Pinnacle Systems Interplay Access - 2.5 User’s Guide

Avid® Interplay® Access

User’s Guide

Version 2.5

Legal Notices

Product specifications are subject to change without notice and do not represent a commitment on the part of Avid Technology, Inc.

This product is subject to the terms and conditions of a software license agreement provided with the software. The product may only be used in accordance with the license agreement.

Avid products or portions thereof are protected by one or more of the following United States Patents: 5,309,528; 5,355,450; 5,396,594; 5,440,348; 5,467,288; 5,513,375; 5,528,310; 5,557,423; 5,577,190; 5,584,006; 5,640,601; 5,644,364; 5,654,737; 5,724,605; 5,726,717; 5,745,637; 5,752,029; 5,754,851; 5,799,150; 5,812,216; 5,828,678; 5,842,014; 5,852,435; 5,959,610, 5,986,584; 5,999,406; 6,038,573; 6,057,829, 6,069,668; 6,141,007; 6,211,869; 6,336,093, 6,532,043; 6,546,190; 6,596,031;6,728,682, 6,747,705; 6,763,523; 6,766,357; 6,847,373; 7,081,900; 7,403,561; 7,433,519; 7,441,193, 7,671,871; 7,684,096; D352,278; D372,478; D373,778; D392,267; D392,268; D392,269; D395,291; D396,853; D398,912. Other patents are pending.

Avid products or portions thereof are protected by one or more of the following European Patents: 0506870; 0635188; 0674414; 0752174; 0811290; 0811292; 0811293; 1050048; 1111910; 1629675. Other patents are pending.

This document is protected under copyright law. An authorized licensee of Avid Interplay may reproduce this publication for the licensee’s own use in learning how to use the software. This document may not be reproduced or distributed, in whole or in part, for commercial purposes, such as selling copies of this document or providing support or educational services to others. This document is supplied as a guide for Avid Interplay. Reasonable care has been taken in preparing the information it contains. However, this document may contain omissions, technical inaccuracies, or typographical errors. Avid Technology, Inc. does not accept responsibility of any kind for customers’ losses due to the use of this document. Product specifications are subject to change without notice.

The following disclaimer is required by Apple Computer, Inc.:

APPLE COMPUTER, INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THIS PRODUCT, INCLUDING WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO ITS MERCHANTABILITY OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES IS NOT PERMITTED BY SOME STATES. THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. THERE MAY BE OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU MAY HAVE WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO STATE.

The following disclaimer is required by Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics, Inc. for the use of their TIFF library:

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software [i.e., the TIFF library] and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that (i) the above copyright notices and this permission notice appear in all copies of the software and related documentation, and (ii) the names of Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics may not be used in any advertising or publicity relating to the software without the specific, prior written permission of Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS-IS” AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

IN NO EVENT SHALL SAM LEFFLER OR SILICON GRAPHICS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER OR NOT ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF DAMAGE, AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

The following disclaimer is required by the Independent JPEG Group:

This software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.

This Software may contain components licensed under the following conditions:

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms are permitted provided that the above copyright notice and this paragraph are duplicated in all such forms and that any documentation, advertising materials, and other materials related to such distribution and use acknowledge that the software was developed by the University of California, Berkeley. The name of the University may not be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission. THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. This software is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that the name of Daniel Dardailler not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission. Daniel Dardailler makes no representations about the suitability of this software for any purpose. It is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any purpose without fee is hereby granted, provided that this entire notice is included in all copies of any software which is or includes a copy or modification of this software and in all copies of the supporting documentation for such software.

THIS SOFTWARE IS BEING PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY. IN PARTICULAR, NEITHER THE AUTHOR NOR AT&T MAKES ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND CONCERNING THE MERCHANTABILITY OF THIS SOFTWARE OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors.

The following disclaimer is required by Nexidia Inc.:

© 2010 Nexidia Inc. All rights reserved, worldwide. Nexidia and the Nexidia logo are trademarks of Nexidia Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. All Nexidia materials regardless of form, including without limitation, software applications, documentation and any other information relating to Nexidia Inc., and its products and services are the exclusive property of Nexidia Inc. or its licensors. The Nexidia products and services described in these materials may be covered by Nexidia's United States patents: 7,231,351; 7,263,484; 7,313,521; 7,324,939; 7,406,415, 7,475,065; 7,487,086 and/or other patents pending and may be manufactured under license from the Georgia Tech Research Corporation USA.

The following disclaimer is required by Paradigm Matrix:

Portions of this software licensed from Paradigm Matrix.

The following disclaimer is required by Ray Sauers Associates, Inc.:

“Install-It” is licensed from Ray Sauers Associates, Inc. End-User is prohibited from taking any action to derive a source code equivalent of “Install-It,” including by reverse assembly or reverse compilation, Ray Sauers Associates, Inc. shall in no event be liable for any damages resulting from reseller’s failure to perform reseller’s obligation; or any damages arising from use or operation of reseller’s products or the software; or any other damages, including but not limited to, incidental, direct, indirect, special or consequential Damages including lost profits, or damages resulting from loss of use or inability to use reseller’s products or the software for any reason including copyright or patent infringement, or lost data, even if Ray Sauers Associates has been advised, knew or should have known of the possibility of such damages.

The following disclaimer is required by Videomedia, Inc.:

“Videomedia, Inc. makes no warranties whatsoever, either express or implied, regarding this product, including warranties with respect to its merchantability or its fitness for any particular purpose.”

“This software contains V-LAN ver. 3.0 Command Protocols which communicate with V-LAN ver. 3.0 products developed by Videomedia, Inc. and V-LAN ver. 3.0 compatible products developed by third parties under license from Videomedia, Inc. Use of this software will allow “frame accurate” editing control of applicable videotape recorder decks, videodisc recorders/players and the like.”

The following disclaimer is required by Altura Software, Inc. for the use of its Mac2Win software and Sample Source Code:

The following disclaimer is required by Ultimatte Corporation:

Certain real-time compositing capabilities are provided under a license of such technology from Ultimatte Corporation and are subject to copyright protection.

The following disclaimer is required by 3Prong.com Inc.:

Certain waveform and vector monitoring capabilities are provided under a license from 3Prong.com Inc.

The following disclaimer is required by Interplay Entertainment Corp.:

The “Interplay” name is used with the permission of Interplay Entertainment Corp., which bears no responsibility for Avid products.

This product includes portions of the Alloy Look & Feel software from Incors GmbH.

This product includes software developed by the Apache Software Foundation (http://www.apache.org/).

This product may include the JCifs library, for which the following notice applies:

Avid Interplay contains components licensed from LavanTech. These components may only be used as part of and in connection with Avid Interplay.

Attn. Government User(s). Restricted Rights Legend

U.S. GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED RIGHTS. This Software and its documentation are “commercial computer software” or “commercial computer software documentation.” In the event that such Software or documentation is acquired by or on behalf of a unit or agency of the U.S. Government, all rights with respect to this Software and documentation are subject to the terms of the License Agreement, pursuant to FAR §12.212(a) and/or DFARS §227.7202-1(a), as applicable.

Trademarks

003, 192 Digital I/O, 192 I/O, 96 I/O, 96i I/O, Adrenaline, AirSpeed, ALEX, Alienbrain, AME, AniMatte, Archive, Archive II, Assistant Station, AudioPages, AudioStation, AutoLoop, AutoSync, Avid, Avid Active, Avid Advanced Response, Avid DNA, Avid DNxcel, Avid DNxHD, Avid DS Assist Station, Avid Liquid, Avid Media Engine, Avid Media Processor, Avid MEDIArray, Avid Mojo, Avid Remote Response, Avid Unity, Avid Unity ISIS, Avid VideoRAID, AvidRAID, AvidShare, AVIDstripe, AVX, Axiom, Beat Detective, Beauty Without The Bandwidth, Beyond Reality, BF Essentials, Bomb Factory, Boom, Bruno, C|24, CaptureManager, ChromaCurve, ChromaWheel, Cineractive Engine, Cineractive Player, Cineractive Viewer, Color Conductor, Command|24, Command|8, Conectiv, Control|24, Cosmonaut Voice, CountDown, d2, d3, DAE, Dazzle, Dazzle Digital Video Creator, D-Command, D-Control, Deko, DekoCast, D-Fi, D-fx, Digi 003, DigiBase, DigiDelivery, Digidesign, Digidesign Audio Engine, Digidesign Development Partners, Digidesign Intelligent Noise Reduction, Digidesign TDM Bus, DigiLink, DigiMeter, DigiPanner, DigiProNet, DigiRack, DigiSerial, DigiSnake, DigiSystem, Digital Choreography, Digital Nonlinear Accelerator, DigiTest, DigiTranslator, DigiWear, DINR, DNxchange, DPP-1, D-Show, DSP Manager, DS-StorageCalc, DV Toolkit, DVD Complete, D-Verb, Eleven, EM, Euphonix, EUCON, EveryPhase, Expander, ExpertRender, Fader Pack, Fairchild, FastBreak, Fast Track, Film Cutter, FilmScribe, Flexevent, FluidMotion, Frame Chase, FXDeko, HD Core, HD Process, HDPack, Home-to-Hollywood, HYBRID, HyperControl, HyperSPACE, HyperSPACE HDCAM, iKnowledge, Image Independence, Impact, Improv, iNEWS, iNEWS Assign, iNEWS ControlAir, Instantwrite, Instinct, Intelligent Content Management, Intelligent Digital Actor Technology, IntelliRender, Intelli-Sat, Intelli-sat Broadcasting Recording Manager, InterFX, Interplay, inTONE, Intraframe, iS Expander, ISIS, IsoSync, iS9, iS18, iS23, iS36, ISIS, IsoSync, KeyRig, KeyStudio, LaunchPad, LeaderPlus, LFX, Lightning, Link & Sync, ListSync, LKT-200, Lo-Fi, Luna, MachineControl, Magic Mask, Make Anything Hollywood, make manage move | media, Marquee, MassivePack, Massive Pack Pro, M-Audio, M-Audio Micro, Maxim, Mbox, Media Composer, MediaFlow, MediaLog, MediaMatch, MediaMix, Media Reader, Media Recorder, MEDIArray, MediaServer, MediaShare, MetaFuze, MetaSync, MicroTrack, MIDI I/O, Midiman, Mix Rack, MixLab, Moviebox, Moviestar, MultiShell, NaturalMatch, NewsCutter, NewsView, Nitris, NL3D, NLP, Nova, NRV-10 interFX, NSDOS, NSWIN, Octane, OMF, OMF Interchange, OMM, OnDVD, Open Media Framework, Open Media Management, Ozone, Ozonic, Painterly Effects, Palladium, Personal Q, PET, Pinnacle, Pinnacle DistanTV, Pinnacle GenieBox, Pinnacle HomeMusic, Pinnacle MediaSuite, Pinnacle Mobile Media, Pinnacle Scorefitter, Pinnacle Studio,

Pinnacle Studio MovieBoard, Pinnacle Systems, Pinnacle VideoSpin, Podcast Factor y, PowerSwap, PRE, ProControl, ProEncode, Profiler, Pro Tools LE, Pro Tools M-Powered, Pro Transfer, Pro Tools, QuickPunch, QuietDrive, Realtime Motion Synthesis, Recti-Fi, Reel Tape Delay, Reel Tape Flanger, Reel Tape Saturation, Reprise, Res Rocket Surfer, Reso, RetroLoop, Reverb One, ReVibe, Revolution, rS9, rS18, RTAS, Salesview, Sci-Fi, Scorch, Scorefitter, ScriptSync, SecureProductionEnvironment, Serv|LT, Serv|GT, Session, Shape-to-Shape, ShuttleCase, Sibelius, SIDON, SimulPlay, SimulRecord, Slightly Rude Compressor, Smack!, Soft SampleCell, Soft-Clip Limiter, Solaris, SoundReplacer, SPACE, SPACEShift, SpectraGraph, SpectraMatte, SteadyGlide, Streamfactory, Streamgenie, StreamRAID, Strike, Structure, Studiophile, SubCap, Sundance Digital, Sundance, SurroundScope, Symphony, SYNC HD, Synchronic, SynchroScope, SYNC I/O, Syntax, TDM FlexCable, TechFlix, Tel-Ray, Thunder, Titansync, Titan, TL Aggro, TL AutoPan, TL Drum Rehab, TL Everyphase, TL Fauxlder, TL In Tune, TL MasterMeter, TL Metro, TL Space, TL Utilities, tools for storytellers, Torq, Torq Xponent, Transfuser, Transit, TransJammer, Trigger Finger, Trillium Lane Labs, TruTouch, UnityRAID, Vari-Fi, Velvet, Video the Web Way, VideoRAID, VideoSPACE, VideoSpin, VTEM, Work-N-Play, Xdeck, X-Form, Xmon, XPAND!, Xponent, X-Session, and X-Session Pro are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries.

Adobe and Photoshop are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Apple and Macintosh are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is either a registered trademark or trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Footage

Eco Challenge Morocco — Courtesy of Discovery Communications, Inc. News material provided by WFTV Television Inc. Ice Island — Courtesy of Kurtis Productions, Ltd.

Avid Interplay Access User’s Guide • 0130-07641-04 Rev D • October 2011 • This document is distributed by Avid in online (electronic) form only, and is not available for purchase in printed form.

Using This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Symbols and Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

If You Need Help. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Viewing Help and Documentation on the Interplay Portal. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Interplay Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Avid Training Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 1 Getting Started with Avid Interplay Access. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Interplay Access Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Supported Platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Starting Interplay Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Setting the Default Working Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Connecting to a Database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Changing Your Password . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Removing a Database from the Tree Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Interplay Access Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Keyboard Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Context Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Opening Interplay Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Logging Out and Exiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Configuring Interplay Access Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Configuring Interplay Access Globally (Administrators Only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Displaying the Full Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Showing All Hidden Dialog Boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Changing Font Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Configuring Asset Types, Commands, and Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Setting the Working Path for a Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Chapter 2 Working with Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Browsing View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Logging View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Shotlist View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Changing Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Viewing and Playing Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Adjusting the Aspect Ratio and Size of the Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Showing and Hiding the Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Displaying the Full-Screen Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Playing Clips During Ingest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Playing Back Offline Segments of Published Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Monitor Controls. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Navigating by Timecode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Monitoring Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Marking and Cueing Footage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Marking In and Out Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Cueing the Footage. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Creating Subclips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60

Displaying Additional Panes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62

Resizing Panes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63

Opening an Avid Asset in Interplay Assist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Chapter 3 Adding and Organizing Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Interplay Database Default Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Creating New Folders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Renaming a Folder or Editing the Description. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Changing Ownership of Folders and Assets (Administrators Only) . . . . . . . . . 71

Viewing and Changing Folder Options (Administrators Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

Changing User Roles on Folders (Administrators Only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Using the Unchecked-In Avid Assets Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Adding Assets to Interplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Importing Files or Folders. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Resyncing Media Files with Avid Shared-Storage Workspaces

(Administrators Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Moving Assets into Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Cutting, Copying, and Pasting Assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Duplicating Avid Assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Organizing Assets Using Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Using Shortcuts for Browsing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Making Private Shortcuts Public (Administrators Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Renaming an Asset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Changing Text Color (Administrators Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Using Interplay Access with an Avid Editing Application. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Transferring Avid Assets to Another Workgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Copying Assets and Media to Another Workgroup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Moving Media to Another Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Chapter 4 Browsing the Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Browsing Databases and Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Icons for Avid Assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Updating the Media Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Setting the Filters for the Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Using the Assets Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Assets Pane Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Default Assets Pane. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Obtaining File Size Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Media Status Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Identifying Assets Playable in the Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Navigating Through Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

Changing the Type of Assets Displayed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Changing the Column Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Changing the Resolution Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Grouping and Sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Sorting Items in the Assets Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Grouping Items in the Assets Pane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119

Undoing Assets Pane Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Creating View Presets for the Content and Search Tabs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Applying and Managing View Presets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Changing to Storyboard or Frame View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Additional Metadata in the Storyboard and Frame Views . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Switching to Storyboard View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Switching to Frame View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Changing Thumbnail Size in the Storyboard and Frame Views . . . . . . . . 126

Using Extended View Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Using the Object Inspector. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Default Tabs in the Object Inspector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Adding Properties to the Object Inspector Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Viewing Media Relatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Configuring the Frame Locators Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

Viewing the Location of Media in Avid Shared-Storage Workspaces . . . . . . . 134

Refreshing Referenced Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Showing a Preview of an Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Viewing the Status of Assets Across Workgroups (Asset Tracking) . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Preserving Ancillary Data in an Interplay Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Working with Multichannel Audio Tracks in Interplay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Emulated Rendered Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Chapter 5 Finding Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Searching for Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Performing a Text-Only Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Using the Search Root and Attributes to Speed Up a Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Simple Searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Simple Search Attribute Names and Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Extended Searching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

Extended Search Attribute Names, Operators, and Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Searching for Published Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Example: Finding Assets By Using a Unique Identifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Performing a File-Based Workflow Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Searching for Migrated Workgroup 4 Archived Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Closing Extra Search Tabs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Showing One Representation for Each Asset Found . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Saving Your Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Viewing and Running a Saved Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Searching Across Remote Workgroups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Finding Other Clips from the Same Source Tape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Finding Shared Clips and Unshared Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180

Using Third-Party Search Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Installing Third-Party Search Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Configuring a Third-Party Plug-In for Remote Search . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Using the Third-Party Search Plug-in from Interplay Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Chapter 6 Logging Events With Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Understanding Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Adding Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Deleting Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Setting Locator Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Hiding Locator Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Moving to Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Exporting Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Working with Long Locator Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Chapter 7 Working with Shotlists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Creating a Shotlist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193

Playing a Shotlist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Setting the Shotlist Start Timecode for Interplay Access and Interplay Assist . . . . 202

Chapter 8 Working with File Assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Workflow for File Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Icons and Indicators for File Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Getting the Latest Version of a File Asset. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Changing the Get Latest Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Viewing File Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Checking Out File Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Opening a File for Editing in One Step. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Undoing a Checkout. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Changing the Undo Check Out Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Checking Out a Newer Local File After Undo Check Out. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

Checking In File Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214

Performing a Checkin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Checking In Files With Multiple Checkouts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Working with Bundled File Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219

Updating the Database with Assets That Are Not Checked Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Using Final Cut Pro with Avid Interplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222

Checking in a Final Cut Pro Sequence to Interplay. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Exporting an Avid Sequence to Final Cut Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Sharing a Final Cut Pro Project Between Final Cut Pro Systems . . . . . . . . . . 229

Working with QuickTime Reference Movies in an Interplay Environment . . . . . . . 231

Chapter 9 Deleting Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Protecting Assets from Deletion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Assigning User Roles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

Freezing Folders and Content. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Setting Reservations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Understanding Reservations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

Creating and Removing Reservations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248

Working with Automatic Reservations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Deleting Avid Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Deleting Avid Assets and Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Deletion, Multiple Links, and Reservations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Using the Orphan Clips Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Restricted Deletion of Referenced Assets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Deleting Orphan Clips Created by Resync . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Examples: Using Search with Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Safely Deleting Media When Working with Consolidated Subclips. . . . . . . . . 262

Original Clips, Consolidated Subclips, and Dynamic Relink. . . . . . . . . . . 262

Deleting Only Media Created with a Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Limitation: Media Files Displayed as Online but Not Available for Deletion . . .

269

Deleting Offline File Locations for Avid Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Deleting File Assets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271

Using the Deleted Items Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 273

Access Control and Delete Matrices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Chapter 10 Communicating Using the Messenger. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Opening the Message Browser and Reading Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Writing New Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280

Deleting Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Replying to a Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Forwarding a Message . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Chapter 11 Screenshots and Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Creating and Printing a Screenshot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287

Creating and Printing a Print Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288

Exporting a Screenshot or Print Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Chapter 12 Version History and Archiving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Using Version History Features with Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

Viewing the Version History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291

History and Label Icons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Viewing a File Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293

Comparing Two Versions in the Version History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Comparing the Current Database File and the Local File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Configuring Differencing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Retrieving Older Versions Using Get Version . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Getting a Version of a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Getting a Version of a Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Undoing Checked In Changes Through Rollback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Rolling Back a File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Rolling Back a Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Identifying Milestones and Significant Versions by Setting Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Assigning a Label to an Item . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Modifying or Removing a Label . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Archiving from Interplay Access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Appendix A Keyboard Shortcuts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Appendix B Interplay Access Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Interplay Access Menu (Macintosh Only). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

File Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Edit Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

View Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Locators Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Operations Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Tools Menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Preferences Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

Debug Menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Help Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Appendix C System Metadata Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Appendix D Valid and Invalid Characters in Avid Interplay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Using This Guide

Congratulations on your purchase of Avid®Interplay®, a powerful system for managing media in a shared storage environment. This guide describes how to use Avid Interplay Access, an Interplay client application that provides access to the Interplay database.

This guide is intended for all Interplay end users who need to work with master clips, sequences, and other assets in an Avid Unity™ MediaNetwork or Avid Unity ISIS™ workgroup environment. Some tasks described in this guide can be performed only by users with administrative privileges.

Interplay Access is supported on both the Microsoft platforms. When necessary, the guide describes platform-specific differences.

The documentation describes the features and hardware of all models. Therefore, your

system might not contain certain features and hardware that are covered in the documentation.

Limited number of client applications per user per machine: A user can run only one

Interplay Access session and one Interplay Administrator session on one machine. This software does not support terminal/server sessions.

Windows® and the Mac OS®X

Symbols and Conventions

Avid documentation uses the following symbols and conventions:

Symbol or Convention Meaning or Action

> This symbol indicates menu commands (and subcommands) in the

(Windows), (Windows only), (Macintosh), or (Macintosh only)

Bold font Bold font is primarily used in task instructions to identify user interface

Italic font Italic font is used to emphasize certain words and to indicate variables.

Courier Bold font

A note provides important related information, reminders, recommendations, and strong suggestions.

A caution means that a specific action you take could cause harm to your computer or cause you to lose data.

A warning describes an action that could cause you physical harm. Follow the guidelines in this document or on the unit itself when handling electrical equipment.

order you select them. For example, File > Import means to open the File menu and then select the Import command.

This symbol indicates a single-step procedure. Multiple arrows in a list indicate that you perform one of the actions listed.

This text indicates that the information applies only to the specified operating system, either Windows or Macintosh OS X.

items and keyboard sequences.

Courier Bold font identifies text that you type.

Ctrl+key or mouse action Press and hold the first key while you press the last key or perform the

mouse action. For example, Command+Option+C or Ctrl+drag.

If You Need Help

If you are having trouble using your Avid product:

1. Retry the action, carefully following the instructions given for that task in this guide. It is especially important to check each step of your workflow.

2. Check the latest information that might have become available after the documentation was published:

- If the latest information for your Avid product is provided as printed release notes,

they are shipped with your application and are also available online.

- If the latest information for your Avid product is provided as a ReadMe file, it is

supplied on your Avid installation CD or DVD as a PDF document (README_product.pdf) and is also available online.

You should always check online for the most up-to-date release notes or ReadMe because the online version is updated whenever new information becomes available. To view these online versions, select ReadMe from the Help menu, or visit

the Knowledge Base at www.avid.com/readme.

3. Check the documentation that came with your Avid application or your hardware for maintenance or hardware-related issues.

If You Need Help

4. Visit the online Knowledge Base at www.avid.com/onlinesupport. Online services are available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Search this online Knowledge Base to find answers, to view error messages, to access troubleshooting tips, to download updates, and to read or join online message-board discussions.

Viewing Help and Documentation on the Interplay Portal

You can quickly access the Interplay Help, PDF versions of the Interplay guides, and useful external links by viewing the Interplay User Information Center on the Interplay Portal. The Interplay Portal is a web site that runs on the Interplay Engine.

You can access the Interplay User Information Center through a browser from any system in the Interplay environment. You can also access it through the Help menu in Interplay Access and the Interplay Administrator.

The Interplay Help combines information from all Interplay guides in one Help system. It includes a combined index and a full-featured search. From the Interplay Portal, you can run the Help in a browser or download a compiled (.chm) version for use on other systems, such as a laptop.

To open the Interplay User Information Center through a browser:

1. Type the following line in a web browser:

http://Interplay_Engine_name

For Interplay_Engine_name substitute the name of the computer running the Interplay Engine software. For example, the following line opens the portal web page on a system named docwg:

http://docwg

2. Click the “Avid Interplay Documentation” link to access the User Information Center web page.

To open the Interplay User Information Center from Interplay Access or the Interplay Administrator:

t Select Help > Documentation Website on Server.

Interplay Documentation

The following documents describe how to use Avid Interplay:

• Avid Interplay Best Practices — provides an overview of the major Interplay components, shows sample configuration diagrams, and describes several of the key features, such as setting up a user database and using the Avid Interplay Archive Engine.

• Avid Interplay Software Installation and Configuration Guide — describes how to use the Avid Interplay Installer DVD to install and configure software on the various systems that make up a Interplay environment.

• Avid Interplay Engine Failover Guide — describes how to set up a cluster configuration for the Avid Interplay Engine and the Avid Interplay Archive engine.

• Avid Interplay Engine and Avid Interplay Archive Engine Administration Guide — describes how to administer your Avid Interplay Engine or Avid Interplay Archive Engine and Avid Interplay database.

• Avid Interplay Access User’s Guide — describes how to use Interplay Access to browse, search, and work with assets in the Avid Interplay database.

• Avid Interplay Assist User’s Guide — describes how to use Interplay Assist for logging, archiving, and sending to Playback material in an Interplay environment.

• Avid Instinct User’s Guide — describes how to use the Avid Instinct application to write iNEWS stories and put together simple audio and video sequences.

• Avid Interplay Media Services Setup and User’s Guide — Avid Interplay Media Services lets you control and automate Transcode, Archive, and ProEncode services.

Avid Training Services

• Avid Interplay Transfer Setup and User’s Guide — describes how to use Interplay Transfer to transfer media to and from another workgroup, send finished sequences to a configured playback device, ingest media from a configured ingest device, and perform standalone transfers between workstations.

• Avid Service Framework User’s Guide — describes how to use the logging, monitoring, and management features of the Avid Service Framework applications.

• Avid Low Res Encode Setup and Configuration — describes how to set up and configure an Avid Low Res Encode system. Includes information on updating the bootset, root disk image, and configuring a Low Res Encode system to work with CaptureManager.

• Avid Interplay Capture User’s Guide — describes how to use Interplay Capture, a newsroom ingest tool that enables automated recordings.

• Avid Interplay Capture Administrator’s Guide — describes administrative concepts, tasks, and reference material for Avid Interplay Capture.

• Avid CaptureManager User’s Guide — describes how to use CaptureManager™ in a newsroom environment to coordinate video feeds, schedule feed captures at both high and low resolutions, and record late breaking events instantly.

• Avid CaptureManager Installation and Configuration Guide — describes how to set up and configure CaptureManager.

All documents are available in PDF form on the Interplay Portal and also on the Avid Knowledge Base at www.avid.com/onlinesupport.

Avid Training Services

Avid makes lifelong learning, career advancement, and personal development easy and convenient. Avid understands that the knowledge you need to differentiate yourself is always changing, and Avid continually updates course content and offers new training delivery methods that accommodate your pressured and competitive work environment.

For information on courses/schedules, training centers, certifications, courseware, and books, please visit www.avid.com/support and follow the Training links, or call Avid Sales at 800-949-AVID (800-949-2843).

1 Getting Started with Avid Interplay

Access

The following topics provide basic information to help you get started using Avid Interplay Access:

• Interplay Access Overview

• Supported Platforms

• Starting Interplay Access

• Connecting to a Database

• Changing Your Password

• Removing a Database from the Tree Structure

• Interplay Access Views

• Keyboard Shortcuts

• Context Menus

• Opening Interplay Help

• Logging Out and Exiting

• Configuring Interplay Access Options

Interplay Access Overview

The Avid Interplay system is the world's leading production asset management system, with hundreds of system installations at the world’s leading broadcasters and content producers. Avid Interplay Access is an Interplay client application that provides access to the Interplay database, as well as interaction with streaming media that is available in certain Interplay configurations.

Interplay Access is designed to run on any standard Windows or Mac OS X computer connected to the Interplay system through either a local-area network (LAN) or a wide-area network (WAN). WAN access requires a 1 megabit/second or higher connection through VPN security. Interplay Access does not require Unity MediaNetwork or ISIS client software, a particular video card, or connection to Avid-certified network infrastructure.

1 Getting Started with Avid Interplay Access

Producers and production staff can use Interplay Access to browse, view, log, and organize assets, such as master clips and sequences, graphic files, and other project-related files such as scripts or spreadsheets. For graphics files, sequences, and other files, Interplay Access provides a powerful version control system, and all data can be archived into libraries for storage or later use.

You can play Avid video and audio clips in the Interplay Access Monitor if the clips are associated with MPEG-4/H.263 or H.264 proxy video media, MPEG1 Layer 2 audio media, or both.

In Interplay v2.4, the Interplay Stream Server was re-engineered to play MPEG-4/H.263

and H.264 video media, and MPEG2 Layer 1 audio media. There is no longer any need to use the Publishing service or Workflow Engine to create QuickTime reference movies for streaming play. Double-click a clip that uses supported proxy media and the clip plays in the Monitor.

You can also use Interplay Access to add locators and create subclips and shotlists. Locators are editable markers that you can add to clips, sequences, and shotlists in Access. These locators can be displayed in Avid editing applications, and locators that you add in Avid editing applications and check in to Interplay are displayed in Access. Shotlists are essentially Avid sequences. You can set In and Out marks on proxy-media clips, use them to create a shotlist, and then check the shotlist into the Interplay database for further review or playback.

Interplay Access provides search tools that let you to easily find shots, clips, sequences, or other elements defined for the project without knowing file names, and to quickly see the dependencies and relatives involved. You can also use Avid Interplay to manage sequences and other Avid assets whose media is no longer online. You can then search for these assets, view information about them such as the source tape name, obtain the source footage, and recapture it. Interplay Access also provides an internal Messenger service that allows users to communicate in near-realtime with other Access users, and send messages that embed links to Interplay assets for easy reference.

For more information about Interplay concepts and components, see Avid Interplay Best

Practices and the Avid Interplay Engine and Avid Interplay Archive Engine Administration Guide.

Working with Assets

Assets are files that are stored as entries in an Interplay database. Assets include both the source files (for example, graphics files or Avid media files) and the information about the source files, known as metadata. The source files are usually stored on an Avid shared storage system, while the metadata is stored as a record in the database.

Interplay Access Overview

When you use Interplay Access or another Interplay application to work with assets, you are usually working with links to the original asset. You can have multiple links to the same asset, for example, by having the same link in two different folders. Multiple links affect the deletion process. For more information, see “Deletion, Multiple Links, and Reservations” on

page 255.

Avid Assets and File Assets

When you work with Interplay, it’s important to understand the differences between Avid assets and file assets. Avid assets are assets that are created by Avid applications through capture, ingest, import, or transfer. Avid assets include:

•Master clips

• Subclips

• Sequences

• Effects

• Motion effects

• Rendered effects

•Group clips

File assets are any assets that are not created by an Avid application. Any file you can create

on your workstation, through applications such as Adobe Photoshop

or Microsoft Word,

can be added to the Interplay database and managed by Interplay as a file asset.

Some differences are:

• File assets are added to the database through the Interplay Access Import feature. Avid assets are added to the database through an Avid editing application.

• By default, only one user can modify a file asset at one time, through the controlled check-in/check-out process. More than one user can modify an Avid asset at one time.

• Previous versions of file assets and Avid sequences are stored in the database, so you can review or revert back to an older version if necessary. For other Avid assets, the last version checked in becomes the only version stored in the database. For more information about the version control system, see “Working with File Assets” on

page 203 and “Version History and Archiving” on page 291.

Other differences are noted throughout this guide.

Using Folders

Folders provide structure to an Avid Interplay database, and managing folders is an important function of Interplay Access. Folders can hold file assets, Avid assets, or both. The Interplay database includes a default set of top-level folders, but you can create new

1 Getting Started with Avid Interplay Access

folders that match the requirements of your facility’s organization and workflow. The same folders are visible by other Interplay client applications, such as the Interplay Window and Interplay Assist. For more information, see “Adding and Organizing Assets” on page 65.

Finding Assets by Searching and Browsing

You can use Interplay Access to perform simple text-based or extended searches that can also search across remote workgroups. You typically base a search for assets on their associated attributes. For example, you can search for all assets that have the word “promo” in their names, all assets from a particular source tape, or all assets from a particular tape that have the word “promo” in their names.

After you have found assets that meet your search or browsing criteria, Interplay Access offers multiple views of your results, with metadata columns that resemble those in Avid bins, and provides detailed information about their attributes, including media relatives. For more information, see “Browsing the Database” on page 99.

Supported Platforms

Avid Interplay Access is supported on the following platforms:

• Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server

2008.

• Mac OS X version 10.5 and later

On the Mac OSX platform, Interplay Access supports all operations relating to file assets and most operations relating to Avid assets, except the following:

• Resyncing the Interplay database with Avid shared-storage workspaces

Operations that involve Avid editing applications on a Macintosh system (for example, checking in and checking out) are supported in the Interplay environment for this release.

Specific notes regarding platform support are listed in “Interplay Access Menus” on

page 313 and throughout this document.

For more specific information about supported platforms, see the Avid Interplay ReadMe.

Starting Interplay Access

How you log in depends on how the administrator has configured Interplay user authentication.

Starting Interplay Access

To start Interplay Access:

1. Do one of the following:

t Double-click the Interplay Access icon on your desktop.

t (Windows) Click Start and select Programs > Avid > Avid Interplay Access.

t (Macintosh) Click the icon and name in the Dock menu.

t If you are logged on to the Avid Interplay Administrator, select File > Open

Interplay Access.

The Avid Interplay Logon dialog box opens.

2. Select the server you want to work with by doing one of the following:

t Accept the server that is displayed (the last server connected).

t Click the arrow for the Server list and select the server name from the list.

1 Getting Started with Avid Interplay Access

Primary database in the Folders pane

The first part of the list shows recent servers, the second part of the list shows servers that were added manually (not on a local area network), and the third part shows servers available on your local area network

t Click the arrow for the Server list and select Add Server. Type a new server name or

IP address.

If the server you select does not currently have an active database, a message that states this information is displayed in the Database text box. An administrator might need to activate an existing database or create a new one.

3. Select the database that you want to work with.

Databases available on the selected server are displayed in the Database list. In most cases there will be only one database: AvidWG for an online database or AvidAM for an archive database.

After you log in, the database you select becomes the primary database.

4. Type your username and password, as supplied by the administrator.

The Avid Interplay Access window opens, with the primary database displayed in the Folders pane.

For information about the Interplay Access window, see “Interplay Access Views” on

page 31.

Setting the Default Working Folder

The first time you start Avid Interplay Access, the Set Default Working Folder dialog box opens. This is the folder where local copies of file assets (but not Avid assets) are stored when you check them out for editing (see “Working with File Assets” on page 203). The working folder is sometimes referred to as the local folder or the default working path.

Connecting to a Database

Browse button

You can change the working folder after you set it. You can also change the path for an individual folder. For more information, see “Setting the Working Path for a Folder” on

page 39.

To set the default working folder:

1. Do one of the following:

t Keep the default:

(Windows) C:\Documents and Settings\username\WorkgroupWork

(Macintosh) /Users/username/WorkgroupWork

t Click the Browse (...) button to select another folder.

2. Click OK.

To change the default working folder:

1. Select (Windows) Preferences > Options or (Macintosh) Interplay Access > Preferences.

2. Click the General tab.

3. Type a new path or click the Browse button and navigate to a new folder.

4. Click OK.

Connecting to a Database

To work with Interplay Access, you must connect to an existing database on an Interplay workgroup. Each workgroup includes one of the following databases:

• AvidWG for online databases

• AvidAM for archive databases

An Interplay database always uses one of these names.

The primary database (the database that you logged into) is always listed in the tree structure in the Folders pane. An icon indicates whether or not you are connected to a database, as described in the following table.

1 Getting Started with Avid Interplay Access

Connected databases

Icon Meaning

(Green circle with check mark) Database you are connected to

(Red box with X) Database you are not connected to

You can add other databases to the tree structure. The number of databases you can add is limited only by the license your company has acquired.

To connect to a database listed in the tree structure:

1. Select the database name.

2. Do one of the following:

t Click the triangle next to the database name in the Interplay Access.

t Select File > Logon.

t Double-click the database name.

t Select Logon from the context menu of the database.

The Logon dialog box opens.

3. Type your username and password, as supplied by the administrator.

4. Click OK.

You are now connected to that database. The database is listed in the tree structure with a green circle and check mark.

Connecting to a Database

To connect to a database not listed in the tree structure:

1. Select Databases in the tree structure.

2. Do one of the following:

t Select File > Connect to Database.

t Select Connect to Database from the context menu.

The Connect to Database dialog box opens.

3. Select the server and database you want to work with by doing one of the following:

t Accept the server that is displayed.

t Type the name of the server that you want to log in to. You can also use an IP

address.

t Click the arrow for the Server list and select the server name from the list.

t Click the arrow for the Server list and select Add Server. Type a new server name.

1 Getting Started with Avid Interplay Access

The database for the selected server is displayed in the Connect to Database dialog box. AvidWG is an online database and AvidAM is an archive database.

4. Select the name of the database you want to connect to.

5. Click OK.

The Logon dialog box opens.

6. Type the username and password for the database.

If necessary, contact the administrator for the correct username and password.

7. Click OK.

You are now connected to that database. The database is listed in the tree structure with a green circle and check mark.

Changing Your Password

If your account is configured for internal authentication, you can change your password.

If you use Windows, LDAP, or Avid shared-storage authentication methods to log on to

Avid Interplay, this section does not apply.

To change the password for your username:

1. Select the database for which you want to change the password.

2. Select File > Change Password.

The Change Password dialog box opens.

3. Type your current password in the Current Password text box and your new password in the New password text box. Type the new password in the Verify text box.

4. Click OK.

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Pinnacle Systems Interplay Access - 2.5 User’s Guide

Contents

Using This Guide

Symbols and Conventions

If You Need Help

Viewing Help and Documentation on the Interplay Portal

Interplay Documentation

Avid Training Services

Interplay Access Overview

Supported Platforms

Starting Interplay Access

Setting the Default Working Folder

Connecting to a Database

Changing Your Password