How Avid differs from all other broadcast manufacturers

Avid have this get out of gaol card they play often - it's called the ¨..that's not a supported configuration¨ reason. They play it whenever their badly implemented version of an industry-wide standard doesn't play nicely with other equipment. The first time I came across it was the way they do P2 protocol over RS422 on the ABVB-based Mac systems. I was working at Oasis TV back in 1996 when we started to hook original D5 machines (the Panasonic AJ-D580) up to 9500-based V.7 Avids. We noticed that when capturing the deck would often take off in the wrong direction and then reverse and pre-roll correctly. Often laybacks would fail or be a frame late. Eventually I borrowed a serial sniffer and stuck it across the RS422 out of the Avid and discovered the following.

• The Avid rarely issued commands in the 17-line window after the start of frame that P2 demands. Consequently the deck would queue the command and ignore it for a frame.


• The Avid would sometimes issue the pre-roll command before it loaded the counter - the poor old VTR would take off on the pre-roll only to realise that it was going in the wrong direction.

So, a broadcast grade VTR that conforms to every relevent standard doesn't play nicely with Avid's sloppy implmentation of an existing standard and their justification is that "...it's an unsupported configuration"!
I've just put in a couple of machines that rely on an outboard FireWire switcher. I would have sworn it was the switcher that was at fault but I had a Root6 ContentAgent to test the various ports with the VTRs. The Avid Mojos will drop the feed if you do anything with the switcher (like make another route!) and you have to re-launch Media Composer. It makes using FireWire decks a real pain and I didn't realise Mojos were so problematic until Graham sent me the following;

This just mirrors my experiences...
Firewire switches, hubs and splitters don’t work CONSISTENTLY. They just don’t. Firewire patchbays and good quality extenders DO.
I have tested half a dozen of these things and they just don’t work without a reboot, a reset, and a mess around.

The same can be said of SCSI, Fibre Channel, and even the way they handle the PCI bus - see a previous post here for details of their half-arsed ADAT implmentation.
Now, if a Sony VTR refused to record a standard PAL signal or a Grass Valley mixer wouldn't derive a key from an SDi feed then they would sort it out - I never heard the phrase ¨...I'm sorry, that's not a supported configuration¨ until Avid came on the scene!

Adrienne Electronics

Do you remember a BBC2 late-night show called Diners - back in 2002 anything that had the reality label attached to it got commissioned (although admittedly on very late in the evening). If you Google for it now there is scant evidence of it! I did find a John Walsh article from The Independent. Anyhow - one of the problems I had to solve for that show was using cheap Avids (software-only versions - ExpressDV back then) to capture or log live feeds with timecode. Of course the studio or OB sends you audio timecode (the kind that sounds like a fax and comes down a twisted pair cable) but all hardware-less edit stations assumed the timecode comes down the RS422 line as part of the machine control.
Adrienne Electronics do a range of really useful boxes to address these kind of problems - the AEC-Box-2 takes in audio code and has a 9-pin connector. It emulates a VTR but (being a solid box) doesn't actually play or rewind tape - it just tells the Avid it is doing so (in this case it's an Avid MCSoft with SDi Mojo). The really cool thing is that when the Avid asks for timecode down the RS422 the box returns what it is receiving on it's input. It's the ideal solution for using cheap workstations to log or capture proper studio or OB type material.
Now I'd been puzzling about this for ages last night (got home late from the studio where I was working) and it was only over my tea that I remembered solving the problem five years before - kinda like how everyone has forgotten Diners!

Got my Mojo working

I did investigate this the Production Show before last (2005) - I thought I'd so this but include balancing for the audio to make it a bit more pro - XLRs & BNCs on the back. I got Bryant to do me a quote for the metalwork and adding in the cost of a buffer card to balance/level match the audio brought it to about £250 cost to us. With that in mind I asked maybe a dozen people at the show who were looking at ExpressPro/Mojo if they'd consider it and what price - they ALL thought £250 would be a waste of cash.

Now - what with SDi Mojo maybe it's worth re-investigating. MC Soft (the current less-than-£5k Avid package) appeals not only to wedding videographers but broadcasters and serious facilities people. In fact, Root6 have asked my to prototype one up - watch this space.

My four biggest beefs with Avid

• Digi002, ExpressPro Studio, and eight channel audio.
  
  To get eight channels in and out of a Digi002 console you need to use ADAT 'light-pipe' which necessitates a converter of some sort. Quite why a "pro" product relies on a domestic-style interface for multi-channel work is another topic (not too many VTRs, multi-track tapes or disks come with ADAT, but still). The thing that has really bitten us in the backside is that neither of the models Avid recommend work reliably with the Digi002 (the Fostex UC-8 and the Dua2) and the one gadget that does work (the Alesis A14) only works on short ADAT cables (this is a single-mode fibre - in any industrial grade application you'd expect it to work over kilometres, not be limited to three metres!). This flies in the face of Avid's advice - "you can run long ADAT fibres, but don't try and extend the FireWire between the workstation and the Digi002" - well, precisely the reverse is true! Big shout to my colleague Chris Bailey for figuring this all out and to Joel and Rhys who I worked late with last night out in the sticks in Hertforshire testing this (amongst other things).
  
• Mojo analogue video performance - still bad, noisy when in component mode (yet Avid claim it's broadcast quality - where, precisely?!). See a previous post here.
  
• Adrenaline and NTSC reference - when using Adrenaline in 525 mode it has to have a proper Sc-H consistent sync source - this is fine, but by letting people get away with a cheap'n'cheerful black & burst generator in PAL mode you give clients the expectation that they've gotten away with additional expense - if you're going to lower the bar then do it consistently or not at all.
• This pinched from the Avid-L today

  Almost as shocking as the actually time code problem is that Avid refuses to comment on it or address it. Pretty shameful.
  How about if I say that we're aware of it and committed to fix it? Would that be enough? Sincerely, Jeremy Kezer (Jeremy is Avid's principle engineer)

Still, compared to Final Cut Pro and Decklink these are mere annoyances!

Got my Mojo working
Avid introduced their new hardware platform at NAB this year - the DNA series includes the budget Mojo i/o box for their DV products ExpressPro and NewscutterDV. It's about a grand and allows you to do analogue i/o and with ExpressPro you can get at more 'traditional' Avid data rates - 15:1 and even uncompressed. It's all here on Avid's site and although they don't actually say it has broadcast output by mentioning uncompressed and component video o/p in the same breath you kinda imply it.

Now, tele people are notoriously cheap, and to engineers the idea of getting broadcastable pictures out of a £1k box seems laughable but we have clients that are buying it with just that expectation and I'm sure it's going to fall on the resellers when QC'ers start sending finished programmes back. Now this isn't just me venting my old-school engineering spleen but me and my colleague Rupert (see his blog in the side-bar) have now tested two Mojo units and they both exhibit the same problem - when driving it in component mode (from the video o/p tool) you get what looks like a vestige of the horizontal interval and subcarrier all over the U o/p. This is no suprise when you realise that in analogue component mode they re-use the S-Video connector for Y and V and the Composite connector (RCA, not BNC! cheap as chips!) for the U signal. I bet they've implemented some 50p switching chip to go between PAL and U and the inputs to the switch are cross-talking.

Oh, it has unbalanced audio as well - The Guild Of Wedding Videographers unite!