or imovie. same to avid. different software handles m2t differently.

image sequences is sound stupid and time consuming, but Hard disk is cheap.
and u can leave a machine on to do conversion when u r drinking coffee.

jy

[Michael Hendrix]

How are you capturing? Everything I have done to this point has been importing already existing M2T clips.

[Michael Hendrix]

Jaadgy, looking at Xpress, I think only one of your camera's HD format is supported. Are you trying to shoot 720p/24?

Have you tried shooting 720p/30?



Under the new project window, the HDV formats listed are:

720p/29.97
1080i/50
1080i/59.94

[Jaadgy Akanni]

Originally Posted by Michael Hendrix

Jaadgy, looking at Xpress, I think only one of your camera's HD format is supported. Are you trying to shoot 720p/24?

Have you tried shooting 720p/30?



Under the new project window, the HDV formats listed are:

720p/29.97
1080i/50
1080i/59.94

Michael, thanks for your response. The core of my dilemma is exactly the fact that 720p/24 is my only interest, and have no plans to shoot 720/30 if I can help it. I bought this camera mainly for the 24 progressive look. I think if I get the files converted to AIC (A Quicktime codec) by using the MPG Streamclip software then I'll be able to edit my 24p footage on the AXproHD. At least that's what Paolo Ciccone tells me. I'll see, said the blind man :-)