User guide

Avid Guide for AMA Workflow
QuickTime
5
Avid QuickTime Codec Support
When you install any of the latest Avid editing applications, the QuickTime AMA plug-in also gets installed,
providing AMA support for any QuickTime movie that uses an Apple-supported codec. That means you can
quickly access many types of animations and video from other production environments. For example, with
QuickTime AMA, you can play and edit Apple Final Cut Pro videos directly, without needing to import or
transcode it first.
More than .mov
The QuickTime engine supports .mov type files, but you can link to many other types of movies and still
images—with different file extensions—using QuickTime AMA. Here are some examples; keep in mind that
your success will depend on the codecs on your computer and the nature of the essence in the file, among
other factors:
MOVIES: .MP4 .M4V .MPG .MPE .MPEG .M2T .QT
AUDIO: .MP2 .MP3 .WAV .AIFF .AIF .AU .AAC
STILLS: .JPG .TIFF .BMP .PNG .PSD
Making Avid QuickTime movies
Media captured on portable recording devices or rendered out from animation and graphics computers can
be saved using many different codecs. While the Media Composer family supports many of these QuickTime
codecs, there is an advantage to saving media for editing using an actual Avid QuickTime codec. The Avid
codecs are high quality and optimized for editing within your Avid editing environment. This means you will
often get better performance with them than with movies that use other QuickTime codecs. These Avid codecs
are installed as part of your Media Composer, Symphony, or NewsCutter installation.
You can add support for the Avid QuickTime movie types to any computer by downloading the current codec
pack(s) from the Avid website and installing it. You can also install these codec packs directly from your editing
system’s installation download package. These Avid QuickTime codecs add support for Avid formats such as:
Avid 1:1 Codecs
DNxHD codecs
DVCPRO HD
Meridian SD Codecs
AVID DV Codecs
After installing these codecs on your target computer system, you’ll be able to both read and render in the Avid
codecs on that system.