User Manual
Using AMA Plug-Ins
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You should be aware of the following:
• Playback performance from an optical disk is very slow. To create a sequence with multiple
effects or layered tracks, Avid suggests that you consolidate the media to a local drive,
instead of working directly from the optical disk.
• Avid has turned off redrawing of waveforms in the Timeline when you link to XDCAM clips
that reside on a disk. This allows for a faster linking process. When the media is
consolidated, the waveforms redraw.
• When you link XDCAM clips from an optical disk, Avid recommends that you do not
display the bin in Frame view or Script view due to performance issues.
A typical workflow is as follows:
1. Make sure the Sony XDCAM and XDCAM EX, or XDCAM SR AMA plug-in is installed
on your system.
2. For XDCAM, install the appropriate Sony XDCAM drivers.
You do not need drivers for XDCAM EX.
3. Insert the XDCAM disk or XDCAM EX card.
The system links the XDCAM clips into a bin. The media itself remains on the disk. The
clips point directly to the high-resolution media on the disk.
For XDCAM clips from an optical disk, a progress bar appears to show you how much time
is left to link the media.
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If you use multiple cards and you remove one of the cards, your media displays offline.
4. Use the master clips to edit the sequence.
5. (Option) Rename the clips to help organize your material.
6. You can either transfer your media to your hard drive and then transcode or consolidate your
sequence or clips, or consolidate directly from the XDCAM disk.
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When you consolidate, if you want to keep your AMA clips linked to the original source, select
the option “Keep Master clips linked to media on the original drive,” in the Copying Media Files
dialog box.
Consolidating your media helps when you work with multiple cards. If you remove a card
from the reader, consolidating lets you view your sequence with all the media online.
Due to the design of the Nitris input/output hardware, playback of XDCAM or XDCAM EX
media on an Avid Symphony using Nitris causes dropped frames. To allow for full
performance playback, transcode the XDCAM media into DNxHD media to play the video
on your Avid Symphony system with Avid Nitris input/output hardware.