ProVideo Coalition.com: the EDITBLOG on PVC by Scott Simmons

Next, let’s get some media into Avid. With the release of Avid Media Composer 3.5 a feature has been added called Avid Media Access (or AMA) that makes getting P2-based and XDCAM media into the application a snap. Since Avid’s media format is MXF and both P2 and XDCAM media are MXF getting this media into Avid is a snap. The hope is that in the future Avid will expand the AMA architecture for including many other media formats. The key when shooting P2 and XDCAM is to leave the file structure intact when backing up your P2 or solid state cards as Avid will access this natively. It can also access media directly of the cards.

Then navigate to your P2 or XDCAM media and it will immediately create a new bin with that footage in your project. In this project I had a single P2 card from a shoot and I backed up both the CONTENTS folder and LASTCLIP.TXT file into a folder called test footage. I select the test footage folder and AMA created a new bin called test footage and brought that media into the bin with all metadata intact. You know a clip is an Avid Media Access clip as it is highlighted in yellow in the bin. All other media would just sit on the normal bin background color:

AMA linked media in an Avid bin

You can also bring media into Avid via a firewire connected deck, File > Import, or drag and drop from the Finder. When drag and dropping Avid will create new media in a specific Avid Media File folder on your designated media drive. This is another big difference from Final Cut Pro in that Avid will convert media to its own MXF format and store it in its own folder (that is for all except AMA linked media). One of Avid’s strong points has always been its media management and this is part of the reason why ... that and some kind of magic database that seems to work wonders when tracking media over huge jobs. For higher end IO then Avid requires their hardware such as the Avid Mojo DX. Full HD in and out but it is expensive.

Before we make an edit let’s look at an Avid timeline. Choose Clip > New Sequence (or shift+command+N). When you make a new sequence you will be prompted as to where to place the new timeline you are creating:

Select a bin to place you new edit sequence in

Select your Edits bin that you create in the Project window and you will now see an Untitled Sequence appear in your Edits bin. It’s good housekeeping to immediately rename that sequence into something that makes more sense. You will see a blank timeline with 1 video track and 2 audio tracks. This is the default number of tracks created but this can be changed in the Settings > Timeline preference. Double click a piece of media on the little film frame icon from your bin to open it in the Source monitor. This brings up both sides of the Track Selector Panel in the timeline. The Track Selector Panel (or patch bay) is very similar to that of FCP. In fact, this is where FCP got the design of the FCP patch bay and it was different in early versions of FCP. Source Track selectors are on the left and Record Track buttons on the right:

If you have multiple video or audio tracks and you want to change where Source media is patch to you just click + drag in the V1 (for example) track selector on the Source side and an arrow will extend out. Drag that arrow to a new track and it will patch. Before we make any edits, turn on Sync Lock by clicking the little gray box between the two TC1 (timecode) tracks. Sync Locks are turned on when you see the little hash marks between the track selectors. Sync Locks are very helpful when learning the application as it will keep all audio and video in sync by adding filler when needed while performing edits and trims. FCP behaves in a way that it’s almost like always having sync locks turned on. I rarely turn the Avid sync locks off except for when I am doing very specific trims where I want clips to move in a certain way while trimming.

Let’s make our first edit. If it’s not still there, double click a clip from the bin to open it in the Source monitor. Mark and IN and OUT point and then press the Overwrite button

between the monitors or (better still) hit the B key on the default keyboard. You can drag the clip from the Source monitor into the timeline to create and edit but the less drag/dropping you do the faster you can work. The first thing you’ll notice after editing media into the timeline is that you can’t click and select that media that you have just placed into the edit. Clicking on the media tracks or the timecode track of timeline will move the playhead. Clicking and dragging will scrub the timeline. Turn CAPS LOCK on to turn on audio scrubbing. Clicking around in the areas outside of the tracks will produce no noticeable result ... at least not yet. This is probably the single biggest sticking point for an FCP editor when you try out Avid. Media Composer doesn’t have the same kind of timeline interactivity that FCP employs. It’s not better or worse, just different. An indepth look at just the Avid and FCP timelines can be found here.

Load another piece of media into the Source monitor to make another edit. Avid and FCP both use the same concept of 3-point editing as the basis for making edits. As long as you have 3 INs and OUTs set you can make an edit. There are exceptions to this rule but that is the basis of the concept. Either set an IN and OUT point in the Source or the Timeline and IN point in the other (the playhead will also act as an IN point if one is not set) and choose to Overwrite, B, or Splice-IN, V.

The red and yellow arrow icons are used all around the Media Composer application

Splice-In is Avid’s term for an Insert edit by the way so if you Spline In you will move the media after the edit later in the timeline. You now have an actual edit in the timeline. Now perform a second, third and fourth edit and we will use that simple timeline as a base to try Segment mode and trimming. Try and set up a timeline that looks similar to this:

As I mentioned before, Avid’s lack of click and drag timeline interactivity is a big turnoff to many who have only edited with Final Cut Pro or even Adobe Premiere. You shouldn’t think of Avid’s timeline manipulation as being worse, only different. At first it might be very frustrating that you can’t just click and drag clips around an Avid timeline or click and drag to shorten or extend a clip. This can all be done, just in a different way.

To move a clip around the timeline via a drag and drop method you must enter Segment Mode. Segment mode can be entered in several different ways but the active mode is identified by yellow and red segment mode arrows in the bottom left corner of the timeline:

Avid Segment Mode icons in the Timeline window

If you are in a particular mode the cursor arrow will change to the segment mode arrow and that mode will be highlighted. Segment modes are simple and their function is reflected by their color and resemblance to the Overwrite and Splice-In arrows.

The yellow arrow is Extract/Splice-In Segment mode. This mode will allow you to move clips around the timeline and it will shift and shuffle other clips around and NOT leave a gap in the timeline. It’s somewhat comparable to moving a clip in FCP and holding down the OPTION key to swap their position though in Avid you can drop a clip right in the middle of another one. The best way to understand what Extract/Splice-In does is to select a clip in our simple edit and move it. You can enter segment mode by clicking the desired segment mode arrow at the bottom of the timeline or by click and dragging from LEFT TO RIGHT beginning in the area above the timeline and lassoing down into the timeline to encircle an entire clip. You will see an outline as you click and drag to see what you are lassoing. If you don’t circle the whole clip and only an edit you will enter trim mode, more on that later. If you were to have many video layers in an edit and couldn’t get around the clip you wanted this way you can also hold down CONTROL and lasso from LEFT TO RIGHT. When using the lasso method, whatever the LAST segment mode that was chosen is the mode that will be entered. The lasso method can be confusing at first so it’s probably easier to click the segment mode to enter it (or better yet map the segment modes to your keyboard) and then click, or shift+click to select multiple clips, the clip you want to move. Once you grasp the lasso method though it can be a very fast and powerful way to make multiple selections. The red arrow is the Lift/Overwrite Segment mode. In this mode moving a clip will overwrite the media where you place the clip and leave a gap behind. Let’s give them a try.

A good way to understand what the two different segment modes do is to look at what happens when you delete a clip via segment mode. First, click the red Lift/Overwrite arrow, then click a clip in the middle of your timeline and hit the DELETE key. The clip is deleted and a gap is left behind:

Deleting a clip in Lift/Overwrite Segment Mode leaves a hole

Undo (command+z) that operation, click the yellow Extract/Splice-In arrow and do the same thing. Notice that the clip is deleted and the gap is closed. In my example I deleted the video of clip 02 and all the rest of the media in the timeline moved to fill the hole left behind by the deleting of clip 02:

Deleting a clip in Extract/Splice-In Mode closes the hole and shifts the rest of the edit

Undo and let’s try moving a clip with segment mode. First click the yellow Extract/Splice-In arrow and move one of the timeline segments to the right a bit. You will see that this mode has, in my example, moved segment 03 down and split segment 04, moving part of 04 ahead of 03 to fill the gap left behind. No media has been removed from the timeline:

Moving clip 03 in Extract/Splice-In Mode has shifted part of clip 04 earlier into the hole left behind

Now undo (command+z) that operation, click the red Lift/Overwrite arrow and do the same thing. Lift/Overwrite mode does just that, it overwrites the media where the segment is placed and leaves a gap:

Moving clip 03 in Lift/Overwrite Segment Mode has left the hole behind and overwritten part of clip 04. Notice the shorter segment in the last bit of clip 04

You can now undo the last operation as well. That is the basics of how Segment mode in Avid works. A couple of things to keep in mind when using Segment mode. When dragging a clip you can press Command while dragging to snap the clip to other edits. You can select and move clips on both video and audio tracks at the same time. You can select the black FILLER between, above or below clips and move that as well. You CANNOT select clips that aren’t adjacent (for example clips 01 and 03 in my timeline above) and move them at the same time. Clips must be adjacent ... for whatever silly reason. And if you mess something up there’s always the Undo menu to help out. Avid has a very helpful Undo/Redo List (Edit > Undo/Redo List) that is a line by line list of the last actions. It can be a lifesaver when trying to get back to an earlier state:

You may have noticed the Four-Frame Display when dragging a clip in Segment mode:

This is a handy way to see what you are doing when moving a clip via Segment mode. The left frame is the last frame of the outgoing clip and the right frame is the first frame of the incoming clips. The middle two frames are the first and last frames of the clip you are moving. When using the Four-Frame Display in Segment Mode the first and fourth frames are the ones that will move since they are the edits being affected.

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Thanks Ra-ey. I hope it can come in handy.

There is a great Avid>FCP here:

http://www.avid2fcp.com/?p=20

As well as a good book called Final Cut Pro for Avid Editors.

Posted by Scott Simmons on 07/02 at 09:23 PM

Scott,
Thanks for the link. I’ve heard of the site, but guess I’ve been a little lazy in learning a new software. Feel a little bit more inspired now!
Best,
Ra-ey

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/02 at 10:22 PM

I’m scared. LOL.. I really need to learn Avid Though!!!

Posted by raymondroman on 07/02 at 11:45 PM

Great article, Scott. It was very easy for an Avid newbie like me to follow. I made sure to bookmark it for future reference.

Posted by Jon Chappell on 07/04 at 12:49 AM

Great work Scott. Even for an someone like me - with thousands of hours driving an Avid, I managed to learn a few things.

Posted by Dylan Reeve on 07/04 at 01:52 AM

Great resource Scott!
Just last week I found the AVID MC Trial a gem. My first reaction to MC 3.5.1 is, OK I remember a similar scenario just a few years ago. AVID MC were resting on their collective laurels and just wasn’t keeping up with what some of the market needed, and so some of the market went with Final Cut Pro. It had(has) some great stuff to offer! Now we are living it all over again, tables turned 180 degrees. Apple is now resting on their “Pro-App” laurels and AVID has come to the table with formidable foe and great tool with lots of features and compatibility that frankly FCP should have built in months ago. Example: AVID actually handles XDCAM like it is supposed to be handled with true Proxy support. OK sorry about the rant, just really happy with the way MC 3.5.1 feels, its got that new editor smell too.
Cheers!
j

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/13 at 07:37 PM

Brilliant write up - you REALLY know these two programmes.

I however am utterly biased having been hitting brick walls and a massive slowing down of scattered unintuitive sequence of key-presses in FCP that Avid achieves far quicker for the same result. There isnt a plethora of options in Avid - generally only what they consider to be the best ‘client paying by the hour’ way!

I have been delighted by the many more helpful ways in which FCP operates but have also been disgusted by some of its shortcomings (cant save to bin say a 3 layer custom of keyframed plugin ‘house style’ effects/transitions (with audio Fx too) to quickly drop over any cut! ; trimming doesn’t show incoming/outgoing frames (unless you inaccurately mouse drag or add a bizarre additional standalone viewer window); weak custom user settings support for us freelancers switching suites often; never shows you that a clip has had CCR or an effect applied - its not just one editor per project you know!!! Also Easy Setup is an absolute laugh as anything called ‘easy’ usually is!

Currently wildly preferring Avid in an industry ‘freelance editor’ based scenario; it is undoubtedly quicker and with better trimming. However FCP excels in other, more user friendly but less mission critical situations and does that very very OFTEN!

Hey ho - I’m paying the mortgage for a month now on FCP so I hope to love it more soon!

D (future fruit fan!?)

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 08/21 at 01:48 PM

Apple is now resting on their “Pro-App” laurels and AVID has come to the table with formidable foe and great tool with lots of features
How do I go about becoming a freelance editor/writer?
Freelance Jobs

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/18 at 10:13 PM

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