Description

The nablet JPEG XS AMA Plug-in allows you to link, play and edit MXF and IMF-wrapped JPEG XS encoded footage. Furthermore, it allows exporting JPEG-XS encoded video that conforms to the JPEG XS streaming format specification and JPEG-XS MXF and JPEG-XS IMF wrapping specification.

Requirements

Supported Avid Products

Avid Media Composer from v8.3 to the latest releases. 

Supported Operating Systems

Windows

• Windows 11
• Windows 10 64-bit

Installation Procedure

Prerequisites

You cannot install the AMA Plug-ins while the editing application background services are running. Make sure you stop the services before installing the AMA Plug-Ins. The stop/start background services icon is on the Media Composer taskbar. Once you installed the new AMA plug-in, restart the services. See “Starting and Stopping Avid Background Services” in the Media Composer Help.

Install Instructions

Windows

1. Download the installer of the plugin.
2. Double-click the installer file to run the installation.
3. Follow the instructions provided by the installer.
4. During the installation, any previous version of the nablet JPEG XS plug-in will be updated.

Uninstall Instructions

Windows

1. Open Windows Control Panel and launch “Programs and Features”.
2. Select “nablet JPEG XS AMA Plug-In” and then select Uninstall.
3. Next, select Yes to confirm the removal.

Verifying the nablet Plug-in Version

After installation, the “nablet JPEG XS Plug-in” will be available to Avid Editing products. To confirm whether the plug-in was properly installed and verify the version follow the steps below: 

1. In Avid open the Console window by selecting Tools→Console.
2. In the Console, type “Ama_ListPlugins” and press [Enter].
3. Confirm that the “nablet JPEG XS Plug-in” is listed and the version matches the version you have installed.

Link Operation Procedures

Linking to MXF files on Media Composer 8.6 and later

1. Select the desired destination bin in the project.
2. From the menu bar, select File→Input→Source Browser.
3. When in the Source Browser dialog, make sure that 'Link' is selected, not 'Import':
   
4. In the Source Browser navigate to the JPEG XS file(s) to be linked.
5. Right-click the file and select “Link with" → "nablet JPEG XS”.
6. Hit the Link button on the bottom right.

Linking to JPEG XS IMF files on Media Composer 8.6 and later

1. Select the desired destination bin in the project.
2. From the menu bar, select File→Input→Source Browser.
3. When in the Source Browser dialog, make sure that Link' is selected, not 'Import'.
4. In the Source Browser navigate to the ASSETMAP.xml file to be linked.
5. Hit the Link button on the bottom right.

Linking to MXF files on Media Composer 8.5 and earlier

1. Select the desired destination bin in the project.
2. From the menu bar, select File → AMA Link… (“Link to Media…” if using Avid MC 8.4/8.5).
3. From the Files of Type pull-down menu select “nablet JPEG XS (*.mxf)”.
4. Select the JPEG XS file(s) to be linked.
5. Select Open.

Linking to JPEG XS IMF files on Media Composer 8.5 and earlier

1. Select the desired destination bin in the project.
2. From the menu bar, select File → AMA Link… (“Link to Media…” if using Avid MC 8.4/8.5).
3. From the Files of Type pull-down menu select “nablet JPEG XS”.
4. Select the ASSETMAP.xml file to be linked.
5. Select Open.

AMA File Export of JPEG XS Files

The “AMA File Export” feature allows the export of JPEG XS-compatible files from Avid. Exports can be performed with all Avid media including linked AMA files. Note please that the export feature is not available on Media Composer | First.

JPEG XS AMA File Export supports resolutions from 720p to 16k with following operating profiles:

JPEG XS Video

Color space YUV

• Light422 4:2:2 8 bit
• Light422 4:2:2 10 bit
• Main422 4:2:2 8 bit
• Main422 4:2:2 10 bit

Color space RGB:

• Light444 4:4:4 8 bit
• Light444 4:4:4 10 bit
• Main444 4:4:4 8 bit
• Main444 4:4:4 10 bit
• High444 4:4:4 8 bit
• High444 4:4:4 10 bit

Audio

Audio will be exported as PCM at a sampling rate of 48Khz or 96Khz (depending on the choice of
setting) with quantization of 16 or 24 bits.

Supported Audio Mixdown modes are Direct Out, Mono, Stereo, 5.1, and 7.1. Direct Out exports separate audio tracks as they appear on the timeline without any downmixing. Direct Out is the default mode and should be used to maintain full JPEG XS compliance.

The audio will not be mixed down into a single multichannel track but each channel of the mixdown is stored as a separate track on the output file. For more details on audio mixing and the 5.1 or 7.1 channel assignments, please refer to the Avid user manuals.

The following steps will provide basic instructions for the use of JPEG XS AMA File Export:

1. Right-click the desired sequence or media file for export to reveal the context menu.
2. On Media Composer prior to v8.6 select “AMA File Export” to open the AMA File Export dialog.
   On Media Composer v8.6 up to v2018.9 select “Output → AMA File Export”.
   Then Proceed to step 3.
   
   From Media Composer 2018.10 onward intermediate steps are required:
   On the Menu select File→Output→Export to File.
   A dialog to specify the target file name and location and the settings will appear:
   
   Specify a target file name and location and hit “Options” to raise the AMA File Export dialog.
3. From the “Export As” pull-down menu select “JPEG XS”.
4. On Media Composer prior to v2018.10 specify the target file name and location.
5. From the “File Format” pull-down menu select the desired wrapping format, single multi-
   essence MXF file or IMF.
   
6. Choose whether to export YUV or RGB from the Video Color space drop-down menu.
   
7.  From the “Video Profile” list select the desired profile.
   The available profiles are YUV Main, YUV Light, RGB High, RGB Main, RGB Light
8.  From the “Video Precision” pull-down menu select the desired bit depth, 8 or 10 bit.
9. Check the "Fragments" box to improve performance. (Enables sub-frame multi-threaded
   encoding).
   
10. Use the "Quality” slider to set the target bit rate.
    
11. If needed, suppress the generation of an ANC track by setting the “Create ANC Data track”
    option to Disabled.
    
12. From the “Audio Resolution” pull-down menu select the desired bits per sample, 16 or 24.
    
13. From the “Audio Sampling Rate” pull-down menu select the desired sampling rate.
14. Select the desired Audio Mixdown mode type
    
    Direct Out is the default mixdown mode.
15. XML metadata.
    The metadata section is only displayed if "IMF" is selected in the "File format" tab.
    If you fill in Issuer, and Annotation text boxes, this information will be added to the IMF
    metadata. Note that the Avid host will store these entries persistent. You need to update it for
    each export and if you do not want all or some of that user information, please clear the
    corresponding text boxes.
    
16. When all settings are done, hit “Save As” to store these as a preset for later re-use. Hit “Save” to
    return to the main export dialog. There hit “Save” to start the export.

Known Issues and Limitations

• For real-time playback of JPEG-S footage set Avid’s NLE Video Playback Quality setting to
  Draft or Best Performance.
• After transcoding a clip or after performing a video mix down, which always requests the
  plugin to provide frames in the highest quality, some versions of Media Composer will not reset to
  the desired lower Video Playback Quality when playing back the source file or timeline. Toggle
  the Video Quality setting once when you encounter a performance loss during playback.
• The current plugin version does support only progressive video format.