ACI Risk Assessment & Mitigation 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A post-production facility loses a critical Avid project because only one editor had the project file on their local drive. Which mitigation strategy would best prevent this single point of failure?
- Store all projects exclusively on Avid ISIS/NEXIS shared storage
- Email project files to stakeholders at the end of each day
- Use Avid's Project Sharing feature so multiple users access a shared project (Correct answer)
- Duplicate project files manually to a USB drive weekly
Correct answer: Use Avid's Project Sharing feature so multiple users access a shared project
Avid Project Sharing stores project data centrally on shared storage so no single user's machine is a single point of failure.
Question 2: When assessing risk in a live broadcast workflow using Avid iNews and MediaCentral, which failure mode poses the highest immediate impact?
- A single reporter's local cache becoming out of sync
- The iNews MOS gateway losing connectivity to the production switcher (Correct answer)
- A non-critical metadata field showing incorrect timecode
- Slow thumbnail generation in the MediaCentral browse panel
Correct answer: The iNews MOS gateway losing connectivity to the production switcher
The iNews MOS gateway drives rundown-to-switcher automation; its failure can halt live broadcast playout entirely.
Question 3: An Avid Media Composer project has media stored on local drives without any RAID configuration. Which risk category does this represent?
- Schedule risk
- Hardware single-point-of-failure risk (Correct answer)
- Codec compatibility risk
- License expiration risk
Correct answer: Hardware single-point-of-failure risk
Non-RAID local drives mean a single disk failure destroys all media with no redundancy, a classic hardware single-point-of-failure risk.
Question 4: A studio is evaluating whether to upgrade Avid NEXIS software mid-project. Which risk factor should be weighted most heavily before proceeding?
- Whether the upgrade adds a new color panel UI
- Whether all connected Media Composer and Pro Tools versions are certified for the new NEXIS version (Correct answer)
- Whether the upgrade improves playlist export speed
- Whether the upgrade changes the NEXIS admin web interface theme
Correct answer: Whether all connected Media Composer and Pro Tools versions are certified for the new NEXIS version
Avid maintains a strict compatibility matrix; upgrading NEXIS without confirming client software compatibility can break all workstation connections.
Question 5: Which Avid Media Composer feature helps mitigate the risk of an editor accidentally overwriting a sequence that a colorist is actively grading?
- Frame Flex
- Sequence Locking in a shared project (Correct answer)
- Script Sync
- AMA volume mounting
Correct answer: Sequence Locking in a shared project
Sequence Locking prevents other users in a shared project from opening or modifying a sequence that another user has locked.
Question 6: A documentary editor discovers that hours of interview footage was ingested as MXF OP-Atom at 23.98 fps but the delivery spec requires 29.97 fps. At what stage should this risk have been identified?
- During final output rendering
- During the title card creation phase
- During the pre-production technical spec review before ingest begins (Correct answer)
- During audio mix review
Correct answer: During the pre-production technical spec review before ingest begins
Frame-rate mismatches are a fundamental technical spec issue that must be caught in pre-production before any media is ingested.
Question 7: An ACI instructor is teaching students about media management risk. Which practice introduces the MOST risk when working with AMA-linked media in Avid Media Composer?
- Renaming AMA-linked clips in the bin
- Moving or renaming source files on disk without relinking in Avid first (Correct answer)
- Applying effects to AMA-linked sequences
- Exporting a reference AAF from AMA media
Correct answer: Moving or renaming source files on disk without relinking in Avid first
AMA links are path-based; moving or renaming source files on disk breaks the link and can render clips offline with no automatic recovery.
ACI Risk Assessment & Mitigation 2
A post-production facility loses a critical Avid project because only one editor had the project file on their local drive.
Which mitigation strategy would best prevent this single point of failure?