Quicktip Day 18: Determine total Avid bin duration

Quicktip #18 (February 18, 2009) Determine total Avid bin duration!

If you want to know the total duration of an number of clips in an Avid bin just select clips:

And then press Command+i to load information about the selection into the Console:

As you can see a lot if helpful information can be found with this method. Total duration of all the clips, number of items selected, number of items in the bin ... etc.

Quicktip Day 17: Add Avid filler at start

Quicktip #17 (February 17, 2009) Add Avid filler at start

Want an easy way to add black to the start of an Avid sequence? Just go under the Clip menu and choose Add Filler at Start:

It will then add filler at the top of your edit for the duration specified in the Timeline > Edit tab of the settings:

Quicktip Day 16: Expand all FCP tracks via mouse

Quicktip #16 (February 16, 2009) Expand all FCP tracks via mouse

A quick way to change the track height of all video or audio tracks in a Final Cut Pro timeline all at once is to OPTION + drag on the tiny space between tracks in the patch panel when your cursor changes to the little up-down arrow. Then all of the audio or video tracks will reflect the new height.

Quicktip Day 15: Option click to select a file name .... or not?

Quicktip #15 (February 15, 2009) Option+click (or maybe don’t Option+click) on an existing file to use that name

Thanks to Andy Mees and the power of Twitter I got a question about today’s Quicktip #15. Andy said: “scott, is it just me? i get the filename behaviour you blogged without pressing a modifier ... just click, works system wide, no?” I had always thought you had to use Option so I tried it while saving a PDF on my laptop and much to my surprise I didn’t have to hit Option to use the name of a file already on disk. But when I got up to my production machine to update this post I find I have to use the Option modifier. What gives? Anyone have any answers? Do you have to use the Option key or don’t you?

If you already have a file saved on your hard drive and you export and/or save a file you can option+click on a file already save on disk while in the save/export dialog box to select that file’s name:

This is particularly helpful if you are saving incremental versions of a file and don’t want to type the name over and over. Just option+click the file and add a version number. It’s also helpful if you export a QuickTime and then make a change and need to export again and not keep the first file. Option+click to select the same file name and then choose to replace the old file when promoted.

Quicktip Valentine’s Day 14: Insert a ♥ or a ❤

Quicktip #14 (February 14, 2009): Insert a ♥ or a ❤

Let’s say you are editing a Valentine’s Day video for your sweetheart and you want to insert a heart shape into a title or to use as a graphic element. If you have some ornamental fonts installed you could search it out that way or you could access any number of odd characters via the International Input Menu. First you must turn on the input menu via the System Preferences > International > Input Menu. Then check Show input in menu bar:

Once that is turned on you will see a little flag in your menu bar. Under that menu choose Show Character Palette:

Up pops a window with lots of different ornamental characters as well as tons of other stuff including stars, crosses, Greek symbols and braille patterns:

This floating palette can then be used to insert a heart or any other character into pretty much any application ☺. Just click into the application you want to insert the character in to, click over to the palette, select your character and click Insert ☛ ✔

This works in a lot (but not all) Mac OSX applications. Now ... get to work on next year’s Valentine’s Day video since it’s too late to make one for today.

Quicktip Day 13: Check Your FCP AV Devices

Quicktip #13 (February 13, 2009) Check Audio/Video Settings

This may only happen to me but it’s annoying enough that it’s worth mentioning. If you do a lot of mastering to tape in a lot of different formats then you might have accidentally left a different format selected in the Audio/Video Settings > A/V Devices tab for Different Output for Edit to Tape/Print to Video:

I’ve had this happen when I have quickly moved from one project format to the next for different outputs. I have made it a habit to always do a quick check of that tab before Edit to Tape begins. It would be nice (and would make total sense) if FCP had some kind of warning or message to let you know when these two settings are different when you go to perform an Edit to Tape. It seems like I remember FCP giving you a warning at some point in FCP’s life but it doesn’t do that now. Until then command+option+Q is the shortcut to bring up the A/V Settings.

Bonus Edit to Tape tip: I often UNcheck the “Mirror on desktop” option when outputting to tape, especially on high-bandwidth HD material or media from a Firewire drive as it seems that there’s less chance of FCP dropping frames during the output if it doesn’t have to keep up with the playback on the computer screen.

The output can still be monitored on your external client monitor. You do have a client monitor for editing, right?

Quicktip Day 12: Exposé to the function keys

Quicktip #12 (February 12, 2009) Exposé to the function keys

I love Mac OS X’s Exposé feature that can reveal the desktop (among other things) with one keystroke. I have it mapped to the middle button on the Mighty Mouse. Problem is that my function keys and shift+function keys and option+functions keys are always mapped to other things, especially in Final Cut Pro. So I mapped Exposé to Control + option + command + function keys ... that’s a combination that I don’t use in FCP.

Quicktip Day 11: turn on settings in User Preferences

Quicktip #11 (February 11, 2009) turn on settings in User Preferences

I always want to see Though Edits, Duplicate Frames and Audio Controls in a Final Cut Pro timeline. By enabling these (and any other specific timeline settings you like) in the Final Cut Pro > User Preferences menu they will be enabled for every newly created sequence from that point forward.

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