Avid Hates You

You may remember that Segmentation Fault from the last post.  If not, uh, go read the last post; it's pretty short.  Now take a gander at this here Bus Thread Error.  This happened while importing that same graphic at full resolution (DNx220 graphic, importing at DNx220 resolution), as opposed to the SegFault which was being imported at a 10:1m resolution. Once again, Avid only knows one address. It's shameful, really.

This one made no sense at all.  I have a graphic file in Avid DNx220 format.  This is an Avid format  and was freaking made by Avid .  So, logically, whenever I try to import this graphic, Avid crashes with this awesome SegFault at address 0x0.  Which is, as far as I can tell, the only address Avid knows. Fortunately, once I used MPEG Streamclip, which is a free program, I could convert the Avid format file to a non-avid format file (Apple ProRes 422 for example) which would then import just fine.  So yeah, the free program fixed the issue for the program that costs thousands of dollars.  At least someone knows how to code.

Despite how god awful Avid is, and how much it just hates my face on a daily basis, sometimes I am forced to use Final Cut, and when those times happen, posts like this will follow. H . This is a magic key in Avid.  It's the "focus" key, and instantly transports me to a frame-sized view of my timeline. In Final Cut, this command doesn't even exist.  Seriously, you have to drag two different scroll bars in order to get to frame sized timeline view and then make sure you're viewing the timeline at the point where you want to be viewing it.  What the hell?  Frames are where art and dreck are separated in editing, and Final Cut doesn't want me to be able to play with them at all! So while Avid may tell me to kiss its ass and - because I pressed the wrong thing - it's now going to spend thirty minutes displaying audio waveforms over a five hour timeline, at least I can willfully and instantly zoom to a frame-size view of the timeline with a single butto...

The full text of this error message is: Audio::PMM_INSUFFICIENT_MEDIA()   Player version of frame duration is longer than actual [183] (183) My sequence was totally fine when I saved it, and then avid just decided to remove a frame of filler from the end of one of my audio tracks, which meant that when I opened my sequence back up again, this gem of a bullshit error appeared.  Thanks, Avid, for fucking up my sequence! See, you can't physically remove *filler* - that's like deleting nothing.  But Avid can, because Avid is magic.  And then Avid says, "Oh shit dude, you've got a track with less than enough filler, because that's totally a thing that can happen!" Right, thanks for letting me know, you giant, flaming turd of a program.  Here, let me cut some filler back over the spot where there used to be filler, and then you can stop yelling at me for the filler you somehow managed to lose. Dumb errors are dumb.

Me:  Command-Q. Avid:  Go fuck yourself. I guess the end result was the same though; the program did close.

No it isn't.  I checked.  I checked all of the Avids in the office, and none of them have the same serial number.  Then I shut them down, one by one, until you let me use Sapphire again.  So I know edit bay 5 is the culprit here. And edit bay 5 has its own serial number!!!  Gah!  And both bays have been working just fine for the last six months since we installed sapphire on these new assist bays. In this case, I don't even care what caused this.  I'm also not going to bother calling Genarts and waiting two hours for them to call me back.  Uninstalled the serial on bay 5, and then reinstalled it.  All fixed. WTF Avid?  Seriously WTF.

Well this was a fucked up error. The actual message was:   Timecode not found for clip, 'CLIPNAME' and when you click MORE, you get  CM_LABEL_NOT_FOUND:  tt:3, lnum:3 , which was supposed to convey some sort of information. The internet was no use, because it apparently only cares about CM_LABEL_NOT_FOUND:  tty:3, lnum: 4 , which is something completely fucking different. Let me back up:  I got this error by trying to multigroup some clips.  The group was properly constructed and everything, all subbed out, all the AuxTCs were in place and correct.  Error. So... what doesn't have timecode?  Well, all the tapes were totally normal.  The iso audio was a bitch to deal with because my sound guy doesn't understand how to make polyphonic .WAV files.. let's start there. Okay, so we imported the sound files using Avid's autodetect polyphonic wave groups feature, and it worked, but all three iso clips that resulted had bas...

I've been professionally Assistant Editing in the TV Biz for six years now, and I've come to realize one very important fact:  Avid hates me. The software hates me.  The hardware hates me.  Even the company hates me.  It's constantly crashing, failing to autosave, losing my data, corrupting my media, and basically making my life a living Hell whenever possible. At this point, a normal person would probably stop using Avid.  I mean, if it's so bad, why bother, right?  Let me explain via metaphor:  Editing is like building a car.  You have a whole bunch of parts that someone else made, and you have to put them all together.  Avid is like a wrench.  You can do a lot with a wrench.  It's a legitimate tool, and it does some real, honest to god work.  It's certainly not the right tool for every job, and a car made entirely by someone whose only tool is a wrench is going to look pretty goddamn ugly, but it's sort of possible in th...