ACI Risk Assessment & Mitigation 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: During a collaborative Avid NEXIS workflow, an editor deletes a large media folder believing it was orphaned. Which pre-deletion safeguard would have prevented accidental loss?
- Running the Avid Media Composer 'Consolidate' command first
- Using the 'Media Tool' to confirm no sequences reference that media before deletion (Correct answer)
- Ejecting the NEXIS workspace before deletion
- Exporting a QuickTime reference before deletion
Correct answer: Using the 'Media Tool' to confirm no sequences reference that media before deletion
The Media Tool can display which bins and sequences reference specific media items, confirming whether clips are truly unused before deletion.
Question 2: A post house runs Avid Pro Tools and Media Composer on the same NEXIS workspace. Which risk arises if workspace permissions are not segmented by department?
- Audio engineers may accidentally delete picture editorial media (Correct answer)
- Pro Tools sessions will fail to open due to codec conflicts
- MXF files will automatically convert to WAV format
- Video editors will lose the ability to export AAF files
Correct answer: Audio engineers may accidentally delete picture editorial media
Without workspace-level permission segmentation, any user can delete or overwrite media belonging to other departments.
Question 3: An Avid certified instructor demonstrates risk in AAF roundtrip workflows. Which scenario most commonly causes project data loss during an AAF exchange between Media Composer and Pro Tools?
- Using stereo instead of mono audio tracks
- Embedded vs. referenced media selection mismatch at export time (Correct answer)
- Having more than 24 audio tracks in the sequence
- Exporting AAF with timecode starting at 01:00:00:00
Correct answer: Embedded vs. referenced media selection mismatch at export time
Choosing to embed media when the recipient expects referenced media (or vice versa) frequently causes broken links or bloated files in AAF roundtrips.
Question 4: A news organization's Avid iNews rundown disappears minutes before broadcast. Which mitigation would have provided the fastest recovery?
- Keeping a printed script as a paper backup
- Enabling automatic rundown backups in iNews System Configuration (Correct answer)
- Re-entering stories manually from memory
- Switching to a competing NCS platform
Correct answer: Enabling automatic rundown backups in iNews System Configuration
iNews supports automatic timed backups in System Configuration, allowing a rundown to be restored within minutes to a recent save point.
Question 5: When a student asks about version control risk in Avid, which Avid-native mechanism best preserves previous sequence iterations without duplicating full media?
- Saving a copy of the sequence with 'Duplicate' and versioning the name in the bin (Correct answer)
- Exporting each version as a self-contained QuickTime
- Archiving bins to LTO tape daily
- Unlinking all AMA media before each save
Correct answer: Saving a copy of the sequence with 'Duplicate' and versioning the name in the bin
Duplicating a sequence within the bin creates a reference copy — no media is duplicated, but each version is independently editable.
Question 6: A facility uses Avid Interplay | Production to manage thousands of assets. Which access-control risk would an ACI instructor flag as most critical to address first?
- Users browsing assets from a remote location
- Shared administrator credentials used by multiple staff members (Correct answer)
- Read-only users downloading proxy files for review
- Metadata fields left blank by ingest operators
Correct answer: Shared administrator credentials used by multiple staff members
Shared admin credentials eliminate individual accountability, making it impossible to audit who performed destructive actions like asset deletion.
Question 7: A colorist reconnects offline media in Avid Media Composer by pointing to a folder containing multiple MXF files with similar names. Which risk does the 'Relink by Source File Name' option introduce?
- It may link clips to the wrong MXF file if names partially match (Correct answer)
- It converts all MXF files to OP-1a format automatically
- It permanently deletes the original offline media references
- It forces a frame-rate conversion on all relinked clips
Correct answer: It may link clips to the wrong MXF file if names partially match
If multiple MXF files share similar base names, relinking by name can match clips to the wrong file, causing incorrect footage to appear in the timeline.
ACI Risk Assessment & Mitigation 3
During a collaborative Avid NEXIS workflow, an editor deletes a large media folder believing it was orphaned.
Which pre-deletion safeguard would have prevented accidental loss?