The Avid Attic, that is. You're on your own for that box of Halloween costumes.
We all make mistakes, and thankfully, Avid knows it. That's why there is a folder called the Avid Attic which contains backup files for every bin in your project. Avid Media Composer automatically creates these backups, and they're available if you need to restore a bin to a previous version. This is also a good resource if your bin is corrupt: you can replace your corrupt bin with a previous version.
Where is the Attic?
The Avid Attic can be found in a few places, depending on your type of project.
Shared Storage (Most Professional Projects)
If you're working on a project with a shared storage system, such as a Nexis, the attic will be at the root of the Project workspace. The attic will be in a folder labeled, "Unity Attic."
The Unity Attic will create a backup of each project in a shared storage system. So, navigate to your episode and the bin you need.
Desktop or Single Hard Drive Projects (Most Personal Projects)
If you're working on a project on your desktop or off of a single external hard drive, then the attic will be at the following location:
Mac: Macintosh HD/Users/Shared/AvidMediaComposer/Avid Attic
Windows: C:/Users/Public/Public Documents/Avid Media Composer/Avid Attic
Can I Change the Attic Location?
No.
However, you can change the number of versions of a bin that are saved and the interval at which they are saved. If you'd like to change either of those items, open Avid Media Composer, go to Settings, and then open the Bin settings. There you can change auto-save intervals and the maximum versions of a file in the attic.
I Found The Bin I Want, But Which One Do I Take?
Once you have located the bin you want, (Act 1 v1 for example), you need to decide which version of the bin to copy. As you can see in the photo, there will be many versions of the bin you want. They will have a date and time when they were last modified, which will be the date and time that the backup was created.
Sort the bins by Date Modified, and find the time closest to what you need. For example, if you need the sequence as it stood last night, find the file that was saved last night. If you opened up the bin then made a wild change and closed it, find the auto-save prior to when you made the change. This will most likely be the last or second-to-last file.
Once you locate the file you want: COPY IT. Leave the original backup file in the Avid Attic.
You want to protect your backups. By copying the file, you're saving that version in case you need it again.
Paste the copy to the desktop. Then change the file extension on the desktop file from a number to ".avb" (which stands for Avid bin).
I Have My File. Now What?
Once you have your copied file with the correct file extension, you can go back to Avid Media Composer.
Close your original bin. Media Composer does not allow a bin and a backup copy bin to be open at the same time. It will crash your system if you try.
Create a new bin called "Transfer." You can use this bin as a holding place for the sequences or other media you want to recover.
Go to File > Open Bin... and locate the backup file on your desktop. Select it and click OK to open.
Pull the items you need into your transfer bin, and hit save, just in case! Close the backup bin. Open your original bin and bring your item(s) over as needed.
Once you have what you need, you can delete the backup bin from your desktop.