iZotope is Trashing Excellent Plug-ins, Just Cause They Can

 iZotope is discontinuing a bunch of plug-ins from Exponential Audio, a company iZotope acquired semi recently. Among the casualties are the wonderful Rs and Phoenix reverbs. Instead they are pushing for the bloated Neoverb, Stratus and Symphony plug-ins. Without any upgrade path for existing customers. Shame.

Other discarded apps from iZotope are Iris, Break Tweaker and Trash. I haven't used these as much I have to say. I guess iZotope don't care about these anymore. Do you feel old yet?

How to upgrade to Avid Media Composer 8.8.2 - Part4

Allright, then onto Canon for updated AMA plug-ins.

Of course I am not able to download anything from the Canon USA page that Avid links to ...

The drop down menu on the right is not operative for me. What? Is it my browser?

OK fine, direction: Canon Europe.  What?!... Five software available...

1) AMA Raw

2) Mac OS X Raw

3) Canon LUTs

4) XF Plug-in for FCPX

5) XF Utility for MacOS X.

Alright grabbing the whole lot, but I will refrain from installing anything at this point.

Next step is loading my collection of camera footage to see what works and what doesn't. Until next time.

How to upgrade to Avid Media Composer 8.8.2 - Part3

Finally, I am able to launch AMC, and what's that? The Sony AMA plug-ins need an update. Alright.

"The AMA plug-ins that provide support for Sony XDCAM, XAVC, HDCAM-SR and SonyRAW are now being developed by nablet. Please uninstall the Sony AMA plug-ins and download/install the tablet AMA plug-ins from Avid.com/ama"

Recap of my installed AMA plug-ins in the console window:

OK then, FYI the AMA plug-ins live here:
MacHD/Library/Application Support/Avid/AVX_2Plug-ins/AMA

I'm moving the SonyXDCAM.avx and MVP_SonyXDCAMEX.avx to my "Old & Obsolete AMA Plug-ins" folder.

Then go to: http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Download/en394827 to download the new plug-ins.

Oh boy!

Landing page on nablet.com. Three plug-ins to choose from: XAVC-XDCAM, the one I'm interested in, also HDCAM-SSR and Sony RAW.

(Note to self: another possible point of failure?... Or an improvement? Time will tell.)

OK, downloading the goodies, and installing.

Four new plug-ins added.

And there you go, nablet AMA plug-ins for Sony.

FCPX Missing Plug-in (Effect) difficult to track down - pt3

Oh the joy to open an old project on a new computer...

I ranted some time ago that FCPX dos not make it easy to find what's missing in the Timeline when the only thing that shows is a lame red rectangle with a yellow exclamation point.

Apple has one for missing Files - Well OK, this one works, and the remedy is to relink:

But then it has this one for Effects: 

And one this for Titles:

Great! But what is REALLY MISSING you ask? And there is no way to know until you click on the clip and look into the Inspector to see what can be identified there. Not much.

In this case I was missing an Adjustment Layer and the Apply Basic LUT from Coremelt. This makes troubleshooting difficult.

On the other hand, someone (Denver Riddle at CGC) has been paying attention:

Now this is useful! As it is telling you exactly what's missing!

Now I notice this "feature" is not coming from Apple, it's coming from the plug-in developer, but hey, it's proof that it's possible to flash something useful. Thank you!

Need to update Sony AMA Plug-in for Media Composer 8.6.3

The joy of tracking software across multiple manufacturers websites to keep your editing station going. Today: Avid Media Composer 8.6.3.

Dang!

- How to check installed plug-ins in MC:
Project window / Info

This is what I have:

AMA Plugin Info:

 MediaCollector MVP Plug-InAvid Technology, Inc. 2.1.1.3415

 AS-11 Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 1.5.0.3431

 AVCHD MSP Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 1.3.9.3435

 Avid MXF MSP Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 2.1.1.3414

 MSP_MXF Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 1.15.5.3452

 WaveAiff Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 1.4.1.3414

 AVCHD MVP Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 1.3.9.3435

 AS-02 Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 1.6.0.3452

 Avid Image Sequencer Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 1.2.1.3414

 QuickTime Plug-In Avid Technology, Inc. 1.6.7.3444

 MVP_CanonXF64 CANON INC. 2.0

 RED R3D Plug-In (R3DSDK v4.6) Avid Technology, Inc. 1.11.0.6745

 MVP_MSP_SonyXDCAMEX_64bit Sony Corporation 1.9001

 SonyXDCAM_64bit Sony Corporation 3.4000.0.381

So these two underlined Sony XDCAM 64bit have to go.

- AMA Plug-ins folder location (on Mac OS X 101.10.5 Yosemite):
Boot HD/Library/Application Support/Avid/AVX2_Plug-ins/AMA

Actual folder content. Two Sony XDCAM Plug-ins in there. Bye now.

Avid AMA Support Page:

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Download/en394827

Avid AMA Plug-ins Compatibility Chart:
http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/compatibility/Media-Composer-AMA-Plugin-Compatibility-Chart

Sony Software Download page:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/software_for_sony_equipment

Sony XAVC / XDCAM AMA Plug-in Download Page - Version 3.51 is the one for MC 8.6:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/pdzk-ma2

Now installed, and showing the proper version in MC:

MVP_MSP_SonyXDCAMEX_64bit Sony Corporation 1.9300

SonyXDCAM_64bit Sony Corporation 3.5100.0.398