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(Page 1 of 5 pages for this article 1 2 3 > Last ») Filed under: The Basics of Avid Media Composer for a Final Cut Pro EditorWith the free Avid Media Composer demo why not give it a try?
The trial version of Avid Media Composer is free with “full functionality for 14 days following installation” and includes electronic documentation so a lot can be learned about the software if you have the time to spare. I think the most important thing for a Final Cut Pro editor trying out Media Composer for the first time is to throw away any preconceptions that you may have heard or read about how Media Composer differs from FCP and realize that as a tool it is really ... no better or no worse. They are different applications that do some very basic things in very different ways. With that in mind I hope this tour through some of those very basic functions will be a good introduction to Avid Media Composer. No Dongle = Yes to Trial VersionWith the release of Avid Media Composer 3.5 Avid began a path to eliminate copy protection via the hardware dongle that has been a piece of Avid culture for years. While much maligned over the life of the product the dongle still has its fans. But one thing that the elimination of the dongle has done is allow Avid, for the first time, to offer a demo version of Media Composer Software. You can now download a fully functioning 14 day trial version. The debate is open as to the 14 day length of the trial but it’s apparently due to licensing of certain codecs or software used within MC Soft that sets the limit to 14 days. Of course the first step is to download and install the software. 3.5 is available for both Macs and PCs (this article focuses on Macs with Macintosh key commands) though it is only Intel compatible so older G5 and G4 PowerPC users need not apply. It won’t let you install it at all ... I know as I tried. You have to fill out a form and Avid will email you a download link so be sure and check your spam folder if you don’t see the return email. Lay of the LandFirst launch Media Composer with from the icon in the dock or double click the icon in the Applications folders. Once launched you be greeted with the Select Project window:
A blank Select Project window that shows upon launchUnlike Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere you can only have one Avid project open at a time, though you can open bins and edit sequences from other projects into your currently open project via the File > Open Bin menu command. The Select Project window allows the editor to choose two main things: the project and the User Profile. Avid collects all the user settings into a single folder (HD > Users > Shared > AvidMediaComposer > Avid Users) that is movable from machine to machine. These user settings include things like custom keyboard layouts, saved Bin View columns, timeline customizations and saved export presets among other things. FCP has many of these same customizations but they are individually saved in different folders. The Select a Project pane is where you choose a project. If you are starting a new project then the Select Project window is also where you create a new project. Clicking the New Projet button you will select the name and format of the edit. This setup could somewhat be compared to the Sequence Presets in FCP. If this is your first time in MC Soft click the pop-up menu next to User Profile and choose Create User Profile. Give your profile a name as you have to have a User Profile in order to launch a new project. You now have to create that project. Click the New Project button, give it a name and choose the type of project:
The New Project setup boxYou have the option of all standard resolutions and frame rates. You also have to choose the Raster Dimension. Since MC natively supports formats like DVCPRO HD, XDCAM and HDV they support the odd raster size that some of the formats use like 1440x1080 for HD instead of the standard 1920x1080. Native support means less rendering and less processing power required for playback. For the purposes of this article I’m going to use 720 59.94 as my format of choice so this is the format I will choose under the New Project setting. Upon creation of the project you will be greeted with a blank Composer window (think FCP’s Viewer and Canvas in one window), an empty Timeline window, a single empty bin and the Project window. The Project window is where all of your bins reside and they can be seen in the Bins tab:
A newly created Avid projectThere are other tabs across the top so feel free to click through and take a look at the tabs. They are for information like the project format, Usage that keeps a running tab of how long the project has been in use, Info for hardware and memory allocations, and a purple icon that is the effects tab. The effects tab houses all the different effects and transitions. They are broken down by class on the left with the different effects within a class on the right. Of special note is the Settings tab. Settings is Avid’s preferences menu. In fact if you access the Avid Media Composer > Preferences menu it takes you to the settings tab. There are way too many settings here to go over in this article but let’s look at a couple of them specifically. With the Settings tab select in the Project window scroll down to the Media Creation setting and double click it. This setting is where you tell Avid how you want it to handle media creation from things like importing and digitizing to title creation and rendering:
Media Creation preferenceIt’s similar to setting the Capture Scratch folder in FCP though you are setting more than just where media will reside. The easiest way to set your Media Creation settings is to select a tab like Import and choose both your desired video resolution and your Video Drive. You may see options for different resolutions like DNxHD where you will have the option of setting different bit rates like DNxHD 145 under Video Resolution. Next choose your designated fast media drive as your Video Drive. If you only have one fast RAID then select that drive and choose Apply to All as this will select that media drive for all media created such as renders, imports, motion effects etc. You can also choose to send audio and video to separate drive by clicking the arrow if so desired. Once you’ve set Media Creation choose OK to save those settings. The second setting to check is Keyboard. Double click Keyboard and a default Avid keyboard layout will appear:
A default Avid keyboard layoutIt’s important for an editor coming from FCP to understand this layout and how Avid thinks about its keyboard. Unlike FCP, the Avid keyboard doesn’t try to make it easy to remember keys like S for Slip or D for Distort but rather it places the keys in a more frequently used type of positioning (read the Keyboard Manifesto for more about this topic). If you hover your pointer over the keys a pop-up will appear to show what each key does. When you hit the SHIFT key you will see the keyboard change to show what keys are mapped to a shift+keystroke. There’s not many shift keys by default so they are waiting to be mapped. Also, all of the F-keys are blank so they are an open pallette to mapping your most frequently used commands like Match Frame, Add Edit, and Segment Mode (more on that later) to name a few. Next choose Tools > Command Palette (or command+3). This is a list of all the button commands in Avid:
The Command Palette lists all Avid button in one paletteTabs across the Command Palette represent all the various categories for different Avid commands. You can use this palette to map keys to the keyboard. With ‘Button to Button’ Reassignment selected you can click and drag a command from the Command Palette to the keyboard (shift + drag to change the shift keys). Active Palette makes the Command Palette live and you can click the button to perform the various command. It’s highly recommended that new users leave the Active Palette open to help learn the various Avid commands and symbols. Finally ‘Menu to Button’ Reassignment lets you click any button on the keyboard and then assign that button to a menu command. Learn your keyboard well and you can work much faster. Other settings worth noting are Bin which allows you to set (among other things) Auto-Save intervals. Capture, Deck Configuration and Deck Preferences for many settings relating to tape based capture. And Interface for customizing the appearance of the application.
Avid Bin settings prefrence
Avid Interface preference for changing colors, shapes and other aspects of the interfaceNext, getting media in to Media Composer and making an edit (Page 1 of 5 pages for this article 1 2 3 > Last ») 
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