Best way to organzize DNX transcodes?

[Josiah Spencer]

Hey everyone, I am transcoding my R3D files into Avid AAF & MXF (DNxHD36 8 bit).

I am doing this for someone in Avid and I am not knowledgable about how their system works.

So my question is what is the best way to organize the transcode clips?
Do I just transcode everything and then organize it in Avid?
Or do I just transcode everything one scene at a time?

It would be nice to transcode export multiple bins at a time and have them go into transcodes folders with the bin name.
What is the smartest way to organize these?
First time transcoding for Avid,
Thanks!

[Shiblon Wixom]

Set it to create a sub-folder per clip, in the render settings.

[Josiah Spencer]

Ok so I can export it to Scene 1> Clips in subfolders?

What is the advantage of having them in sub-folders or not?

[Shiblon Wixom]

The MXF workflow doesn't create an individual all encompassing wrapper for the associated elements, like .mov or .avi. It's just easier to keep MXF files and Image sequence renders like DPX in a sub folder or individual bin sometimes. And then organize them.

[Josiah Spencer]

Thanks for the insight Shiblon, Appreciate it

[M Most]

Set it to create a sub-folder per clip, in the render settings.

You asolutely do NOT want to do this unless you want to cause your Avid using customers a lot of additional trouble and a view of you as someone who knows little about Avid media organization.

Avid Media Composer organizes all of its media (i.e., mxf files) in numbered folders that are placed in an Avid MediaFiles/MXF directory tree. You can use AAF files to include additional metadata and link to the MXF files, but in many cases that's not really necessary. If you have all of the MXF files in one folder, that facilitates the way Avids work, because that one folder can be placed in the proper directory location and renamed to a number. It will then be scanned by Avid and a database file created (it ends in .mdb). That database file can be dragged and dropped in a new bin, and the bin will be instantly populated with master clips for all of the shots. There is no import step if you're providing MXF files. If you want to use AAF files, those can be merged with the clips to include the additional metadata. So the end result of all this is that the most efficient way to pass Avid media to editorial is to have one folder with all of the MXF media for that day, and separately provide either a bunch of AAF files or one ALE file if necessary. Putting each shot into its own folder is only going to cause the editor or assistant editor to do a lot more work.

The MXF workflow doesn't create an individual all encompassing wrapper for the associated elements, like .mov or .avi. It's just easier to keep MXF files and Image sequence renders like DPX in a sub folder or individual bin sometimes. And then organize them.

That is incorrect. MXF **IS** a file wrapper. It is also very metadata rich and an open standard. Each MXF file contains essence (i.e., the image data itself) and metadata. In the case of Avid, the headers contain metadata that makes identification of the clip non-dependent on things like the file name, which is the strength and beauty of Avid's media management. You can change the file names - even on the media files themselves - and Avid will still relink to them properly because the metadata that's used for that is contained directly within the files themselves. I don't know of any other format or NLE that can do that.