Pinnacle Systems Media Composer - 10.0 User Guide

Avid® Media Composer® and

Film Composer

Editing Guide

Product specifications are subject to change without notice and do not represent a commitment on the part of Avid Technology, Inc. The software described in this document is furnished under a license agreement. You can obtain a copy of that license by visiting Avid's Web site at www.avid.com. The terms of that license are also available in the product in the same directory as the software. The software may not be reverse assembled and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of the license agreement. It is against the law to copy the software on any medium except as specifically allowed in the license agreement. Avid products or portions thereof are protected by one or more of the following United States patents: 4,746,994; 4,970,663; 5,045,940; 5,063,448; 5,077,604; 5,245,432; 5,267,351; 5,309,528; 5,325,200; 5,355,450; 5,396,594; 5,440,348; 5,452,378; 5,467,288; 5,513,375; 5,528,310; 5,557,423; 5,568,275; 5,577,190; 5,583,496; 5,584,006; 5,627,765; 5,634,020; 5,640,601; 5,644,364; 5,654,737; 5,701,404; 5,715,018; 5,719,570; 5,724,605; 5,726,717; 5,729,673; 5,731,819; 5,745,637; 5,752,029; 5,754,180; 5,754,851; 5,781,188; 5,799,150; 5,812,216; 5,828,678; 5,842,014; 5,852,435; 5,883,670; 5,889,532; 5,892,507; 5,905,841; 5,912,675; 5,929,836; 5,929,942; 5,930,445; 5,930,797; 5,946,445; 5,966,134; 5,977,982; 5,986,584; 5,987,501; 5,995,079; 5,995,115; 5,999,190; 5,999,406; 6,009,507; 6,011,562; 6,014,150; 6,016,152; 6,016,380; 6,018,337; 6,023,531; 6,023,703; 6,031,529; 6,035,367; 6,038,573; 6,052,508; 6,058,236; 6,061,758; 6,072,796; 6,084,569; 6,091,422; 6,091,778; 6,105,083; 6,118,444; 6,128,001; 6,128,681; 6,130,676; 6,134,379; 6,134,607; 6,137,919; 6,141,007; 6,141,691; 6,154,221; 6,157,929; 6,160,548; 6,161,115; 6,167,404; 6,174,206; 6,192,388; 6,198,477; 6,208,357; 6,211,869; 6,212,197; 6,215,485; 6,223,211; 6,226,005; 6,226,038; 6,229,576; 6,239,815; 6,249,280; 6,269,195; 6,271,829; 6,301,105; 6,310,621; 6,314,403; 6,317,142; 6,317,153; 6,317,515; D352,278; D372,478; D373,778; D392,267; D392,268; D392,269; D395,291; D396,853; D398,912. Additional U.S. and foreign patents pending. No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, for any purpose without the express written permission of Avid Technology, Inc.

The following disclaimer is required by Apple Computer, Inc.

APPLE COMPUTER, INC. MAKES NO WARRANTIES WHATSOEVER, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THIS PRODUCT, INCLUDING WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO ITS MERCHANTABILITY OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES IS NOT PERMITTED BY SOME STATES. THE ABOVE EXCLUSION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. THIS WARRANTY PROVIDES YOU WITH SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS. THERE MAY BE OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU MAY HAVE WHICH VARY FROM STATE TO STATE.

The following disclaimer is required by Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics, Inc. for the use of their TIFF library:

Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software [i.e., the TIFF library] and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that (i) the above copyright notices and this permission notice appear in all copies of the software and related documentation, and (ii) the names of Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics may not be used in any advertising or publicity relating to the software without the specific, prior written permission of Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS-IS” AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

IN NO EVENT SHALL SAM LEFFLER OR SILICON GRAPHICS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER OR NOT ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF DAMAGE, AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

The following disclaimer is required by the Independent JPEG Group:

Portions of this software are based on work of the Independent JPEG Group.

The following disclaimer is required by Paradigm Matrix:

Portions of this software licensed from Paradigm Matrix.

The following disclaimer is required by Ray Sauers Associates, Inc.:

“Install-It” is licensed from Ray Sauers Associates, Inc. End-User is prohibited from taking any action to derive a source code equivalent of “Install-It,” including by reverse assembly or reverse compilation, Ray Sauers Associates, Inc. shall in no event be liable for any damages resulting from reseller’s failure to perform reseller’s obligation; or any damages arising from use or operation of reseller’s products or the software; or any other damages, including but not limited to, incidental, direct, indirect, special or consequential Damages including lost profits, or damages resulting from loss of use or inability to use reseller’s products or the software for any reason including copyright or patent infringement, or lost data, even if Ray Sauers Associates has been advised, knew or should have known of the possibility of such damages.

The following disclaimer is required by Videomedia, Inc.:

“Videomedia, Inc. makes no warranties whatsoever, either express or implied, regarding this product, including warranties with respect to its merchantability or its fitness for any particular purpose.”

“This software contains V-LAN ver. 3.0 Command Protocols which communicate with V-LAN ver. 3.0 products developed by Videomedia, Inc. and V-LAN ver. 3.0 compatible products developed by third parties under license from Videomedia, Inc. Use of this software will allow “frame accurate” editing control of applicable videotape recorder decks, videodisc recorders/players and the like.”

The following notice is required by Altura Software, Inc. for the use of its Mac2Win software and Sample Source Code:

The following notice is required by Ultimatte Corporation:

Certain real-time compositing capabilities are provided under a license of such technology from Ultimatte Corporation and are subject to copyright protection.

Attn. Government User(s). Restricted Rights Legend

U.S. GOVERNMENT RESTRICTED RIGHTS. This Software and its documentation are “commercial computer software” or “commercial computer software documentation.” In the event that such Software or documentation is acquired by or on behalf of a unit or agency of the U.S. Government, all rights with respect to this Software and documentation are subject to the terms of the License Agreement, pursuant to FAR §12.212(a) and/or DFARS §227.7202-1(a), as applicable.

Trademarks

AirPlay, AudioVision, Avid, Avid Xpress, CamCutter, Digidesign, FieldPak, Film Composer, HIIP, Image Independence, Marquee, Media Composer, Media Recorder, NewsCutter, OMF, OMF Interchange, Open Media Framework, Pro Tools, and Softimage are registered trademarks and 888 I/O, AirSPACE, AirSPACE HD, AniMatte, AudioSuite, AutoSync, AVIDdrive, AVIDdrive Towers, AvidNet, Avid Production Network, AvidProNet, AvidProNet.com, AVIDstripe, Avid Unity, AVX, DAE, D-Fi, D-fx, Digidesign Audio Engine, DINR, D-Verb, ExpertRender, FilmScribe, HyperSPACE, HyperSPACE HDCAM, Intraframe, iS9, iS18, iS23, iS36, Lo-Fi, Magic Mask, make manage move | media, Matador, Maxim, MCXpress, MEDIArray, MediaDock, MediaDock Shuttle, Media Fusion, Media Illusion, MediaLog, Media Reader, MediaShare, Meridien, MetaSync, NaturalMatch, NetReview, OMM, Open Media Management, ProEncode, QuietDrive, R&A, Recti-Fi, Review & Approval, rS9, rS18, Sci-Fi, Sound Designer II, SPACE, SPACEShift, Symphony, Trilligent, UnityRAID, Vari-Fi, Video Slave Driver, and VideoSPACE are trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc.

iNEWS and Media Browse are trademarks of iNews, LLC.

Aaton is a registered trademark of Aaton S.A. Adobe and Acrobat are registered trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Arboretum is a registered trademark of Arboretum Systems, Inc. Arri is a registered trademark of Arri Group. DUY is a registered trademark of DUY, S. A. FaderMaster Professional is a trademark of JL Cooper, a division of Sound Technology. Focusrite is a registered trademark of Focusrite Audio Engineering LTD. Jaz and Zip are registered trademarks of Iomega Corporation. Macintosh and Balloon Help are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Microsoft, Windows, and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Philips is a registered trademark of Philips Electronics N.V. QuickTime and the QuickTime logo are trademarks used under license from Apple Computer, Inc. The QuickTime logo is registered in the U.S. and other countries. Sony is a registered trademark of Sony Corporation. V-LAN and VLXi are registered trademarks of Videomedia, Inc. Waves is a registered trademark of Waves LTD. Yamaha is a registered trademark of Yamaha Corporation. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

Footage

Arri — Courtesy of Arri™/Fauer — John Fauer, Inc. Bell South “Anticipation” — Courtesy of Two Headed Monster — Tucker/Wayne Atlanta/GMS. Canyonlands — Courtesy of the National Park Service/Department of the Interior. Eco Challenge British Columbia — Courtesy of Eco Challenge Lifestyles, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Eco Challenge Morocco — Courtesy of Discovery Communications, Inc. It’s Shuttletime — Courtesy of BCP & Canadian Airlines. Nestlé Coffee Crisp — Courtesy of MacLaren McCann Canada. Saturn “Calvin Egg” — Courtesy of Cossette Communications. “Tigers: Tracking a Legend” — Courtesy of www.wildlifeworlds.com. Windhorse — Courtesy of Paul Wagner Productions.

Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Editing Guide • Part 0130-05012-01 Rev. A

• April 2002

Using This Guide

Who Should Use This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

About This Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Symbols and Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

If You Need Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Related Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

If You Have Documentation Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

How to Order Documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Chapter 1 Editing Overview

Editing Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Starting a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Preparing to Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Editing a Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Chapter 2 Desktop Basics (Windows)

Working with the Desktop (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Creating an Emergency Repair Disk (Windows). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Using Shortcut Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Working with Windows (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Using the Windows Taskbar (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Dragging Windows Without Showing

the Contents (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Setting Your Screen Resolution (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

Setting the Avid Color Scheme (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Understanding the Avid Media Composer and Film Composer

Folders (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

Managing the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Windows) . . 55

Exploring the Avid Projects and Avid Users

Folders (Windows). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Changing Project and User Names (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Deleting Projects and User Profiles (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Starting the Avid Application (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 3 Desktop Basics (Macintosh)

Understanding the Avid Media Composer and

Avid Film Composer Folders (Macintosh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Managing the Avid Projects and Avid Users

Folders (Macintosh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Exploring the Avid Projects and Avid Users

Folders (Macintosh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Changing Project and User Names (Macintosh). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Deleting Projects and User Profiles (Macintosh). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Macintosh) . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Starting the Avid Application (Macintosh). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Chapter 4 Starting a Work Session

Opening and Closing a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Identifying a User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Creating a New User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Selecting an Existing User. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

Selecting a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Creating a New Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76

Setting Film Preferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78

Selecting an Existing Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

Nesting Projects in Folders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Opening a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Closing a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Backing Up Your Project Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Saving Your Project Information (Windows). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

Saving Your Project Information (Macintosh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Restoring from a Backup (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Restoring from a Backup (Macintosh). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Ending a Work Session . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Quitting the Avid Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Turning Off Your Equipment (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Turning Off Your Equipment (Macintosh). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Mounting and Ejecting Media Drives (Windows). . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Ejecting Drives (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Mounting All Drives (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Mounting and Ejecting Media Drives (Macintosh) . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Ejecting Drives (Macintosh). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Mounting All Drives (Macintosh). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Using Shortcut Menus (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Using Shortcut Menus (Macintosh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Using Help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Session Check List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

Chapter 5 Working with the Project Window

Exploring the Project Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

Opening and Closing the Project Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Using the Bins Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Displaying Folders of Bins in the Bins List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

Creating a Folder in a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Creating a New Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Renaming a Bin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Opening and Closing a Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Opening Selected Bins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Opening Bins from Other Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

Closing a Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Deleting a Bin or Folder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Viewing Contents in the Trash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Emptying the Trash in the Bins List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106

Managing Folders and Bins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Saving Bins Automatically . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Saving Bins Manually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Using the Settings Scroll List. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Understanding Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Defining Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Reviewing Basic Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Film Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Bin Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120

General Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Interface Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

Keyboard Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Displaying Project Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Changing the Settings Scroll List Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Working with Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126

Selecting Another User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Modifying Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Working with Multiple Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Duplicating Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Naming Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Selecting Among Multiple Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130

Deleting Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Restoring Default Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

Copying Settings Between Settings Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132

Using Site Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

Using the Info Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

Viewing Memory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

Accessing the Hardware Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Displaying Usage Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138

Statistics File Structure and Layout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Importing the Statistics File into a Spreadsheet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142

Displaying Disk Space Statistics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Customizing the Avid User Interface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144

Changing Interface Component Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Changing Shading Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Changing Shading Depth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Changing Button Separation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151

Changing Button Style. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Using Interface Appearance Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154

Changing Font and Point Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

Customizing Your Workspace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156

Creating a New Workspace Setting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Linking User Settings and Workspaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160

Switching Between Workspaces. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Deleting a Workspace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Assigning a Workspace Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Sharing Bins and Projects on Avid Unity MediaNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Understanding Avid Unity MediaNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

Mapping Workspaces on the Avid Unity Network . . . . . . . . . . 164

Sharing Methods. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Shared Bins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Shared Bins and Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Opening a Shared Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Working with Locks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Default Locking Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

Overriding the Default Locking Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Restrictions and Limitations for Locked Bins . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

Chapter 6 Using Basic Tools

Exploring Dialog Boxes and Menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Using Toolsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Opening Toolsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

Customizing Toolsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Linking Toolsets to Other Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174

Using the Tools Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Using the Deck Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176

Using the Command Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Understanding Button Mapping. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179

Mapping User-Selectable Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181

Using the Blank Button. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Mapping Modifier Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Mapping Menu Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Activating Commands from the Command Palette. . . . . . . . . . 185

Using the Avid Calculator. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Using the Console. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Displaying System Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Reviewing a Log of Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187

Getting Information with the Console . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

Using the Hardware Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189

Using Avid System Test Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190

Using the Serial (COM) Ports Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

Configuring a Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Chapter 7 Organizing with Bins

Preparing to Work with Bins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Adjusting Audio Pan Defaults. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Adjusting Default Pan Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197

Using the Center Pan Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Using Audio Timecode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198

Film Scene Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200

Setting the Bin Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Understanding Bin Display Views . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Brief View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Text View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Frame View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205

Script View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206

Bin Views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Customizing Bin Views in Text View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207

Saving a Custom Bin View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208

Bin Fast Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Basic Bin Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209

Selecting Clips and Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210

Duplicating Clips and Sequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Moving Clips and Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211

Copying Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Deleting Clips, Subclips, Sequences, and Media Files . . . . . . . . 213

Assigning Colors to Bin Objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Adding a Color Column to a Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215

Assigning a Source Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Assigning a Custom Source Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Limiting Color Choices. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

Sifting Clips and Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Sifting Timecodes or Keycode Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Sifting Within a Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223

Locking and Unlocking Items in a Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

Selecting Offline Items in a Bin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Selecting Media Relatives for an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226

Selecting Sources Used by an Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Selecting Unreferenced Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Using Text View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

Arranging Bin Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Moving and Rearranging Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Aligning Bin Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Showing and Hiding Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229

Deleting a Column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Duplicating a Column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

Adding Customized Columns to a Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Changing a Custom Column Heading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233

Managing Clip Information in Text View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Moving Within Column Cells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

Modifying Clip Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

Copying Information Between Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Copying Information from Another Cell in a

Custom Column . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Sorting Clips in Text View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Sorting Clips in Ascending Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Sorting Clips in Descending Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

Multilevel Sorting with Columns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Sorting Clips by Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Displaying Timecodes in a 24p or 25p Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 244

Frame Counting for Timecodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Adding Timecode Columns to a Bin or the

Media Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Adding Timecode Values to the Timecode Columns . . . . . 246

Bin Column Headings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247

Using Frame View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Changing the Bin Background Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251

Enlarging or Reducing Frame Sizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Rearranging Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252

Changing the Frame Identifying the Clip . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Arranging Frames in a Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

Using Script View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Adding Text in Script View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254

Playing Clips in Script View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Rearranging Clips in Script View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

Printing Bins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256

Gathering Format Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Preparing Digital Bars and Tone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 257

Importing Color Bars and Other Test Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258

Creating Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Creating Video Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262

Creating Audio Leader. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263

Storyboard Worksheet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Chapter 8 Managing Media Files

Working with Media Files in an Avid Unity Environment. . . . . . . . 266

Configuring Avid Editing Systems to Work with

MediaManager . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Support for Avid Unity LANshare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Using the Media Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Basic Media Tool Features. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268

Opening the Media Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270

Deleting Media Files with the Media Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

Freeing Storage Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274

Consolidating Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Understanding the Consolidate Feature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Using the Consolidate Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Loading the Media Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

Refreshing Media Databases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Backing Up Media Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

Using Videotapes for Archiving and Restoring Media Files . . . . . . 283

Archiving Media Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285

Archive to Videotape Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Restoring an Archive from Videotape. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290

Finding a Related Media File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292

Relinking Clips to Media Files or Bin Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Relinking to Selected Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297

Relinking Consolidated Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

Relinking Moved Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299

Unlinking Clips from Media Files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300

Chapter 9 Using Script Integration

Line Script Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

Explanation of Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303

Lining in the Digital Realm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304

Script Integration Workflow . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305

Using Script Integration in Video Projects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306

Script Window Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Script Settings Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Importing a Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309

Opening, Closing, and Saving the Script Window. . . . . . . . . . . 310

Displaying Clip and Sequence Information in a

Script Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Exploring the Script Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311

Adjusting the Script Margins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Manipulating Script Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312

Changing the Font of the Script. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Selecting Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313

Cutting, Copying, and Pasting Script. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

Removing Script Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Searching Through Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316

Using Page and Scene Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Adding a Page or Scene Number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Changing a Page or Scene Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Deleting a Page or Scene Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318

Searching for a Page or Scene Number. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Conducting a Text Search. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Linking Clips to the Script. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320

Interpolating Position for Script Integration. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Manipulating Slates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

Selecting Slates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Resizing Slates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 323

Holding Slates On Screen in the Script Window . . . . . . . . . . . . 324

Hiding Slate Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 325

Showing One Take Per Slate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Moving a Slate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Deleting a Slate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327

Manipulating Takes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

Selecting Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

Adding Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Deleting Takes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329

Displaying Take Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

Changing the Representative Frame for a Take. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 330

Loading Takes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Playing Takes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Adjusting Take Lines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331

Indicating Off-Screen Dialog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332

Using Color Indicators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

Using Script Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Placing Script Marks Manually . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334

Automating Screening and Marking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

Loading and Playing Marked Segments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337

Moving a Script Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Deleting a Script Mark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Finding Clips and Script. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Finding Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Finding Clips and Bins from the Script Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

Editing with the Script Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Assembling a Rough Cut. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Splicing a Script Range . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341

Revising the Script . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Interactive Screenings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Chapter 10 Viewing and Marking Footage

Customizing the Composer Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Using the 16:9 Display Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349

Using 16:9 for 24p and 25p Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350

Displaying Tracking Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Tracking Format Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 353

Displaying the Info Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356

Copying Text from the Info Window . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Displaying Timecode in the Timecode Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Displaying Multiple Timecodes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Understanding Composer Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 362

Color Framing Options (Edit Tab). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Miscellaneous Composer Options (Edit Tab). . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Fast Forward and Rewind Options (FF/REW Tab) . . . . . . 366

Using the Tool Palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367

Viewing Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

Fast Frame Display in 24p and 25p Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 370

Playing Selected Clips in a Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Loading and Clearing Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371

Loading Footage into the Playback and Pop-up Monitors . . . . 372

Loading Footage into the Source, Record, and

Pop-up Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372

Loading Multiple Clips or Sequences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

Using the Clip Name Menus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Switching Between Loaded Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

Clearing Clips from Monitors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

Resizing Monitors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Hiding the Video in a Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Resizing a Monitor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377

Customizing the Playback Monitor Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

Controlling Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 378

Using Position Bars and Position Indicators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379

Using Buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Play Reverse, Play, Pause, Stop, Rewind, and

Fast Forward Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

Play Standby Button. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Step Buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

Using Single-Field Step . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382

Using the Keyboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 383

J-K-L Keys (Three-Button Play). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Home, End, and Arrow Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Using the Mouse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Jogging with the Mouse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Shuttling with the Mouse. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 387

Marking and Subcataloging Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Marking IN to OUT Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

Moving IN to OUT Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Marking an Entire Clip or Segment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 390

Creating Subclips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 391

Subclips and Audio Sync for 24p and 25p Projects. . . . . . . . . . . 392

Marking Audio Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Using Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 393

Ways to Use Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

Adding Locators While Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395

Copying Locators from Source Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Marking an Area Using Locators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397

Moving to the Previous or Next Locator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Deleting Locators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 398

Understanding the Locators Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399

Displaying Timecode or Footage in the

Locators Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 400

Sorting Information in the Locators Window. . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Displaying Frames in the Locators Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Changing the Color of the Locator Icon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 401

Accessing a Locator in a Clip or Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 402

Printing the Contents of the Locators Window . . . . . . . . . . 402

Deleting Locators Using the Locators Window . . . . . . . . . . 404

Finding Frames, Clips, and Bins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404

Using Timecode to Find a Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405

Searching for a Clip or Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407

Using Match Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 409

Performing a Reverse Match Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Selecting Tracks for Matching Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 411

Finding a Bin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 412

Locating a Master Clip from a Subclip in a Sequence . . . . . . . . 413

Finding a Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Chapter 11 Editing in Source/Record Mode

Entering Source/Record Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

Setting Up a New Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417

Changing the Sequence Name and Timecode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419

Setting Up Tracks for the New Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 421

User Preferences for Creating Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 422

Adding Filler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Making an Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

Creating an Instant Rough Cut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Undoing or Redoing Edits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 428

Editing Additional Clips into the Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Performing a Splice-in Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 430

Performing an Overwrite Edit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431

Performing a Replace Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432

Single-Mark Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Using Phantom Marks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 433

Setting One Mark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Adding a Second Mark . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Lifting, Extracting, and Copying Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435

Lifting Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Extracting Material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Copying Material. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Using the Clipboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437

Preserving Clipboard Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438

Recovering Material from the Clipboard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 439

Adding Comments to Sequence Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

Playing the New Sequence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Starting a Playback Loop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

Playback Performance Tips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Playing a Limited Duration of a Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Setting a Limited Play Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Playing a Sequence Using a Limited Play Length . . . . . . . . 444

Fine-Tuning the Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 445

Chapter 12 Using the Timeline

Understanding Timeline Views. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 448

Using the Timeline Fast Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 450

Additional Procedures for Customizing the Timeline . . . . . . . . 452

Enlarging and Reducing Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452

Moving a Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 453

Displaying the Timeline Top Toolbar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Displaying Timecode Tracks in the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 454

Assigning Local Colors to Clips in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455

Displaying Local and Source Colors in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . 456

Displaying Source Colors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 456

Displaying Local Colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

Highlighting Offline Media Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 457

Changing the Timeline Background Color. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Changing the Timeline Track Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Showing Locators in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458

Saving a Customized Timeline View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459

Replacing a Timeline View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

Restoring the Default Timeline View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Setting the Scroll Option for the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461

Timeline Settings Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 462

Exploring the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Using the Position Indicator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Using the Timeline Scroll Bar/Position Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Displaying Detail in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468

Zooming In and Out . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Focusing the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Using the Full-Screen Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

Displaying Source Material in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

Controlling Movement in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473

IN to OUT Highlighting in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Understanding Segment Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 474

Segment Mode Workflow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Selecting and Deselecting Segments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 476

Selecting Segments with the Segment Mode Pointer . . . . . 476

Lassoing One or More Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477

Deselecting Segments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Performing Segment Mode Edits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Understanding the Four-Frame Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478

Maintaining Sync in Segment Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 481

Extracting/Splicing Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 482

Lifting/Overwriting Segments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 483

Deleting Segments in Segment Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 484

Marking Clips and Sequences in Segment Mode . . . . . . . . 485

Adding Comments in Segment Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

Using Advanced Timeline Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 486

Bin Editing into the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

Bin Editing Directly into a Sequence Using the Keyboard . . . . 488

Cutting, Copying, and Pasting in the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488

Editing with the Film Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

Editing in Heads or Heads Tails View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 490

Performing a Quick Edit Using the Top and

Tail Commands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Working with Multiple Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 492

Understanding Effects Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493

Understanding Nesting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

Using the Track Selector Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494

Selecting Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Monitoring Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

Monitoring Video . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Monitoring Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

Monitoring a Solo Track. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 498

Patching Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499

Locking and Sync Locking Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Locking Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 501

Sync Locking Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Adding a Track . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 502

Deleting Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504

Adding an Edit (Match Framing). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 505

Adding Edits to Filler Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

Removing Match-Frame Edits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 506

Backtiming Edits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 507

Additional Offline Aids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508

Detecting Duplicate Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 509

Adjusting Handle Length in Dupe Detection . . . . . . . . . . . . 510

Tracking Color Frame Shifts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513

Finding Black Holes and Flash Frames. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

Finding Black Holes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

Finding Flash Frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516

Printing the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517

Chapter 13 Working in Trim Mode

Understanding Trim Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520

Quick Trim Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522

Big Trim Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523

Small Trim Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524

Trim Settings Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 524

Entering and Exiting Trim Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Entering Trim Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 526

Switching Between Quick Trim Mode and the

Playback Monitor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

Setting Small Trim Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 529

Exiting Trim Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530

Using Basic Trim Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

Selecting Trim Sides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 531

Selecting Video Tracks in Trim Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532

Audio Solo in Trim Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532

Selecting Additional Transitions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 533

Performing a Basic Trim. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534

Reviewing the Trim Edit. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535

Reviewing an Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 536

Trimming On-the-Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537

Dual-Image Playback During Trims. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

Trimming During a Playback Loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 539

Creating Overlap Edits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 540

Extending an Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541

Slipping or Sliding Segments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542

Selecting Segments for Slip or Slide Trimming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 542

The Slip/Slide Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544

Performing the Slip or Slide Trim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 545

Slipping Shots in Source/Record Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546

Maintaining Sync While Trimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

Adding Black When Trimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

Trimming with Sync-Locked Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549

Using the Transition Corner Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 551

Chapter 14 Working with Audio

Exploring the Audio Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 554

Accessing Audio Effect Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 555

Audio Editing Aids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556

Soloing Audio Tracks in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556

Using Audio Scrub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557

Smooth Scrub Versus Digital Scrub. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 557

Selecting Tracks for Scrubbing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Performing Smooth Audio Scrub. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559

Using the J-K-L Keys to Perform Smooth Scrub. . . . . . . . . . 559

Using the Mouse to Perform Smooth Scrub . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Using Digital Audio Scrub . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 560

Adjusting Digital Scrub Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Performing the Digital Scrub Procedure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563

Displaying Waveform Plots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 563

Identifying the Sample Rate by Color . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566

Muting the Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568

Using the Audio Mix Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 568

Resizing the Audio Mix Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

Adjusting One Audio Track at a Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 570

Changing an Audio Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Adjusting Pan Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Applying Pan Value Adjustments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573

Ganging and Adjusting Multiple Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575

Rendering an Audio Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576

Modifying Pan Values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 576

Creating or Modifying an Audio Pan/Vol Effect. . . . . . . . . 576

Modifying How the System Interprets Pan

During Playback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Bypassing Existing Volume Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577

Adjusting Volume While Playing an Audio Mix Effect . . . . . . . 578

Limitations on Adjusting Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579

Improving Response Time. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 579

Using Audio Gain Automation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 580

Automation Gain Values and System Clip Gain Values . . . . . . 580

Adjusting Volume in the Timeline. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582

Deleting Audio Gain Keyframes in the Timeline. . . . . . . . . 584

Moving Audio Gain Keyframes in the Timeline . . . . . . . . . 584

Using an External Fader Controller or Mixer to

Adjust Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585

Adjusting the Volume of Individual Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586

Understanding the Automation Gain Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

Track Solo Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589

Position Indicator Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591

Selecting Tracks in the Automation Gain Tool . . . . . . . . . . 592

Automation Gain Tool Fast Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 592

Recording Automation Gain Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Using the Automation Gain Tool Sliders to

Record Gain Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 594

Using a Keyboard Shortcut When Editing

Audio Keyframes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Using an External Fader Controller or Mixer to

Record Audio Gain Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596

Using the Audio EQ Tool. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598

Audio EQ Tool Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599

Basic EQ Tool Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600

EQ-Specific Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601

Applying Audio EQ Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603

Saving Audio EQ Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606

Removing Audio EQ Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

Audio EQ Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607

Low Shelf Example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 608

Small Octave Range Example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609

Using Audio EQ Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611

Applying an EQ Template . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612

Creating Your Own Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

Adding an EQ Template to the Audio EQ Tool

Fast Menu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 614

Adjusting EQ While Playing an Audio Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616

Understanding Digidesign AudioSuite Plug-Ins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

Installing AudioSuite Plug-Ins (Windows) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

Installing AudioSuite Plug-Ins (Macintosh) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618

Starting and Quitting the DAE Application

(Macintosh Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619

Setting Playback Buffer Size (Macintosh Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620

Using Digidesign AudioSuite Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620

Applying an AudioSuite Plug-in to a Clip in the Timeline . . . . 621

Using a Plug-In Dialog Box. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623

AudioSuite Fast Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624

Rendering Plug-in Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 624

Creating New Master Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625

AudioSuite Controls for Creating New Master Clips . . . . . 625

Mono, Stereo, and Multichannel Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 628

Using AudioSuite Plug-ins to Create New Master

Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629

Using AudioSuite Effect Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630

Plug-in Limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633

Troubleshooting AudioSuite Plug-Ins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633

Addressing Memory Allocation Problems

(Macintosh Only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634

Canceling a Render Operation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635

Addressing Error Messages When Rendering a

Plug-in Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635

Understanding Recording Voice-Over Narration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636

Creating Voice-Overs Using the Audio Punch-In Tool . . . . . . . 639

Connecting the Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639

Creating the Voice-Over. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639

Scenarios for Using the Audio Punch-In Tool . . . . . . . . . . . 642

Monitoring the Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643

Monitoring Previously Recorded Tracks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643

Using Peak Hold While Recording. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

Using the MCS3 with the Audio Punch-In Tool. . . . . . . . . . 644

Voice-Over Media Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Using a GPI Device with the Audio Punch-In Tool . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 646

Understanding GPI Trigger Signals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 647

GPI Signal Sequence When Using the Audio Punch-In

Tool Without Preroll or Postroll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648

GPI Signal Sequence When Using the Audio Punch-In

Tool with Preroll and Postroll. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 648

Example of Linking GPI Actions to Trigger Signals . . . . . . 649

Connecting a V-LAN VLXi Controller and GPI . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649

Configuring a V-LAN VLXi Controller and GPI . . . . . . . . . . . . 650

Creating a GPI Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651

Editing a GPI Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653

Deleting a GPI Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654

Fine-Tuning Audio Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654

Fading and Dipping Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655

Fading Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655

Dipping Audio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658

Mixing Down Audio Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659

Changing the Sample Rate for Sequences and Audio Clips. . . . . . . 661

Displaying Audio Formats in Bins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662

Working with Zaxcom Deva and Aaton InDaw Audio . . . . . . . . . . 663

Chapter 15 Syncing Methods

Autosyncing Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666

Using the AutoSequence Command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 668

Resyncing Subframe Audio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670

Managing Sync Breaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672

Editing to Avoid Sync Breaks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673

Displaying Sync Breaks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674

Fixing Sync Breaks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Fixing Sync in Trim Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Fixing Sync in Source/Record Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Fixing Sync in Segment Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

Managing Sync with Multiple Tracks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 676

Using Sync Lock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677

Syncing with Tail Leader . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 678

Syncing with Locators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 679

Using Add Edit When Trimming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681

Using Sync Point Editing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 682

Ganging Footage in Monitors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 684

Match Framing Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685

Chapter 16 MultiCamera Editing

Understanding Grouping and Multigrouping Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . 688

Creating Group Clips. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689

Creating Multigroup Clips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691

MultiCamera Displays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 693

Full-Monitor Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695

Quad Split Source View. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 696

Nine Split Source View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697

Playing a Linecut on the Source and Client Monitors . . . . . . . . 699

MultiCamera Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699

MultiCamera Editing Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 701

Switching Clips with the Arrow Keys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 702

Cutting On-the-Fly with MultiCam Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703

Editing and Playing Back a Linecut in MultiCamera

Edit Mode. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 705

Using the Add Edit Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706

Using the Group Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 706

Using the Multi-angle View Menus. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 708

Using Match Frame in MultiCamera Editing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

MultiCamera Workflow Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710

Selective Camera Cutting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 710

Cutting On-the-Fly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711

Combination Cutting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712

Additional Offline Editing Aids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 713

Appendix A Using AudioSuite Plug-Ins

Accessing the AudioSuite Plug-Ins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715

Core AudioSuite Plug-Ins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 716

Description of Core AudioSuite Plug-Ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717

Invert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

Duplicate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

Normalize . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 718

Gain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719

Reverse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 719

Signal Generator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 720

DC Offset Removal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 720

Time Compression Expansion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 720

Master Clip Mode Parallel Processing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 721

Time Compression Expansion Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722

Pitch Shift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 725

Pitch Shift Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 726

EQ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728

EQ II Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728

Compressor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

Using Compression Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 730

Compressor Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 731

Limiter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733

Limiter Parameters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734

Gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736

Gate Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 736

Expander/Gate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 737

Expander/Gate Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 738

Mod Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 740

Mod Delay Parameters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 741

Additional Supported Plug-Ins. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742

Digidesign Intelligent Noise Reduction (DINR)—

Broadband Noise Reduction (BNR) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 742

Focusrite d3. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743

Maxim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743

Digidesign D-Fi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744

Digidesign D-FX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 744

Appendix B Using an External Fader Controller or Mixer

Using the FaderMaster Pro and MCS-3000X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 747

MCS-3000X Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 748

Using the Snap Mode Feature on the MCS-3000X. . . . . . . . . . . . 749

Ganging Faders on the FaderMaster Pro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750

Using the Yamaha 01V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 750

Setting Up the Yamaha 01V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

Initializing the Yamaha 01V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752

Configuring the Mixer to Recognize MIDI Control

Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 752

Starting the Avid System with the Yamaha 01V Attached . . . . 753

Operational Notes for the Yamaha 01V. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 754

Soloing Avid System Channels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 755

Appendix C Keyboard Shortcuts: Macintosh and Windows Equivalents

Command Key = Control Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 758

Option Key = Alt Key . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 758

Macintosh Control Key. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 759

Other Keys . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 760

Appendix D Using the MCS3 Controller

Configuring the MCS3 Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 762

Using the Default Button Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763

Default Navigation Buttons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764

Default Function Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764

Mapping MCS3 Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765

Configuring a Shifted Button . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

Customizing the Maximum Jog Speed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 767

Customizing the Maximum Shuttle Speed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 768

Creating Multiple Controller Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769

Editing Footage with the MCS3 Controller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770

Moving Through Footage in Jog Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770

Moving Through Footage in Shuttle Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771

Using the MCS3 for Editing Footage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 771

Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 772

Glossary Index

Figures

Figure 5-1 Sample Statistics File . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140

Figure 5-2 Sample Spreadsheet Form. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Figure 10-1 Tracking Information Menu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351

Figure 10-2 Keyboard Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384

Figure 12-1 Timeline Window. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Figure 12-2 Track Selector Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 495

Figure 14-1 V-LAN VLXi Controller and VLXi-GT GPI . . . . . . . . 650

Tables

Table 4-1 Project Types for Systems That Support 24p and

25p Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .77

Table 5-1 Settings Scroll List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112

Table 5-2 Film Settings Dialog Box Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119

Table 5-3 Edit Play Rate Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120

Table 5-4 Bin Settings Dialog Box Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120

Table 5-5 General Settings Dialog Box Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . .122

Table 5-6 Interface Settings Options — General Tab. . . . . . . . . .123

Table 5-7 Settings Display Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .125

Table 5-8 Customizable Interface Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . .146

Table 6-1 Navigation Keys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .172

Table 7-1 Object Icon Descriptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .202

Table 7-2 Range Menu Items for Explicit Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . .222

Table 7-3 Range Menu Items for Implicit Ranges . . . . . . . . . . . .222

Table 7-4 Modifiable Bin Headings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .236

Table 7-5 Modify Command Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .238

Table 7-6 Timecode Columns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .244

Table 7-7 Timecode Frame Counts for Record. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .245

Table 7-8 Bin Column Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .247

Table 8-1 Archive to Videotape Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .290

Table 9-1 Script Settings Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .308

Table 10-1 Tracking Format Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .353

Table 10-2 Timecode Display Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .361

Table 10-3 Composer Settings Options —

Window Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .363

Table 10-4 Color Framing Options — Edit Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .364

Table 10-5 Miscellaneous Composer Settings Options —

Edit Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365

Table 10-6 Fast Forward and Rewind Options —

FF/REW Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 366

Table 10-7 Shuttle Using J-K-L Keys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385

Table 12-1 Timeline Fast Menu Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451

Table 12-2 Timeline Settings Options — Display Tab . . . . . . . . . 463

Table 12-3 Timeline Settings Options — Edit Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . 464

Table 13-1 Trim Settings Options — Features Tab . . . . . . . . . . . . 525

Table 13-2 Trim Settings Options — Play Loop Tab . . . . . . . . . . 526

Table 14-1 Number of Tracks versus Scrub Speeds . . . . . . . . . . . 558

Table 14-2 Audio Mix Fast Menu Commands. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 574

Table 14-3 GPI Settings Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 652

Table 14-4 GPI Node Settings Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653

Table 14-5 Tape and Clip Name Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 663

Table 16-1 Default MultiCam Keys. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 703

Table B-1 External Fader Controller and Mixer

Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 746

Table D-1 Default Button Mappings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 765

Table D-2 Maximum Jog Speed Options. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 768

Table D-3 Maximum Shuttle Speed Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 769

Using This Guide

Congratulations on your purchase of Avid Media Composer or Avid Film Composer. You can use your system to create broadcast-quality output that incorporates production elements such as full-speed, high-resolution footage, multimedia artwork and animation, and computer-generated effects and titling.

The documentation describes the features and hardware of all models. Therefore, your system might not contain certain features and hardware that are covered in the documentation.

Who Should Use This Guide

This guide is intended for all Media Composer and Film Composer users, from beginning to advanced who are interested in learning essential skills for assembling programs of any length in the Avid nonlinear environment and finishing high-end uncompressed, quality television programs and commercials.

About This Guide

This guide will be your primary learning tool for editing procedures as you progress through early projects, and will remain your principal source for procedures in the future. This self-training guide, in combination with the accompanying documentation, provides comprehensive task-oriented instructions for using the system.

The Contents lists all topics included in the book. They are presented with the following overall structure:

• Chapter 1, “Editing Overview,” helps you to get oriented with beginning concepts and a general workflow, and provides valuable pointers to keep in mind as you proceed.

• Chapter 2 through Chapter 16 follow the natural flow of your work, with clear and comprehensive step-by-step procedures.

• Appendix A, “Using AudioSuite Plug-Ins,” describes how to use the AudioSuite™ plug-ins.

Using This Guide

• Appendix B, “Configuring an External Fader Controller or Mixer,” provides procedures for setting up an external fader controller or mixer.

• Appendix C, “Keyboard Shortcuts: Macintosh and Windows Equivalents,” compares keyboard shortcuts for Avid editing products on Macintosh

Windows

systems.

systems with the keyboard shortcuts on

• Appendix D, “Using the MCS3 Controller,” describes how to edit footage with the JL Cooper Media Control Station3.

• At the back of the book is a comprehensive Glossary, providing cross-industry terms and definitions.

• Finally, a detailed Index helps you quickly locate specific topics.

Symbols and Conventions

Unless noted otherwise, the material in this document applies to the Windows 2000 and Macintosh operating systems. When the text applies to a specific operating system, it is marked as follows:

• (Windows) or (Windows only) means the information applies to

the Windows 2000 operating system.

• (Macintosh) or (Macintosh only) means the information applies to

the Macintosh operating system.

The majority of screen shots in this document were captured on a Windows 2000 system, but the information applies to both Windows 2000 and Macintosh systems. Where differences exist, both Windows 2000 and Macintosh screen shots are shown.

The Media Composer and Film Composer documentation uses the following special symbols and conventions:

1. Numbered lists, when the order of the items is important.

a. Alphabetical lists, when the order of secondary items is

important.

• Bulleted lists, when the order of the items is unimportant.

- Indented dashed lists, when the order of secondary items is unimportant.

t One arrow indicates a single-step procedure. Multiple arrows in a

list indicate that you perform one of the actions listed.

The k symbol refers to the Apple or Command key. Press and hold the Command key and another key to perform a keyboard shortcut.

In this document, Avid drive refers to the Macintosh system’s internal hard drive. Apple Computer, Inc. names the internal hard drive Macintosh HD. Depending on your system’s setup, the internal hard drive might have a different name.

Symbols and Conventions

Courier Bold font identifies text that you type.

Look here in the margin for tips.

In the margin, you will find tips that help you perform tasks more easily and efficiently.

A note provides important related information, reminders, recommendations, and strong suggestions.

A caution means that a specific action you take could cause harm to your computer or cause you to lose data.

A warning describes an action that could cause you physical harm. Follow the guidelines in this guide or on the unit itself when handling electrical equipment.

If You Need Help

If you are having trouble using Media Composer and Film Composer, you should:

1. Retry the action, carefully following the instructions given for that task in this guide.

2. Check the documentation that came with your hardware for maintenance or hardware-related issues.

Using This Guide

3. Check the release notes supplied with your Avid application for information on accessing the Avid Web site and the Avid Knowledge Center.

4. For support services, call Avid Customer Support:

- Broadcast products — call 800-NEWS-DNG (639-7364).

- Postproduction products — call 800-800-AVID (2843).

Related Information

The following documents provide more information about Avid’s Media Composer and Film Composer products:

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Release Notes for the

Windows 2000 Operating System

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Release Notes for the

Macintosh Operating System

• Avid Symphony and Composer Products Site Preparation Guide for the

Windows 2000 Professional Operating System

• Avid Composer Products Site Preparation Guide for the Macintosh

Operating System

• Avid Symphony and Composer Products Setup Guide for the

Windows 2000 Professional Operating System

• Avid Composer Products Setup Guide for the Macintosh Operating

System

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Getting Started Guide for

Video Editing

• Avid Film Composer and Universal Offline Editing Getting Started

Guide

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Quick Reference for the

Windows 2000 Operating System

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Quick Reference for the

Macintosh Operating System

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Effects Guide

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Input and Output Guide

Related Information

• Avid Products Collaboration Guide

This guide provides step-by-step instructions for transferring project files, audio files, and graphics and effects files between various Avid products.

The most recent update of the Avid Products Collaboration Guide is provided online. Check the release notes supplied with your Avid application for information on accessing online documentation.

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Online Publications

This online collection provides electronic versions of most documents listed in this section, as well as documents for related Avid applications. You can view these documents with Adobe Acrobat® Reader, which you can install from the CD-ROM.

• Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Help

The Help system provides all the information included in the

Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Editing Guide, the Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Input and Output Guide, and the Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Effects Guide supplied with

your system. The Help operates in a Web browser. To open the Help, choose Media Composer Help or Film Composer Help from the Help menu in the Media Composer or Film Composer application. For information on using Help, click the Using Help button in the Help system.

Using This Guide

If You Have Documentation Comments

Avid Technology continuously seeks to improve its documentation. We value your comments about this guide, the Help, the Online Publications CD-ROM, and other Avid-supplied documentation.

Simply e-mail your documentation comments to Avid Technology at

TechPubs@avid.com

Please include the title of the document, its part number, revision, and the specific section you are commenting on in all correspondence.

How to Order Documentation

To order additional copies of this documentation from within the United States, call Avid Telesales at 800-949-AVID (2843). If you are placing an order from outside the United States, contact your local Avid representative.

If You Have Documentation Comments

Using This Guide

CHAPTER 1

Editing Overview

This chapter provides an overview of the editing workflow. The editing process begins after you transfer your source material to the Avid system. For information about planning a project, digitizing your source material, and outputting your final sequence, see the input and output guide for your Avid system.

For a complete overview of the capabilities of your Avid system, see the getting started guide for your Avid product.

The following sections provide an outline of the editing workflow:

• Editing Workflow

• Starting a Project

• Preparing to Edit

• Editing a Sequence

Editing Workflow

The editing workflow varies depending on your project. For example, you can log your clips before you digitize to eliminate creating and organizing bins during editing.

The following procedure lists the basic steps to edit a sequence and refers you to other resources for more information:

1. Open a project containing the digitized material.

2. Set the appropriate project settings from the Settings scroll list. See

“Using the Settings Scroll List” on page 111.

3. Create bins to organize the project items. See Chapter 7.

4. Use the bins to create a storyboard.

5. Customize the Composer window to meet your needs. See

Chapter 10.

6. View your clips in advance and mark IN points and OUT points, or create subclips based on selected portions of your master clips. See Chapter 10.

Editing Overview

7. Build your sequence in Source/Record mode and in the Timeline. See Chapter 11.

8. Customize the Timeline view as appropriate for your needs. See

Chapter 12.

9. Fine-tune your edits and effects by using functions of the various edit modes, such as Segment mode (see Chapter 12), Trim mode (see Chapter 13), and Effects mode (see the effects guide for your Avid system).

10. Adjust and mix multiple audio tracks and prepare for final playback or output, using the Audio tool and Audio Mix tool. See

Chapter 14.

11. Play the new sequence. See “Playing the New Sequence” on

page 441.

12. Use the Media tool to manage the media files. See Chapter 8.

Starting a Project

1. Turn on your equipment in a prescribed order and start the Avid application (Chapter 2 and Chapter 3).

2. Select or create a new project: the job that will result in one or more finished sequences (Chapter 4).

3. Set the project settings from the Settings scroll list (Chapter 5).

1. Turn on and start your Avid system.

2. Select or create a project.

3. Set the project settings.

Settings scroll list

4. Create and organize bins.

4. Create and organize bins (Chapter 7).

5. Back up your project on a regular basis (Chapter 4).

5. Back up the project.

Project Window

Starting a Project

Preparing to Edit

1. Batch digitize, log and digitize, or digitize on-the-fly your source material into the Avid system. See the input and output guide for your Avid system.

2. Use bins to organize the project items (Chapter 7).

3. Manage media files by using the Media tool (Chapter 8).

1. Digitize footage, creating master clips and media files.

2. Sort and organize clips in the bins.

3. Manage media files for storage efficiency and backup security.

4. Use the bins to create storyboards (Chapter 7).

Editing Overview

4. Previsualize with storyboards.

Editing a Sequence

1. View your clips in advance and mark IN points and OUT points, or create subclips based on selected portions of your master clips (Chapter 10).

2. Build your sequence in Source/Record mode, which provides nonlinear editing controls with Source and Record monitors, and in the Timeline (Chapter 11).

3. Fine-tune your edits and effects by using functions of the various edit modes, such as Segment mode, Trim mode, and Effect mode (Chapter 12,

Chapter 13).

Source monitor

1. Screen, mark, and subcatalog footage.

Record monitor

Timeline

2. Edit in Source/Record mode and the Timeline.

3. Fine-tune edits and effects.

4. Adjust and mix multiple audio tracks and prepare for final playback or output, using the Media Composer or Film Composer Audio tool and Audio Mix tool (Chapter 14).

5. Return to editing if further adjustments are required.

4. Fine-tune audio pan, volume, and EQ.

5. Screen and continue editing as necessary.

Editing a Sequence

Editing Overview

CHAPTER 2

Desktop Basics (Windows)

Although the majority of your work is performed within the Avid application, you will need to use a few basic Windows desktop procedures. For example, you use the desktop to move projects and user profiles between systems.

This chapter describes the location of the various project files. For information about moving a project from one system to another, see the input and output guide for your Avid system or in the Help.

The following sections describe basic procedures involving the Windows operating system and the Avid folders:

• Working with the Desktop (Windows)

• Understanding the Avid Media Composer and Film Composer

Folders (Windows)

• Managing the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Windows)

• Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Windows)

• Starting the Avid Application (Windows)

This chapter refers to the default installation directory path for the various Avid folders. If you choose a different directory path during the installation, you must substitute that path when using this chapter.

Working with the Desktop (Windows)

For information on the Windows operating system, such as the desktop and icons, see your Microsoft® Windows Help.

This section describes the following desktop features that you will use when working with the Avid application:

• Creating an Emergency Repair Disk (Windows)

• Using Shortcut Menus

• Working with Windows (Windows)

• Using the Windows Taskbar (Windows)

• Dragging Windows Without Showing the Contents (Windows)

• Setting Your Screen Resolution (Windows)

• Setting the Avid Color Scheme (Windows)

Creating an Emergency Repair Disk (Windows)

You or your system administrator needs to create a Microsoft Windows emergency repair disk (ERD) to rebuild your system configuration if it becomes damaged. You need to update the ERD any time you make a system change, such as installing new software.

To create an emergency repair disk:

t Search for “Emergency Repair Disk” in the Microsoft Windows

Help and follow the procedure.

Store the disk in a safe, dry, static-free location.

Using Shortcut Menus

Instead of using the standard menus to find the command you need in a window, try using the shortcut menus.

Desktop Basics (Windows)

To use a shortcut menu:

t Right-click a window to access a shortcut menu that shows the

most frequently used commands for that window.

You can also right-click a screen object to access What’s This? Help for the object.

Working with Windows (Windows)

Each window contains a title bar (horizontal bar at the top of the window) that contains the title of the window or dialog box. On many windows, the title bar also contains the application icon and the Minimize, Maximize, Restore, and Close buttons.

The following table describes these buttons:

Button Description

Minimize Reduces the window to a button in the taskbar. If the

window contains an application, the application remains installed and running.

To open a minimized window, click the button in the taskbar.

Maximize Enlarges the window to its maximum size.

Restore Restores the window to its previous size.

Close Closes the window. If the window is an application

window, the application quits.

Working with the Desktop (Windows)

Using the Windows Taskbar (Windows)

By default, the Windows taskbar always appears on the bottom of your screen, on top of your application. You can also select one of the following settings:

• Keeping the taskbar hidden behind the application

• Setting the taskbar to appear only when you drag your pointer to the bottom of the screen

You can also drag the taskbar to a different position, such as the left side of the Bin monitor.

If you keep the taskbar hidden while running the Avid application and you minimize an application such as Help, you will not see the minimized button in the taskbar.

To see the taskbar and minimized buttons:

t Minimize the Avid application.

To change the taskbar settings:

1. Right-click an unused part of the taskbar.

2. Choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

3. In the Taskbar and Start Menu Properties dialog box, click the General tab.

4. Select one of the options:

t To keep the taskbar hidden, deselect “Always on top” and

“Auto hide.”

t To set the taskbar to appear when you want, select “Always

on top” and “Auto hide.”

5. Click OK.

Desktop Basics (Windows)

For more information about the taskbar, see the Microsoft Windows Help.

When working in the Avid application, you can minimize windows (such as the Project window and bins). The icons will appear in the monitor, not in the taskbar.

Dragging Windows Without Showing the Contents (Windows)

By default, Windows systems show the contents of windows when you drag them. Deselect this option to improve screen display and to avoid problems repainting the screen.

To drag windows without showing the contents:

1. Right-click an empty part of the Windows desktop, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

The Display Properties dialog box appears.

2. Click the Effects tab.

3. Deselect the “Show window contents while dragging” option.

4. Click OK.

Setting Your Screen Resolution (Windows)

The Avid application works best with the following two-monitor screen resolutions:

• 2048 x 768 pixels

• 2304 x 864 pixels

• 2560 x 1024 pixels

A higher resolution displays more pixels and lets you view more objects in the monitors. The objects appear smaller at higher resolutions.

Working with the Desktop (Windows)

To view or change the screen resolution:

1. Right-click an empty part of the Windows desktop, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

The Display Properties dialog box appears.

2. Click the Settings tab.

3. Under Screen Area, drag the slider to the resolution you want.

Also in the Settings tab, choose True Color (32 bit) from the Colors pop-up menu.

4. Click OK.

Setting the Avid Color Scheme (Windows)

Avid recommends you use the Avid color scheme provided with your Avid application.

To use the Avid color scheme:

1. Right-click an empty part of the Windows desktop, and choose Properties from the pop-up menu.

The Display Properties dialog box appears.

2. Click the Appearance tab.

3. Choose Avid from the Scheme pop-up menu.

4. Click OK.

To switch to another color scheme:

Desktop Basics (Windows)

t Repeat the Avid color scheme procedure, but choose a different

color scheme in step 3.

Understanding the Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Folders (Windows)

The Avid Media Composer and Film Composer folders contain the following items:

The drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Media Composer folder and the drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Film Composer folder contain essential operational files and supporting files. You should use care when working with these folders.

• Help folder: This folder contains the Help files. For information

on using the Help, see “Using Help” on page 94.

• HIIP folder: This folder contains files that support the HIIP

export protocol. HIIP allows the Avid application to export files in various standard formats.

• Avid application: The application icon resides here. Procedures

for starting the application are described in “Starting the Avid

Application (Windows)” on page 61.

• SupportingFiles folder: This folder contains a series of files that

add functionality to the application, such as color bars and test patterns. The system accesses most of these files from within the application.

Managing the A vid Projects and A vid Users Folder s (Windows)

Managing projects, user profiles, and settings involves moving, copying, or deleting files and folders, and changing project or user names.

These files and folders are considered data files. Because the data files can become large, Avid recommends that the data files be stored on a

Understanding the Avid Media Composer and Film Composer Folders (Windows)

drive partition other than the C drive. The location on your system of the Avid Projects, Avid Users, and Settings folders depends on your Avid software installation.

Exploring the Av id Pr ojects and Avid Users Folders (Windows)

The Avid Projects and Avid Users folders allow you to move entire projects or selected project and user settings between Avid systems by copying and moving files on your desktop. When you copy or move a project, the bins for that project are also moved or copied.

When you create a new project or user profile, the system creates certain files and folders.

• When you create a new user, the system creates three items:

- A user profile file (.ave)

- A user settings file (.avs)

Desktop Basics (Windows)

- A user folder containing the two files

Each item is given the user name you provide. Depending on the Avid application, the new folder is stored in the folder

drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Media Composer\Avid Users or drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Film Composer\Avid Users.

• When you create a new project, the system creates three items:

-A project file (.avp)

- A project settings file (.avs)

- A project folder containing the two files

Each item is given the project name you provide. The new folder is stored in a location separate from the media files. Depending on the Avid application, the default location of this folder is drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Media Composer\Avid Projects or drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Film Composer\Avid Projects.

Your settings are initially set to the default values. As you work, the files maintain current settings, while the project folder fills with bin files (.avb).

The location of the user folder and project folder depends on your Media Composer or Film Composer installation.

Changing Project and User Names (Windows)

You cannot change project or user names within the Avid application. You must change the names from your desktop before starting the Avid application. For information about the location of the Avid files for the project and user names, see “Exploring the Avid Projects and

Avid Users Folders (Windows)” on page 56.

When you change a user name or project name, make sure you change the name of the folder and all the files in the folder that have the old name. The system does not automatically change the names of corresponding files in the folder.

To change a project or user name:

1. Double-click the Avid Projects or the Avid Users folder to open it.

2. Click the name of the folder you want to change.

The name is highlighted for text entry, and the arrow changes to an I-beam.

3. Change the name of the folder.

4. Double-click the folder with the new name to open it.

The folder contains profile, settings, and project files with the old name.

5. Change the old name of each file to the new name.

Do not change the name of the file MCState.avs in the Avid Users folder.

Managing the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Windows)

6. Close the windows and restart the Avid application.

The new project or user name appears in the Select User and Project dialog box.

Deleting Projects and User Profiles (Windows)

You cannot delete projects and user profiles from within the Avid application. You must make the change from your desktop before starting the application. For information about the location of the Avid files for the project and user names, see “Exploring the Avid Projects

and Avid Users Folders (Windows)” on page 56.

Digitized media related to a deleted project is not eliminated with the project folder. For more information on deleting media files, see “Deleting Clips,

Subclips, Sequences, and Media Files” on page 213 and “Deleting Media Files with the Media Tool” on page 272.

To delete a project or user profile:

1. Double-click the Avid Projects or the Avid Users folder to open it.

2. Drag the project or user folder you want to delete to the Recycle Bin.

3. Empty the Recycle Bin to remove the files from the system.

a. Double-click the Recycle Bin icon.

b. Choose Empty Recycle Bin from the File menu.

A dialog box appears.

c. Click Yes.

d. Click the Close button.

Deleting a project also deletes any bins that are in that project.

Desktop Basics (Windows)

4. Close the windows and restart the Avid application.

The deleted project or user no longer appears in the Select User and Project dialog box.

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Windows)

The Attic folder contains backup files of each bin in a project. For information on setting automatic save features, see “Reviewing Basic

Settings” on page 118.

You can retrieve files from the Attic folder in the following circumstances:

• You want to replace current changes to a sequence or clip with a

previous version

• The current bin file is corrupted

The Attic folder contains a folder for each project. When a bin is saved, a copy of the bin file is stored in the project folder in the Attic folder. The system adds the file name extension .bak plus a version number to the bin name. The bin file with the highest version number represents the latest copy of the bin file. When you view a project folder in the Attic folder in Details view, you can also identify the most recent backup file based on the name and timestamp of creation displayed in the Modified column.

The oldest backup file is overwritten only if the second oldest backup file is more than 2 hours old.

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Windows)

To retrieve a file from the Attic folder:

1. Minimize the Avid application.

2. From the desktop, double-click the Attic folder located in one of the following folders, depending on your Avid application:

- drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Media Composer

- drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Film Composer

The Attic folder opens and displays project folders that contain the backup files.

3. Double-click the project folder that contains the files you want to retrieve.

4. Choose Details from the View menu, if the project folder is not already in the Details view.

The project folder displays the file names and their creation dates.

5. Ctrl+click the bin files you want to retrieve.

6. Drag the selected backup bin files to the desktop.

Desktop Basics (Windows)

This makes a copy of the files, leaving the original files in the Attic folder.

7. Click the Avid application button in the taskbar to activate it.

8. Click the Project window to activate it, and click Bins to display the Bins list.

9. Choose Open Bin from the File menu. Select one of the backup bin files you copied to the desktop and click Open.

When you open the backup bin, a link to the backup bin on the desktop is created in the Other Bins folder.

The Avid application does not allow a bin and copy of a bin to be open at the same time. You must keep all other bins closed and open the backup bins one at a time. You might need to change the creation date to avoid conflicts.

10. Create a new bin if you do not plan to overwrite existing files.

11. Open the new bin and open the backup bin in the Other Bins folder.

12. Select the material you want to keep from the backup bin, and drag the files to the new bin.

Repeat steps 9 through 12 for any other backup bin files you copied to the desktop.

13. Select and delete the backup bins in the Other Bins folder.

14. Drag the backup bin files on the desktop to the Recycle Bin.

After you have moved the objects, modify their creation dates so they are considered newest by the system. The creation date is modified whenever you make a change to an object and then save the bin. There is no conflict with sequences, so there is no need to modify the creation date of a sequence.

Starting the Avid Application (Windows)

For more information on using the Start menu and creating a shortcut, see your Microsoft Windows Help.

The Avid application icon is located in the drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Media Composer folder or the drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Film Composer folder.

For most users, the desktop or the Start menu is a more convenient location for starting the application. The installation process adds a pointer to the Avid application in the Start menu.

The application will not start properly if the application icon is moved from the Avid Media Composer folder or the Avid Film Composer folder.

Starting the Avid Application (Windows)

To start the Avid application:

t Click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Avid, and then

select Avid Media Composer or Avid Film Composer.

When you start the application, you might see a message box indicating there is no input or output signal. Check to ensure the Meridien connected to the system with the cables secured, and that it is turned on.

After the application starts, the Select User and Project dialog box appears, as described in “Opening and Closing a Project” on page 72.

If your system includes the Avid Unity™ TransferManager application, you can prevent TransferManager from starting automatically by using the Transfer settings (see Ta b l e 5- 1 ).

™

I/O box is

Desktop Basics (Windows)

CHAPTER 3

Desktop Basics (Macintosh)

The Avid drive—the computer’s internal hard drive—contains a number of files and utilities you can use to organize and optimize your work. The desktop elements directly related to the Media Composer or Film Composer system (also called the Avid system) are stored in the Avid Projects, Avid Users, Utilities, and Media Composer or Film Composer folders. The System Folder also contains essential extensions and control panels.

For information on the System Folder and other Macintosh features, such as the desktop and icons, see your Macintosh documentation.

Although the majority of your work is performed within the Avid application, you will need to use a few basic Macintosh desktop procedures. For example, you use the desktop to move projects and user profiles between systems.

This chapter describes the location of the various project files. For information about moving a project from one system to another, see the input and output guide for your Avid system.

The following sections describe basic procedures involving the Macintosh operating system and the Avid folders:

• Understanding the Avid Media Composer and Avid

Film Composer Folders (Macintosh)

• Managing the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Macintosh)

• Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Macintosh)

• Starting the Avid Application (Macintosh)

Understanding the Avid Media Composer and Avid Film Composer Folders (Macintosh)

The Avid Media Composer and Film Composer folders contain the following items:

The Media Composer and Film Composer folders contain essential operational files and supporting files. You should use care when working with these folders.

• Help folder: This folder contains the Help files. For information on using Help, see “Using Help” on page 94.

• Avid application: The application icon resides here. Procedures for starting the application are described in “Starting the Avid

Application (Macintosh)” on page 70.

• Settings folder: In addition to Project and User settings, the system maintains settings files in this folder that apply to all users and all projects on the system. You can copy or move the Site Settings file to other Media Composer or Film Composer (Macintosh) systems, using the procedure described in the input and output guide for your Avid system.

• SupportingFiles folder: This folder contains a series of files that add functionality to the application, such as color bars and test patterns. The system accesses most of these files from within the application. You can add third-party effects to the 3rd Party Plug-Ins folder and AVX_Plug_Ins folder from programs such as Avid Visual Extensions (AVX described in the effects guide for your Avid system.

™

) for use in effects editing, as

Desktop Basics (Macintosh)

Managing the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Macintosh)

Managing projects, user profiles, and settings involves moving, copying, or deleting files and folders, and changing project or user names.

Exploring the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Macintosh)

When you create a new project or user profile, the system creates certain files and folders.

• When you create a new user, the system creates three items:

-A user profile file

- A user settings file

- A user folder containing the two files

Each item is given the user name you provide. This new folder is stored in the Avid Users folder at the top level of the Avid drive.

• When you create a new project, the system creates three items:

-A project file

- A project settings file

- A project folder containing the two files

Each item is given the project name you provide. This new folder is stored in a location separate from the media files. The default location is the Avid Projects folder at the top level of the Avid drive.

Managing the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Macintosh)

Your settings are initially set to the default values. As you work, the files maintain current settings, while the project folder fills with bin files.

Changing Project and User Names (Macintosh)

You cannot change project or user names within the Avid application. You must change the names from your desktop before starting the application.

To change a project or user name:

1. Double-click the Avid drive to open it.

2. Double-click the Avid Projects or the Avid Users folder to open it.

3. Click the name of the folder you want to change.

The name is highlighted for text entry, and the arrow changes to an I-beam.

4. Change the name of the folder.

5. Double-click the folder with the new name to open it.

The folder contains profile, settings, and project files with the old name.

6. Change the old name of each file to the new name.

Do not change the name of the file MCState in the users folder.

7. Close the windows and restart the Avid application.

Desktop Basics (Macintosh)

The new project or user name appears in the Select User and Project dialog box.

Deleting Projects and User Profiles (Macintosh)

You cannot delete projects and user profiles from within the Avid application. You must make the change from your desktop before starting the application.

Digitized media related to a deleted project is not eliminated with the project folder. For more information on deleting media files, see “Deleting Clips,

Subclips, Sequences, and Media Files” on page 213 and “Deleting Media Files with the Media Tool” on page 272.

To delete a project or user profile:

1. Double-click the Avid drive to open it.

2. Double-click the Avid Projects or the Avid Users folder to open it.

3. Drag the project or user folder you want to delete to the Trash. Empty the Trash to remove the files from the system.

Deleting a project also deletes any bins in that project.

4. Close the windows and restart the Avid application.

The deleted project or user no longer appears in the Select User and Project dialog box.

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Macintosh)

The Attic folder, located at the top level of the Avid drive, contains backup files of each bin in a project. For information on setting automatic save features, see “Reviewing Basic Settings” on page 118.

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Macintosh)

You can retrieve files from the Attic folder in the following circumstances:

• You want to replace current changes to a sequence or clip with a previous version

• The current bin file is corrupted

The Attic folder contains a folder for each project. When a bin is saved, a copy of the bin file is stored in the project folder in the Attic folder. The system adds the file name extension .bak plus a version number to the bin name. The bin file with the highest version number represents the latest copy of the bin file. When you view a project folder in the Attic folder in List view, you can also identify the most recent backup file based on the name and timestamp of creation displayed in the Date Modified column.

The oldest backup file is overwritten only if the second oldest backup file is more than 2 hours old.

To retrieve a file from the Attic folder:

1. From the desktop, double-click the Attic folder at the top level of the Avid drive.

The Attic folder opens and displays project folders that contain the backup files.

2. Double-click the project folder that contains the files you want to retrieve.

3. Choose List from the View menu, if the project folder is not already in the List view.

The project folder displays the file names and their modification dates.

4. Shift+click the bin files you want to retrieve.

5. Option+drag the selected backup bin files to the desktop.

This makes a copy of the files, leaving the original files in the Attic folder.

Desktop Basics (Macintosh)

6. Click the Media Composer or Film Composer window to activate the Media Composer or Film Composer application.

7. Click the Project window to activate it, and click Bins to display the Bins list.

8. Choose Open Bin from the File menu. Select one of the backup bin files you copied to the desktop and click Open.

When you open the backup bin, a link to the backup bin on the desktop is created in the Other Bins folder.

9. Create a new bin if you do not plan to overwrite existing files.

10. Open the new bin and open the backup bin in the Other Bins folder.

11. Select the material you want to keep from the backup bin, and drag the files to the new bin.

Repeat steps 8 through 11 for any other backup bin files you copied to the desktop.

12. Select and delete the backup bins in the Other Bins folder.

13. Drag the backup bin files on the desktop to the Trash.

Once you have moved the objects, save the bin to modify their creation dates so they are considered newest by the system. The creation date is modified whenever you make a change to an object and then save the bin. There is no conflict with sequences, so there is no need to modify the creation date of a sequence.

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Macintosh)

Starting the Avid Application (Macintosh)

The Avid application icons are located in the Media Composer or Film Composer folder on the Avid drive. For most users, the desktop or the Apple menu is a more convenient location for starting the application.

For more information on making an alias and using the Apple menu, see your Macintosh documentation.

The application will not start properly if the application icon is moved from the Media Composer or Film Composer folder. To start the application from a convenient location, Avid recommends that you create an alias and place it in a convenient location.

To start the Avid application, do one of the following:

t Double-click the Avid application icon.

t Double-click the alias icon.

t Choose the application from the Apple menu.

When you start the application, you might see a message box indicating there is no input or output signal. Check to ensure the Meridien I/O box is connected to the system, the cables are secured, and that it is turned on.

After the application starts, the Select User and Project dialog box appears, as described in “Opening and Closing a Project” on page 72.

If your system includes the Avid Unity TransferManager application, you can prevent TransferManager from starting automatically by using the Transfer settings (see Ta bl e 5 -1).

Desktop Basics (Macintosh)

CHAPTER 4

Starting a Work Session

Your work in Media Composer or Film Composer begins when you turn on the system, start the application, and open an existing project or create a new project that conforms to the specifications of your material. This chapter describes these and other procedures for starting a work session. You can use several techniques to safeguard and restore your work if necessary. These topics are covered in the following sections:

• Opening and Closing a Project

• Backing Up Your Project Information

• Ending a Work Session

• Using Shortcut Menus (Windows)

• Using Shortcut Menus (Macintosh)

It is important to plan your project before you edit it in Media Composer or Film Composer. For information on setting up and structuring your project, see the input and output guide for your Avid system.

This chapter also provides a session check list.

For information about turning on your system, see the getting started guide for your Avid system.

(Windows only) This chapter refers to the default installation directory path for the various Avid folders. If you chose a different directory path during the installation, you must substitute that path when using this chapter.

For information on the Microsoft Windows operating system and terminology, see the Microsoft Windows Help. For information on the Macintosh features, such as the desktop and icons, see your Macintosh documentation.

Opening and Closing a Project

Each time you start the Avid application, the Select User and Project dialog box appears.

Starting a Work Session

Users scroll list

Projects scroll list

To establish your identity as a user, open a new or existing project, and close a project, use the following procedures:

• Identifying a User

• Selecting a Project

• Opening a Project

• Closing a Project

You can also create additional folders to store projects, or you can quit the application from the Select User and Project dialog box.

Identifying a User

To identify a user for the project, you can either create and identify a new user or select one from a list of existing users. This user name represents the user profile, which includes the settings associated with that user. New users begin with default user settings. When you customize the user settings in the Avid application, these customized settings are associated with the user name.

Creating a New User

The Avid Users folder is the default location for user profile files. For information about the Avid folders, see “Exploring the Avid Projects

and Avid Users Folders (Windows)” on page 56 or “Exploring the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Macintosh)” on page 65.

To create a new user profile:

1. Click New User in the Select User and Project dialog box.

The New User dialog box appears.

2. Type a name for the new user in the text box.

Opening and Closing a Project

If you plan to move bins and projects from one platform to another, do not use the characters / \ : * ? “ < > | when naming projects, bins, and users.

3. Click OK.

The Select User and Project dialog box reappears with your user name highlighted in the Users scroll list.

You are ready to select a project. See “Selecting a Project” on page 76.

Selecting an Existing User

To select from the list of existing users:

t Click the user name to select it in the Users scroll list on the left

side of the Select User and Project dialog box.

The selected user profile appears when you open a project.

Directory pop-up menu

User names

Folder

Starting a Work Session

Folders containing a collection of users appear in the list with an asterisk (Windows) or a dot (Macintosh) preceding them.

For information about the location for the user profile files, see

“Exploring the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Windows)” on page 56 or “Exploring the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Macintosh)” on page 65.

To select a user name within a folder:

1. Double-click the folder to open it and display the user names.

2. Click the user name to select it.

To change the location of user profiles outside the Avid Users folder, you must use the Windows operating system or Macintosh desktop.

Directory pop-up menu

If the user profile you want is stored on your system outside the Avid Users folder (in another folder or on a network, for example), you can locate it by using the Select User and Project dialog box.

To search for another user profile folder:

1. In the Select User and Project dialog box, click the Directory pop-up menu to display a list of other locations on the system.

2. Choose a drive from the Volumes submenu, if necessary, and locate the folder.

3. Double-click the selected folder to open it. Continue to open any additional folders until the Users scroll list includes the appropriate user name.

4. Click the user name to select it.

You are ready to select a project. See “Selecting a Project” on

page 76.

Opening and Closing a Project

Selecting a Project

You can either create and open a new project or open an existing project.

Creating a New Project

To create a new project:

1. Click New Project in the Select User and Project dialog box.

The New Project dialog box appears.

Starting a Work Session

2. Type the name of your new project in the text box.

If you plan to move bins and projects from one platform to another, do not use the characters / \ : * ? “ < > | when naming projects, bins, and users.

3. Choose a project type from the Format pop-up menu, based on your source footage (NTSC or PAL) and your Avid system model:

- If your Avid system does not include support for 24p projects

or 25p projects, make a selection based on the source footage: NTSC or PAL.

- If your Avid system includes support for 24p projects or 25p

projects, make a selection based on the source footage or the type of film-to-tape transfer you are working with. For more

information, see “Film-to-Tape Transfer Methods” in the input and output guide for your Avid system.

Table 4- 1 lists the format options available with Avid systems

that include support for 24p projects and 25p projects.

Table 4-1 Project Types for Systems That Support 24p and

25p Projects

Project Type Source Footage Transfer

24p NTSC For film-originated or other 24-fps footage

transferred to NTSC videotape

30i NTSC For NTSC video-originated or other 30-fps footage

transferred to NTSC videotape

24p PAL For film-originated or other 24-fps footage

transferred to PAL videotape at 25 fps

25p PAL For 25-fps film footage transferred to PAL

videotape

25i PAL For PAL video-originated footage (25 fps)

4. Choose a tracking format or audio transfer rate.

- For 24p projects and 25p projects, choose a film gauge tracking format from the Film Type pop-up menu.

- For 24p PAL projects, choose an audio transfer rate. For information on audio transfer rates, see “Audio Transfer Options for 24p PAL Projects” in the input and output guide for your Avid system.

Opening and Closing a Project

5. (Option) Click Matchback and choose a film tracking format from the Film Type pop-up menu. The Matchback item appears only if your Avid system includes the Matchback option.

For more information about matchback, see “Using the Matchback Option” in the input and output guide for your Avid system.

6. Click OK.

The system creates the new project files and folder, and then returns you to the Select User and Project dialog box. The project name is highlighted in the Projects scroll list. You are now ready to open the project. See “Opening a Project” on page 81.

Setting Film Preferences

Set film preferences in the Film Settings dialog box immediately after you create a project to provide the system with important information about the type of film and audio transfer you used for your job.

• For information on setting the play rate for Timeline play and

• For information about the settings for digitizing in a film project,

Starting a Work Session

setting the format and display of ink numbers, see “Film Settings”

on page 118.

see “Setting Transfer Rates for Film Projects” in the input and output guide for your Avid system.

Selecting an Existing Project

Existing projects appear in the Projects scroll list in the Select User and Project dialog box.

For information about the location for the project files, see “Exploring

the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Windows)” on page 56 or “Exploring the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Macintosh)” on page 65.

Projects scroll list

Directory pop-up menu

To select an existing project, do one of the following:

t Click an existing project name to highlight it.

t Press the first letter of the project name on the keyboard to

highlight it. (If there are multiple projects that begin with the same letter, the first project in the list that begins with that letter will be highlighted.)

Opening and Closing a Project

To open a project nested in a folder:

1. Double-click the folder name to open it and display the contents in the Projects scroll list.

2. Click the project name to select it.

If the project is stored outside the Avid Projects folder (in another folder or on a network, for example), you can locate it by using the Directory pop-up menu.

To locate a project in another folder:

1. Click the Directory pop-up menu and choose a drive from the Volum e s subm e nu.

The Select User and Project dialog box displays all the stored folders.

2. Double-click a folder name to open it. Continue opening folders until the Projects scroll list includes the project folder you want.

3. Click the project name to highlight it.

You are ready to open the project. See “Opening a Project” on page 81.

Nesting Projects in Folders

You can create folders in the Select User and Project dialog box for storing related projects. Before you can nest a folder, you must create a folder.

To create a folder:

1. Click New Folder in the Select User and Project dialog box.

The New Folder dialog box appears.

Starting a Work Session

2. Type a name for the folder, and click OK.

3. Double-click the folder name to open the folder.

Any new projects you create are displayed and stored in this folder.

You can also nest projects by using the desktop to move existing projects into folders that appear in the Select User and Project dialog box. For more information about moving existing projects, see “Transferring Projects, User Profiles, and Site Settings” in the input and output guide for your Avid system.

Opening a Project

After you select the appropriate user and project names in the scroll lists of the Select User and Project dialog box, you can open the project with the selected user settings.

The folder name appears in the Projects scroll list with an asterisk (Windows) or a dot (Macintosh) preceding it.

For more information about the Project window, see Chapter 5. For more information about the Composer window, see

Chapter 10.

To open the project, do one of the following:

t Click OK in the Select User and Project dialog box.

t Double-click the highlighted project name in the Projects scroll list.

t Double-click the highlighted user name in the Users scroll list.

If you press and hold the Alt key (Windows) or the Option key (Macintosh) while opening a project, the project opens with all bins closed.

The Composer window opens on the Edit monitor, and the Project window opens on the Bin monitor with the selected user settings loaded.

Opening and Closing a Project

The title bar of the Project window contains the project name and user name you selected in the Select User and Project dialog box.

Project window

Closing a Project

To close the current project and return to the Select User and Project dialog box, do one of the following:

t Click the Close button (Windows) or the close box (Macintosh) in

t With the Project window active, choose Close from the File menu.

Project name

the Project window.

User name

Starting a Work Session

The Project window and all open bins close, and the Select User and Project dialog box appears.

Backing Up Your Project Information

Although the Avid system automatically saves your bins, projects, and settings, you should back up these items frequently to avoid losing any of your work in case your drive fails. Because the storage requirements are minimal, you can back up these files to a variety of storage devices, such as:

• Floppy disk or equivalent drive

• Removable storage device

• Network storage device (such as a file server)

To back up the larger media files that are created when you digitize footage, you must use a high-capacity storage device. For information on backing up media files, see “Backing Up Media Files” on page 283.

Saving Your Project Information (Windows)

To save your work on a floppy disk or equivalent device:

1. Open the destination storage folder.

a. From the Windows desktop, double-click My Computer and

then locate the destination storage drive or insert the floppy disk as appropriate.

b. Double-click the icon for the destination storage drive or

floppy drive to open it. Double-click any additional folders to target the appropriate storage location.

2. Open a window containing the folder you want to save.

a. From the Windows desktop, double-click My Computer.

Another My Computer window opens on top of the previous window.

Backing Up Your Project Information

You can also drag folders and files, and drop them in the backup folder.

b. Drag the second My Computer window away from the other

window.

c. Double-click the appropriate folder to open it.

Folder Contains

Avid Projects Project folders

Avid Users User folders

Settings Site settings file

3. Click a project folder, user folder, or settings file to highlight it.

4. Choose Copy from the Edit menu of the window containing the folder you want to save.

5. Click the destination backup folder window and choose Paste from the Edit menu of the backup folder. The files are placed in the backup folder.

6. When the system finishes copying the files, remove the floppy disk from the drive and store it as appropriate.

Saving Your Project Information (Macintosh)

To save your work on a floppy disk or equivalent device:

1. Open a window containing the destination storage folder.

a. Mount the storage drive or insert the floppy disk as

appropriate.

b. Double-click the icon for the destination storage drive or

floppy drive to open it. Double-click any folders to target the appropriate storage location.

Starting a Work Session

2. Open a window containing the folder you want to save.

a. Double-click the Avid drive to open it.

b. Double-click the appropriate folder to open it:

Folder Contains

Avid Projects Project folders

Avid Users User folders

Media Composer:Settings Site Settings file

Film Composer:Settings Site Settings file

3. Drag the project folder, user folder, or site settings file to the destination storage location.

4. When the system finishes copying the files, eject the floppy disk and store it as appropriate.

Restoring from a Backup (Windo ws)

To restore a project, user profile, or settings from a backup storage device:

1. Open a window containing the backup files and copy the files.

a. From the Windows desktop, double-click My Computer and

then locate the drive or insert the floppy disk that contains the backup files.

b. Double-click the icon for the backup storage device to open it.

Double-click any additional folders to target the appropriate backup folder.

c. Click the folder or files you want to restore.

Backing Up Your Project Information

If you are restoring an individual bin or bins, you must relink them to the project from within the Project window. For more information, see

“Opening Bins from Other Projects” on page 104.

d. Choose Copy from the Edit menu.

2. Open a window containing the appropriate folder and paste the files.

a. Double-click the appropriate folder in the drive:\Program

Files\Avid\Avid Media Composer or drive:\Program Files\Avid\Avid Film Composer folder to open it.

Folder Contains

Avid Projects Project folders

Avid Users User folders

Settings Site settings file

b. Choose Paste from the Edit menu of the window containing

the folder where you want to restore the files.

When you start the Avid application, the restored project and user profile appear in the Select User and Project dialog box.

Restoring from a Backup (Macintosh)

To restore a project, user profile, or settings from a backup storage device:

1. Open a window containing the backup files.

a. Mount the storage drive or insert the backup floppy disk as

appropriate.

b. Double-click the icon for the storage drive or floppy disk to

open it.

Starting a Work Session

2. Open a window containing the folder where you want to restore the files.

a. Double-click the Avid drive to open it.

b. Double-click the appropriate folder to open it.

Project folders and settings files go in the Avid Projects folder.

User folders and settings files go in the Avid Users folder.

Site Settings files go in the Film Composer:Settings folder.

Site Settings files go in the Media Composer:Settings folder.

3. Drag the backup copies from the storage device to the appropriate folder on the Avid drive.

When you start the Avid application, the restored project and user profile appear in the Select User and Project dialog box.

Ending a Work Session

To end the work session, first you must quit the application, and then turn off your equipment in the order described in these sections:

• Quitting the Avid Application

• Turning Off Your Equipment (Windows)

• Turning Off Your Equipment (Macintosh)

Quitting the Avid Application

When you quit the Avid application, it writes a media database file (.mdb) to the workspace in which you are working. Before quitting the Avid application, make sure that the workspace has approximately 50 MB of storage space available. Ask your MediaNet administrator to increase the space if you need more storage.

Ending a Work Session

To view remaining storage on your media drives at any time:

t Open the Hardware tool as described in “Using the Hardware

Tool” on page 189.

There are two ways to quit the Avid application, depending upon whether you have a project open or you are between projects:

• If you are working on an open project and want to quit Media Composer or Film Composer quickly, choose Exit (Windows) or Quit (Macintosh) from the File menu.

The project closes and the application quits.

• If you are between projects, from the Select User and Project dialog box:

a. Click the Quit button.

A message box appears, asking if you want to leave the application.

Starting a Work Session

b. Click Leave to quit the application. Click Cancel to return to

the Select User and Project dialog box, and select another project.

Turning Off Your Equipment (Windows)

When you finish using your system and want to turn it off completely, follow these steps to avoid damaging your system or media storage drives. Quit the Avid application before turning off your equipment.

To turn off your equipment:

1. Choose Shut Down from the Start menu.

The Shut Down Windows dialog box appears.

2. Choose Shut down from the pop-up menu, and click OK.

3. When a message states that you can safely turn off your computer, press the computer’s power button.

4. Turn off your speakers and monitors.

5. Turn off each external drive in the chassis, and then turn off the chassis itself.

6. Turn off all other hardware.

Never remove media drives from your Avid system when it is turned on. Shut down the computer and then remove the drives.

Turning Off Your Equipment (Macintosh)

Ending a Work Session

To turn off your equipment:

1. Choose Shut Down from the Special menu. This turns off your Macintosh system. The screens on the Bin and Edit monitors appear dimmed.

2. Turn off your speakers and monitors.

3. Turn off each external drive in the chassis, and then turn off the chassis itself.

4. Turn off all other hardware.

Never remove media drives from your Avid system when it is turned on. Shut down the computer and then remove the drives.

Mounting and Ejecting Media Drives (Windows)

The Eject command makes selected media drives inaccessible to the

On systems with multiple media drives, ejecting unused drives can improve the performance of the Media tool. You need to eject the drives before you open the Media tool.

Avid application. If the drive being ejected supports the auto-eject feature (for example, Jaz the drive.

By default, all media drives that are connected to your system are listed and can be seen by the Avid application. You can remove one or more drives from the list at any time by choosing Eject from the File menu. For example, if you want to use only some of your drives for a particular project, choose Eject to prevent other drives from appearing in the Avid application. The Eject command does not remove drives from the Windows system.

Shut down the Windows system completely before you physically remove or add drives. For information on removing and adding drives, see the setup guide for your Avid system.

drives), the command ejects the disk from

Starting a Work Session

Ejecting Drives (Windows)

You cannot physically add or remove drives by using this procedure. For information about adding and removing drives, see the setup guide for your Avid system.

To eject a drive or make a drive unavailable to the Avid application:

1. With the Avid application running, choose Eject from the File menu.

The Select a Disk or Drive to Eject dialog box appears.

The scroll list displays all drives currently available.

2. Select a drive to remove. Ctrl+click to select multiple drives.

3. Click Eject.

The drives are no longer available to the Avid application.

Mounting All Drives (Windows)

You cannot add selected drives to the Avid application, but you can add all drives connected to the system, including those previously removed.

Ending a Work Session

To mount all drives:

t Choose Mount All from the File menu.

All drives turned on and connected to the system become available to the Avid application.

Mounting and Ejecting Media Drives (Macintosh)

You can eject one or several drive volumes mounted on the desktop at any time from within the Avid application. You can also remount all the drives and return them to the desktop.

This is useful in several circumstances:

• If you work with drives for the backup and retrieval of low-resolution material, you can eject these drives and mount them as needed to avoid cluttering the desktop during normal use.

• If you work with an extensive array of fixed-storage drives, which can involve many partitions divided among several projects, you can selectively mount and eject drives as needed.

• If you work with Avid Unity MediaNet, you might have to eject and remount icons on the desktop. For more information, see the Avid Unity MediaNet documentation. Also, refer to “Sharing Bins

and Projects on Avid Unity MediaNet” on page 163.

Ejecting Drives (Macintosh)

To eject one or several drive icons from the desktop:

1. With the Avid application running, choose Eject from the File menu.

Starting a Work Session

A dialog box appears.

The scroll list displays all drives and partitions currently mounted.

2. Select one or more drives to eject. Shift+click additional drives.

3. Click Eject.

The system removes the drives from the desktop and can no longer access them.

Mounting All Drives (Macintosh)

Because the system cannot interface with ejected drives individually, you cannot mount selected drives. You can mount all drives connected to the system, however, including those previously ejected.

To mount all drives:

t Choose Mount All from the File menu.

The system mounts all partitions and drives that are turned on and connected to the system.

Ending a Work Session

Using Shortcut Menus (Windows)

The Windows environment allows you to access frequently used commands by using the right mouse button (right-clicking). Your Avid system takes advantage of this feature. When working with your Avid application, right-click in a window to access a shortcut menu that shows the most frequently used commands for that window.

You can also right-click a screen object to access What’s This? Help for the object.

Using Shortcut Menus (Macintosh)

Your Avid system allows you to access frequently used commands by using the Ctrl+Shift keys and clicking an object. For example, Ctrl+Shift+click in a window to access a shortcut menu that shows the most frequently used commands for that window.

Using Help

Starting a Work Session

You can also Ctrl+Shift+click a screen object to access What’s This? Help for the object.

You can get help and background information for tasks, windows, dialog boxes, and screen objects through your Avid Help system. The Help system is HTML based and operates in the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser. Avid recommends using Internet Explorer Versi o n 5 or l ater.

To open Help from within the Avid application:

t Choose Media Composer or Film Composer Help from the Help

menu.

Help opens in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

To learn how to use Help:

t Click the Using Help button in the Help system.

Session Check List

Turn on your equipment in the proper order: storage first, peripherals second, and system last. For more information, see the getting started guide for your system.

On your desktop, move any settings files, project folders, or user folders from another system into the Avid folders (if necessary) before starting the application.

Start the application.

Create new projects or user profiles, or select existing ones in the Select User and Project dialog box.

After finishing your work for the session, quit the application.

Back up your work before shutting down the equipment.

Turn off your equipment in the opposite order from which you turned it on: system, peripherals, and finally storage.

Session Check List

Starting a Work Session

CHAPTER 5

Working with the Project Window

The Project window provides controls for structuring and viewing important information about your current project. You can also modify User, Project, and Site settings from the Project window and display a list of effects. These topics are described in the following sections:

• Exploring the Project Window

• Opening and Closing the Project Window

• Using the Bins Display

• Using the Settings Scroll List

• Using the Info Display

• Displaying Usage Information

• Customizing the Avid User Interface

• Customizing Your Workspace

• Sharing Bins and Projects on Avid Unity MediaNet

(Windows only) This chapter refers to the installation default directory path for the various Avid folders. If you chose a different directory path during the installation, you must substitute that path when using this chapter.

Exploring the Project Window

The Project window provides controls (Bins, Info, and Usage) for structuring and viewing information about your current project. The Project window also provides access to the Settings scroll list for altering various User, Project, and Site settings.

You can use the Project window to:

• Create and open bins.

• View and modify settings.

• View information about the format of the project, system memory usage, and system hardware configuration.

• View information about the work session usage.

• Access effects.

• Add folders to organize project components.

Working with the Project Window

Opening and Closing the Project Window

The Project window opens automatically when you select a project in the Select User and Project dialog box.

Project window (Windows)

Close box

Project window (Macintosh)

Close button

To close the Project window and return to the Select User and Project dialog box, do one of the following:

t Click the Close button (Windows) or the close box (Macintosh) in

the Project window.

t With the Project window active, choose Close from the File menu.

Opening and Closing the Project Window

100

The Project window remains open the entire time you are working in a project; however, it might be hidden from view by several open bins or tools.

To locate and redisplay the Project window, do one of the following:

t Choose Project from the Tools menu.

t Click in an unobstructed area of the Project window to bring it

forward.

Using the Bins Display

Bins contain the master clips that are created when you digitize source material. (The master clips are linked to the media files.) Bins also contain the sequences, subclips, group clips, and effect clips that you create during a project. From the Project window, you can view a list of bins associated with the project, and open, close, and create bins. You can also open bins created for another project.

To view a list of bins associated with the project:

t Click the Bins tab in the Project window.

Bins tab

Fast Menu button

Bin icon

From the Bins list you can examine the number, names, sizes, and location of the bins.

Working with the Project Window

Bins list

Pinnacle Systems Media Composer - 10.0 User Guide

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Contents

Using This Guide

Editing Overview

Editing Workflow

Starting a Project

Preparing to Edit

Editing a Sequence

Desktop Basics (Windows)

Working with the Desktop (Windows)

Creating an Emergency Repair Disk (Windows)

Using Shortcut Menus

Working with Windows (Windows)

Using the Windows Taskbar (Windows)

Dragging Windows Without Showing the Contents (Windows)

Setting Your Screen Resolution (Windows)

Setting the Avid Color Scheme (Windows)

Managing the A vid Projects and A vid Users Folder s (Windows)

Exploring the Av id Pr ojects and Avid Users Folders (Windows)

Changing Project and User Names (Windows)

Deleting Projects and User Profiles (Windows)

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Windows)

Starting the Avid Application (Windows)

Desktop Basics (Macintosh)

Exploring the Avid Projects and Avid Users Folders (Macintosh)

Changing Project and User Names (Macintosh)

Deleting Projects and User Profiles (Macintosh)

Retrieving Bin Files from the Attic Folder (Macintosh)

Starting the Avid Application (Macintosh)

Starting a Work Session

Opening and Closing a Project

Identifying a User

Creating a New User

Selecting an Existing User

Selecting a Project

Creating a New Project

Setting Film Preferences

Selecting an Existing Project

Nesting Projects in Folders

Opening a Project

Closing a Project

Backing Up Your Project Information

Saving Your Project Information (Windows)

Saving Your Project Information (Macintosh)

Restoring from a Backup (Windo ws)

Restoring from a Backup (Macintosh)

Ending a Work Session

Quitting the Avid Application

Turning Off Your Equipment (Windows)

Turning Off Your Equipment (Macintosh)

Mounting and Ejecting Media Drives (Windows)

Ejecting Drives (Windows)

Mounting All Drives (Windows)

Mounting and Ejecting Media Drives (Macintosh)

Ejecting Drives (Macintosh)

Mounting All Drives (Macintosh)

Using Shortcut Menus (Macintosh)

Using Help

Session Check List

Working with the Project Window

Exploring the Project Window

Opening and Closing the Project Window

Using the Bins Display