Avid Hates You

Avid 2023.12 is the first moderately functional Avid since 2018, in my opinion. Titler+ is still hot flaming garbage, but the rest of the NLE mostly works. It only seems to crash when quitting the program, so, like, task failed successfully, I guess, and editing is pretty smooth. You can even import .mov files with transparency again! HOWEVER, there is one MAJOR  caveat to this, and that's that the Batch Import functionality is sometimes completely off its fucking rocker. I'll walk you through what I consider to be a perfectly normal workflow: - I make a graphic. It's gorgeous. Goddamn I'm good at graphics. Holy shit this thing is the goddamn Platonic Ideal of what a graphic should be. - I import it into Avid. Since I'm on Avid 2023.12, and not, say, 2019-2023.AnythingElse, this works. - My producer sends me a note to change the graphic even though she hasn't even seen it yet. Fine. I move the old graphic out of today's renders folder, drag it into the garde...

 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 ...

 If you work in a professional environment, you're probably used to production DPs insisting on always using the newest, fanciest, most whizz-bang gadgets on the market without ever checking to see if the people they're delivering footage to can actually work with what they're shooting. Usually, the result of this is a few hundred (or thousand) bucks extra cost to post for buying card readers and codecs that aren't pack-ins with Avid. Ahh, but now there's Sony's "new" (it's a couple years old, actually) S-Cinetone camera setting. And it's a motherfucker. First, I appreciate what Sony is trying to do. They're combining color look-up-tables (LUTs) and gamma information into a single setting on their cameras in order to get their digital video to look as rich and deep as film. Kudos, you spectacular assholes. What Sony did not do, and which they absolutely fucking should have done, is produce LUTs for editing suites that are able to work with ...

 So if it isn't working for you on your phone or tablet or whatever the kids have now please let me know, because I foolishly believe I've got things in a good and stable place. Cheers!

I've upgraded to Avid 8.5.6 over the last few years, and you may have noticed that the number of posts I put in my blog has dropped dramatically. That's good. It means Avid is scared that they might start losing market share to Adobe Premiere, or DaVinci Resolve, or Sony Vegas (okay, definitely NOT Sony Vegas). They've started improving workflow, fixing bugs, and even - seriously - demystifying some of the many many error messages that appear while you work. It's great! It's almost enough to make you think that Avid doesn't truly hate your goddamn guts anymore. And then shit like this happens: That is not at all what my graphic is supposed to look like during playback. What it's supposed to look like is this: Isn't that lovely? So why the fuck isn't it playing back correctly? Let's talk about how complicated this graphic is: It isn't. At all. Complicated. It's simple enough to ride the short bus and get a free candy and a pat on the head ...

I don't usually post news in this blog, because it's supposed to be a place for bug fixes, error message decoding, and ranting and the useless fucking quality assurance team that Avid employs (if any such team exists). In this case, however, it seems like we can chalk up another very large hash mark on the side of "there is no QA." Why? Because Avid-installed Macs across hollywood are failing to boot up after being shutdown. This issue hasn't affected me (yet), but holy fucking shit this is a bad fucking bug. I mean, how goddamned hard is it to NOT BREAK THE COMPUTER, AVID??? Which, I mean, if you've used Avid for even thirty minutes ever in your life you know that breaking the computer is like their favorite pastime. So now we're stuck with a software program that frequently requires a full reboot (and PRAM clear) to resolve issues in, coupled with a bug that prevents the system from properly fucking rebooting after you shut it down or restart. Yay. It...

Are you working on the newest, "top of the line," "best," Avid? Do you have multigroups? Are your multigroups completely fucking broken such that you can't select which camera is active in your quad or nine splits, and if you just cut the whole damn thing into your sequence, matching back into it actually takes you to a subgroup rather than the main group? If so, the problem isn't you. It's motherfucking Avid. More specifically, Avid is crawling its way into the future of tapeless workflow and vast arrays of digital codecs in exactly the same way that a two year old might cling to every available surface in order to avoid being unceremoniously deposited into a crib. Seriously, Avid, why are you fighting the future? Why do you hate progress? Why can't you make LUTs work in any sort of reasonable way? Wait... LUTs? Color Look Up Tables? Why the fuck are those even being mentioned in a rant about how bad Avid is at future proofing their product? W...

Seriously Avid, h ow is this acceptable?  The latest versions of Avid (8.6+) require brand new AMA plugins from nablit, ins tead of the old ones from Sony.  Okay, great.  The instructions for upgrading to the new plugins say, and I quote: Note: The nablet plug-ins and the legacy Sony plug-ins cannot coexist on the same system. Having them both installed will result in unpredictable behaviors of the editing application. Okay.  Um...  That sort of begs the question:  How do I uninstall the old Sony plug-ins? Maybe Avid's website will help (oh my god, I can't believe I just typed that sentence). Please uninstall previous AMA plugin, prior to installing any updated AMA plugin. Note : The nablet plug-ins and the legacy Sony plug-ins cannot coexist on the same system. Having them both installed will result in unpredictable behaviors of the editing application. So that's a no.  Well what the fuck, Avid?  You can't just tell me how to uninstall...

Has anyone, in the last ten years, ever intentionally  used the Avid AVC-Intra 100 codec for fucking anything ?  Seriously.  I would love for someone to speak the fuck up here and tell me why this shit ass codec still exists.  Because holy fuck is it ever a shitty codec.  It's low res, poor quality, and has a huge file size.  There is literally zero reason you'd ever use it.  DNx36 is a baller-ass pimp codec in comparison, and don't even get me started on the best codec ever made, DNx145.  WHAT THE FUCK, AVID?  CLEAN YOUR FUCKING ROOM.  Seriously, there's so much old "legacy" bullshit in this program that just has no goddam reason for existing.  Just in case anyone from Avid is reading this, let me enlighten you: AVC-Intra 100.  Fuck you. Motion effects that aren't "Timewarp." Resize, reposition, etc. effects that aren't "3D Warp." For that matter, if you can promote the effect to anything, WHY FUCKING HAVE IT?  Yo...

What the actual fuck, Avid. Why???  WHY!?!?  Why would you make it so that the button I press when I want CAPS to STAY THE FUCK ON disables itself every time I open the Title Tool Application? Jesus Christ, Avid. Jesus. Motherfucking. Christ. (Avid 8 only). UPDATE: As of Avid 8.5.6, there is an option to turn this "feature" off. Go to: Settings > General and then uncheck the box marked "Enable Caps-Lock Protection (clears and restores on focus change)." I wonder what other lovely "features" Avid has added lately without documenting them or including a means of changing them in the initial release? UGH.

Dealt with this years ago, but it's come up again for a friend on Avid 8.x.x so I figured I'd write it out.  This is so stupid.  When you AMA link clips, avid generates a pointer hash that tells the bin which clip file is being referenced.  Unfortunately, whatever algorithm generates this hash is totally stupid and frequently creates duplicate hashes.  The result is that clip AH010602A01.04 suddenly has a tape source of AH010602F03.  Fucking Avid. It doesn't matter if the clips are different lengths, have different TCs, or are even in the same format.  If you have AMA linked clips, you can have bad reference pointers.  The problem isn't super common (maybe 1 clip in every 50), but if you're working on a real show, it'll pop up daily.  Yes, before you ask, dear reader, this will happen with quick ingest XDCam stations since they AMA link to the MPEG reference files for copyover. So how do you prevent this nonsense? Well, you can't.  Not ...

You know how sometimes you feel like you've dealt with all the weird shit that the version of Avid you're using is ever going to throw at you, and you're fucking Avid Superman around the office?  And then this happens.  This weird, absurd, ridiculous problem. I mean, I just wrote that title, which is an exact description of the issue, and it still looks like goddamn gibberish. So what error am I talking about?  Well, none.  Avid doesn't give an error in this case, it just spits out video that's corrupted.  If you, unlike Avid, know what fields are, the rendered video has the fields out of order.  The resulting image looks like it has scan lines, or some kind of fucked up interlacing, or something.  It's all shitty looking on the screen, basically. Now this is a rare issue.  It seems to only happen when you do all of the following: Step 1) Convert the framerate of your source video clip to another framerate, either by editing with it in a di...

Dear Avid, Let me tell you about computers.  Computers are amazing.  They can do lots of things that humans can do.  They excel at boring and repetitive, data-driven tasks.  I'd like you to realize this, because your program, Avid, runs on a computer, and should probably take advantage of that fact one of these days. Herein I'm going to lay out some things that computers can do, some things that Avid already does, and some things that people pay thousands of dollars for people to do which Avid could do because:  Computers.  This will get into some very "big" ideas for the future of software, hardware, and video production and post-production.  There will be no tl;dr. -- Computers can do voice recognition.  I can use Dragon speech to text to transcribe my footage, but Avid could just do this for me. Computers can do facial recognition.  The camera on my phone knows where faces are and facebook can figure out who that face belongs to....

The title of this post is factually correct.  The thing that is supposed to save you in case of crash is the most likely thing to stop working prior to you actually crashing.  I mean: what the flying fuck, Avid?  This is the one single part of your program that absolutely fucking has to work 100% of the time!  Here's how it plays out at my office: Producer:  "My Avid Crashed and now my work is missing." Me:  "When was the last time you worked on this?" Producer:  "I've been working on it all day.  I guess I crashed at 7:30 pm, so ...  7:30 pm." Me:  "The last attic save is 1:45 pm." All:  "Fucking Avid." Sometimes "Producer" is even "Editor" which is a rare substitution in lost work issues, but in this case I've see it with my own damn eyes. -- So what can we do to avoid the fact that Avid is a flaming piece of feces, fresh from the anus of Graal the World-Eater?  There's no fixing this bu...

As with all things Avid, this is just stupid.  My Quicktime movie isn't mixed resolution, nor do I even know how I would go about making a mixed resolution movie.  What does that even mean?  Like halfway through, the resolution changes from 480p to 1080i or something?  Without even getting into why Avid seems to think that such a thing would ever exist, the fact of the matter is that this message is just completely fucking wrong.  Well, maybe not the text, per se - it's very possible that Avid cannot import a mixed resolution file, much in the same way that I cannot ride a goddamn unicorn to work.  What I mean is:  The thing causing this error is not the thing the error is talking about. See, this message shows up when you're trying to import to a drive that's full.  I mean, come the fuck on, Avid.  Isn't "Error:  Not enough Space" a thing you used to LOVE showing back in the good ol' 3.1 days?  I seem to recall an "Error: ...