Avid Hates You

 I know this title is a little clunky, but I'll explain: UPDATE: Avid 2023.12 mostly fixes this issue! Hooray! But only "mostly." I make a lot of graphics. I keep these graphics in folders based on when each batch was made. 231002 GFX Renders is my latest batch. 230929 GFX Renders is the batch before that. 230928 GFX Renders is the batch before that one. And so on. This workflow was rock solid in Avid 2018. I'd import v1 of the graphics (something you literally cannot do now because go fuck yourself, I guess). Then, when I revised them, I'd delete media, but not the master clip, and batch in the new version. This would update everything in the edit with the new media without me having to edit a single goddamn thing. And if I needed to go back to an earlier version, it was easy to find. But NOW, with avid 2023, I can take this amazingly easy to use and manage workflow, I can sit on a large spike, apparently. Because: (a) you can't import graphics at all (okay, ...

 This is is shockingly asinine. So, you may remember from my post mere seconds ago that Avid can no longer import, well, anything . But you can link and transcode media, which is allegedly faster. And if the media you happen to be transcoding has stereo audio, you're in luck! But god fucking forbid you just want to transcode a single track of mono audio because Avid will fail and both the elapsed time and estimated time tick up in synchronicity FOREVER . And if you don't transcode to native media, even though the files are just AIFF-C or WAV files , avid fucking lags out constantly as it loses and re-establishes the links to them. So WHY  does this not work? Well, it has to do with newer versions of MacOS (okay, they're several years old now) not actually supporting QuickTime anymore. And .mp3 files use quicktime audio. Apparently the geniuses at Avid figured out how to use their Universal Media Engine to handle stereo .mp3 files just fine, but those literally half as compl...

My work upgraded me to a brand new, top of the line, Apple Studio M2 Ultra this week. And you know what that means... We also upgraded to the brand new Avid 2023.8! Which is so much garbage it lasted exactly one day on my computer. I was crashing every 2-5 minutes. And when Avid 2023 isn't crashing, it's busy not working in any way that you would want it to. Import no longer works at all. Alpha channels on graphics largely aren't recognized. That old workflow where you'd have a graphic, and import it, and then update the source and batch in the new one so you didn't have to manually replace that graphic everywhere you used it? That's out the fucking window because you can't import anymore and alpha channels largely aren't recognized. So now your only  option if you want to import to use native media for graphics is a PNG sequence (fuck that; those take hella long to render and it's a mess of files to manage).  Avid's preferred  workflow is that y...

 So I work in Development now, and one of the things we do in Development is steal from other shows. Not like "concepts" or whatever, but literal footage. That's how it works. You go to the head of a network and say, "We have a brand new idea for a show that's never been on TV before!" And then they say, "Show me the teaser trailer for this thing that you literally just told me doesn't exist!" And then you say, "Were you not paying any goddamn attention? That doesn't exist!" That's not true. What you actually say is, "Why yes, I will. Our trailer is right here, and our amazing editor, Judd, made it, with his bare hands, because he's literally the BEST." But how did I make it? By screen capturing a bunch of other shows that had scenes or lines I wanted, and I stitch them all together in my little timeline with a bunch of music that isn't licensed because it's never going to air and no one will ever know (e...

"What the fuck does that title even mean," you're probably wondering. Well, I'll tell you: It means Avid is fucking stupid. Not that this fact should surprise any of my long-time readers. Let me lay out the scenario. I'm on Avid 8.6.somthing. My production team shot on a brand new Sony Fancycam 9000. They shot in 4k. The "24P" setting on this camera is actually, apparently "23.97." Where did the 0.006 go? No one fucking knows. Maybe they though that because 29.97 was a thing, 23.xx should be rounded to 23.97 as well. I couldn't tell you. What I can tell you is that when I AMA linked the source footage, transcoded it into an XDCam 35 codec (which is standard fare for my particular project needs right now), and then tried to export it, the export fucking failed. Not in a nice, polite, "here's an error message for your troubles and also so you can screenshot it and use it in your blog posts because we appreciate the value you add to t...

 For the purposes of making this issue easier to search for, I'm going to write a few more sentences here: - Avid Audio too Loud Nitris DX - Avid Output too Loud - Avid Audio Too Hot? - Avid Audio fucking sucks my asshole - Nitris DX audio blown out? - What the Fuck is up with my Audio? - Seriously, What the Fuck, Avid??? That should make it easier for people to find this helpful page where I'm going answer all of life's great mysteries the question as to why Avid sucks fucking asshole (see above). Actually no, I'm not going to answer that. Honestly, who can? At this point, the fact that Avid sucks my fucking asshole is just an immutable fact of existence, like the sky, or the Chargers missing a field goal with two seconds left to lose a game. But you're not here to ponder the Truth of Existence with me. You're here because you audio is way too fucking hot coming out of your powered studio speakers. Fortunately for you, I have a fix for this problem. Near as I ...