In this series, I’m going to concentrate on the second option, as it is both the easiest one to implement and the most affordable. Pro Tools, on both Mac and PC, can use any type of movie file you like as long as it is a QuickTime movie! However, you have to be careful which codec is used to create the QuickTime movie. Pro Tools can handle most QuickTime movies, but not all. If the video card used to create the QT movie has hardware data compression, Pro Tools will be unable to play the movie unless the correct card is available in your computer. This tends to make taking the Session from system to system difficult unless they all have the same video card. Second, when exporting from Avid Xpress DV, always use the Apple DV codec in the Export dialogue box. Do not use the Avid codec — if you do then it won’t play in Pro Tools. Third, Pro Tools currently doesn’t support DV stream files, so make sure you have a DV movie and not a DV stream.
The great news is that without any additional hardware Pro Tools will play and display a QuickTime movie in a special movie window on your computer screen. The size of this window is set by the pixel size of the QuickTime movie, and cannot be changed in Pro Tools, which is where QuickTime Pro comes in very handy. It costs about £20 (depending on the exchange rate) to unlock QuickTime Player to enable you to carry out numerous tasks such as video resizing, file conversion and so on. You can buy the ‘unlock’ code for QuickTime Pro for Windows or Mac OS from the Apple web site.
If you prefer to view your movie on a separate screen or video monitor, then you should check the latest compatibility charts. Currently (as of August 2009) Pro Tools supports the following solutions for the Mac platform…
For Windows based machines there are very few options here. The only approved solution is the Avid Mojo units. See the Avid Mojo – Windows compatibility page on the Digidesign site.
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Mike is Pro Tools genius and an award winning ‘audiomeister’, defined as ‘a person of great skill and authority in sound’. His vast array of credits include music (from classical to rock), drama and documentaries across all the BBC Radio networks, as well as audio post production for video and TV, ‘new media’, live sound, commercial CDs, DVDs and podcasts, helping clients tell their stories with sound. He has been described as "an oasis of calm in a stormy creative world"; "quick, creative & easy to work with"; "always going the extra mile"; and "invests himself in the success of your project"’.
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Seven radio producers – all based in the north of England – have joined forces to launch a new co-operative venture – ‘Radio Wizards’. It’s equally remarkable that their aim now is to work together on every kind of sound production... except radio!
"It’s taken over a year to get to this point," says ‘wizard’ Mike Thornton, "but now we’ve got a viable business plan, we’ve launched our website and we’re already starting to attract commissions. As a facilities provider we decided to facilitate this partnership and set them up with a web site to help kickstart this excellent partnership."
