Shared Project and Media Workflow

As an Avid editor, you will be working with Avid Style Spaces (where you can put both projects and media) or with a combination of Avid Shared Project Spaces (for shared projects) and Avid MXF Spaces (for media). The different types of spaces each have their pros and cons. Whichever spaces your EditShare Administrator has chosen, you can share both media and projects with your colleagues and have a complete collaborative workflow. After you start EditShare Connect and mount the spaces you intend to use, on Mac OS X you can start Avid as usual (see “Chapter 3: Getting Started as an Editor” on page 19). When you’re ready to capture media, you tell Avid to store its captured media in an Avid MXF or Avid Style Media Space instead of on a local hard drive, and you log it into a bin where you have Read/Write access. In Avid Style Spaces, (which function essentially the same as Avid Unity and ISIS workspaces), the first person who opens a bin gets Read/Write access and all subsequent users are restricted to Read Only access until the bin is closed by that first user. Then the next user to open it gets Read/Write Access. While you have a bin locked, other users can still open that bin and see the contents as you last saved it. They can easily copy clips and sequences out of your locked bin and use them in their own sequences that they are saving in a bin where they have Read/Write access. In general, all media in Avid Style spaces can always be deleted by any user who has overall write access to the space. If you delete clips in a bin that is Read Only to you at the moment, you do not delete the master clips from the bin. You can, however, delete the actual media files from the space. The rules governing EditShare’s Avid Shared Project Spaces are a little different. In each shared Avid Project, every user gets his or her own User Folder. While a bin resides in your own User Folder, only you have Read/Write access to the bin. Other users can see the contents of your bin as you last saved it. They can open the clips and sequences from there, play them, and edit them into their own sequences which they can save in their own bins. They can also copy your entire sequence and save a copy in their own bin. However, other users cannot modify your bin, even when you don’t have the bin open. EditShare provides a way to pass the ownership of bins from one user to another, but generally you have to initiate giving up control of your bin before another user can take control. In a similar manner, when you capture or render media into an Avid MXF Media Space, generally the files you create can only be deleted by you, unless the Administrator puts the space into Maintenance Mode and gives control to another user, or unless the Administrator protects your files so that even you don’t have the ability to delete them. While the two systems differ in their security rules, they both achieve the same end result – allowing a group of editors to work collaboratively sharing the same media and project files.