Pinnacle Systems Studio 1.0 Instruction Manual

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Avid Studio

Version 1

Avid Studio Ultimate

Your Life in Movies

Documentation by Nick Sullivan and Terri Morgan. Contributors: Dieter Huber, Jim Sugg and Markus Weber.

photos, video and celebrity images are protected by the laws of many countries. You may not use other people’s content unless you own the rights or have the permission of the owner.

This product or portions thereof are protected in the United States by one or more of the following United States Patents: 5,495,291; 6,469,711; 6,532,043; 6,901,211; 7,124,366; 7,165,219; 7,286,132; 7,301,092 and 7,500,176; and in Europe by one or more of the following European Patents: 0695094 and 0 91 6136. Other patents are pending.

Mpegable DS 2.2 ©2004 Dicas Digital Image Coding GmbH.  Manufactured under license from Dolby Laboratories. This product contains one or more programs protected under international and U.S. copyright laws as unpublished works. They are confidential and proprietary to Dolby Laboratories. Their reproduction or disclosure, in whole or in part, or the production of derivative works therefrom without the express permission of Dolby Laboratories is prohibited. Copyright 1993-2005 by Dolby Laboratories. All rights reserved.  MPEG Layer-3 audio coding technology licensed from Fraunhofer IIS and Thomson Multimedia.  Portions of this product were created using LEADTOOLS ©1991-2006, LEAD Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved.  Portions utilize Windows Media Technologies ©1999-2005 Microsoft Corporation.  Real Producer SDK ©1995-2005 Real Networks Inc.  This product contains portions of imaging code owned and copyrighted by Pegasus Imaging Corporation, Tampa, FL. All rights reserved.  MPEG Layer II Audio by QDesign Corp.  This product contains a YouTube API.

MPEG Audio technology may be included with this product. Audio MPEG, Inc. and SISVEL, S.P.A. require this notice: This product contains MPEG Audio technology licensed by Audio MPEG and SISVEL only for use in accordance with Avid’s EULA.

No part of this manual may be copied or distributed, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any human or computer language, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, manual, or otherwise, without the express written permission of Avid Technology, Inc .

Avid 280 North Bernardo Avenue

Mountain View, CA 949 43

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Table of contents

BEFORE YOU START ..................................................................... IX

Equipment requirements .............................................................................. ix

Abbreviations and conventions ................................................................... xi

On-line help ................................................................................................ xii

CHAPTER 1: USING AVID STUDIO ................................................. 1

The Library ................................................................................................... 3

The Movie Editor and the Disc Editor.......................................................... 5

The media editors ......................................................................................... 6

The Player .................................................................................................... 7

CHAPTER 2: THE LIBRARY ............................................................. 9

Understanding the Library ...................................................................... 11

Location tabs .............................................................................................. 13

The Asset Tree ........................................................................................... 14

Collections .................................................................................................. 16

Managing Library assets ............................................................................ 17

The Browser ............................................................................................... 19

The Library preview ................................................................................... 23

Using the Library ..................................................................................... 25

Choosing what to display ........................................................................... 25

Tags ............................................................................................................ 28

Correcting media ........................................................................................ 30

Video scene detecti on ................................................................................. 30

Table of contents iii

SmartSlide and SmartMovie ................................................................... 32

SmartSlide .................................................................................................. 33

SmartMovie ................................................................................................ 35

CHAPTER 3: THE MOVIE EDITOR ................................................ 39

The project timeline ................................................................................. 41

Timeline fundamentals ............................................................................... 41

The timeline toolbar ................................................................................... 43

The timeline track header ........................................................................... 48

Timeline audio functions ............................................................................ 49

Editing movies .......................................................................................... 49

Adding clips to the timeline ....................................................................... 50

Title Editor, Scorefitter, voice-over ............................................................ 54

Deleting clips .............................................................................................. 54

Clip operations ........................................................................................... 55

Using the Clipboard.................................................................................... 64

Speed .......................................................................................................... 65

Movies within movies ................................................................................ 66

Transitions .................................................................................................. 68

Clip effects ................................................................................................. 71

Clip context menus ..................................................................................... 72

CHAPTER 4: MEDIA EDITING: CO RRE CTI O NS ........................... 75

Media editing overvi e w .............................................................................. 77

Correcting photos ..................................................................................... 81

Photo editing tools ...................................................................................... 81

Photo corrections ........................................................................................ 82

Correcting video ....................................................................................... 86

Video tools ................................................................................................. 87

Video corrections ....................................................................................... 89

Correcting audio ....................................................................................... 90

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CHAPTER 5: MEDIA EDITING: EFFECTS ..................................... 91

Effects in the media editors ........................................................................ 92

Effects on the timeline ................................................................................ 95

The Settings panel ...................................................................................... 96

Working with keyframes ............................................................................ 98

Video and photo effects ............................................................................ 100

Pan-and-zoom ........................................................................................... 102

CHAPTER 6: MONTAGE ..............................................................107

The Montage section of the Library ......................................................... 108

Using Montage templates ....................................................................... 109

Montage clips on the project timeline ...................................................... 111

Anatomy of a template ............................................................................. 112

The Montage Editor ............................................................................... 115

CHAPTER 7: THE TITLE EDITOR ................................................117

Launching (and leaving) the Title Editor ................................................. 118

The File menu .......................................................................................... 120

The Library ............................................................................................. 120

The Presets Selector ............................................................................... 121

Preset Looks ............................................................................................. 122

Preset Motions .......................................................................................... 123

Creating and editing Titles .................................................................... 125

Background settings ................................................................................. 127

Look settings ............................................................................................ 128

The Edit window ...................................................................................... 131

Text and text settings ................................................................................ 133

The Layer List ........................................................................................ 137

Working with the Layer List .................................................................... 138

Working with layer groups ....................................................................... 142

Table of contents v

CHAPTER 8: SOUND AND MUSIC ..............................................145

The Audio Editor .................................................................................... 147

Audio corrections ..................................................................................... 151

Audio effects ............................................................................................ 154

Audio on the timeline ............................................................................. 156

Timeline audio functions .......................................................................... 157

Audio creation tools................................................................................ 163

ScoreFitter ................................................................................................ 164

The Voice-over tool.................................................................................. 165

CHAPTER 9: DISC PROJECTS ....................................................169

Disc menus ............................................................................................... 170

Adding disc menus ................................................................................... 172

Previewing disc me nus ............................................................................. 174

Menu editing on the timeline ................................................................. 176

Timeline menu markers ............................................................................ 176

Authoring tools ......................................................................................... 177

The Chapter Wizard ................................................................................. 179

The Menu Editor .................................................................................... 182

Menu buttons ............................................................................................ 183

The Disc Simulator ................................................................................. 185

CHAPTER 10: THE IMPORTER....................................................187

Using the Importer ................................................................................... 188

Importer panels ...................................................................................... 189

The Import From panel ............................................................................. 189

The Import To panel ................................................................................. 192

The Mode panel ........................................................................................ 195

The Compression Options window .......................................................... 197

The Scene Detection Opt ions window ..................................................... 198

The Metadata panel .................................................................................. 199

The Filename panel .................................................................................. 199

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Selecting media for import .................................................................... 201

Import from file-based media ................................................................... 201

Selecting files for Import .......................................................................... 201

Scan for media .......................................................................................... 207

Import from DV or HDV camera ............................................................. 207

Import from analog sources ...................................................................... 211

Import from DVD or Blu-ray Di sc ........................................................... 212

Import from digital cameras ..................................................................... 213

Stop motion .............................................................................................. 213

Snapshot ................................................................................................... 215

CHAPTER 11: THE EXPORTER ...................................................219

Output to disc media .............................................................................. 221

Output to file ........................................................................................... 224

Output to the web ................................................................................... 231

CHAPTER 12: SETTINGS .............................................................235

APPENDIX A: TROUBLESHOOTING ..........................................241

Contacting support ................................................................................. 242

Top support issues .................................................................................. 243

Compatibility with past content................................................................ 243

Capture hardware compatibility ............................................................... 246

Serial number information ........................................................................ 247

Error or crash while installing .................................................................. 248

Hangs or crashes while launching ............................................................ 249

Troubleshooting software crashes ............................................................ 250

Export problems ....................................................................................... 255

Disc playback problems ........................................................................... 255

Resources, tutorials and training .............................................................. 258

Table of contents vii

APPENDIX B: VIDEOGRAPHY.....................................................259

Creating a shooting plan ........................................................................... 259

Editing ...................................................................................................... 260

Rules of thumb for video editing .............................................................. 263

Soundtrack productio n ............................................................................. 264

Title .......................................................................................................... 265

APPENDIX C: GLOSSARY ...........................................................267

APPENDIX D: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ...................................279

INDEX .............................................................................................283

viii Avid Studio

Before you start

Thank you for purchasing Avid Studio. We hope you enjoy using the software.

If you have not used Avid Studio before, we recommend that you keep the manual handy for reference even if you don’t actually read it all the way through.

In order to ensure that your movie-making experience gets off on the right foot, please review the topics below before continuing to Chapter 1: Using Avid Studio.

Equipment requirements

In addition to your Avid Studio software, an efficient editing system requires certain levels of system performance as noted below.

Remember too that while specifications are important, th ey do not tell the whole story. For instance, the proper functioning of hardware devices can also depend on manufacturer-supplied driver software. Checking the maker’s web-site for driver updates and support information can often be helpful in solving problems with graphics cards, sound cards and other devices.

Operating system

A 64-bit operating system is recommended if you are planning to edit HD material.

RAM

The more RAM you have, the easier it is to work with Avid Studio. You will need at least 1 GB of RAM to achieve satisfactory operation, and we highly recommend 2 GB (or more). If you work with HD or AVCHD video, the recomme nda t ion rises to 4 GB.

Before you start ix

Motherboard

Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon 2.4 GHz or higher – the higher the better. AVCHD editing demands a more powerful CPU. The minimum recommendation ranges up to 2.66 GHz for editing 1920-pixel AVCHD video. A multi-core system like Core i7, Core i5 or Core i3 is recommended.

Graphics card

To run Studio, your Direc tX-compatible graphics card needs:

• For typical use, at least 128 MB of onboard memory (256 MB

preferred).

• For HD and AVCHD, at least 256 MB (512 MB preferred).

The hard drive

Your hard drive must be capable of sustained reading and writing at 4 MB/sec. Most drives are capable of this. The first time you capture, Studio will test your drive to make sure it is fast enough.

Video files are often quite large, so you also need a good amount of available hard drive space. For instance, video in the DV format fills

3.6 MB of hard drive space per second of footage: a gigabyte every four and a half minutes.

Tip: For capture from video tape, we recommend using a separate hard drive in order to avoid competition between Avid Studio and other software, including Windows, for use of the drive.

Video capture hardware

Studio can capture video from a variety of digital and analog sources. Please see “The Import From panel ” o n pa ge 189 for details.

Video output hardware

Studio can output video to:

• Any HDV, DV or Digital8 camcorder or VCR. This requires an OHCI-

compliant IEEE-1394 (FireWire) port (as provided by Avid Studio DV). The camcorder must be set up to record from DV Input.

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• Any analog (8mm, Hi8, VHS, SVHS, VHS-C or SVHS-C) camcorder or

VCR. This requires Avid Studio USB-700, PCI-500, PCI-700, or another Avid device with analog outputs. Output to analog camcorders or VCRs is also possible using a Avid Studio DV or other OHCIcompliant 1394 port if your DV or Digital8 camcorder or VCR can pass a DV signal through to its analog outputs (see your camcorder manual and Chapter 11: The Exporter, for more information).

Abbreviations and conventions

This guide uses the following conventions to help organize the material.

Common terms

AVCHD: A video data format used by some high-definition camcorders, and for creating DVD discs that can be read on Blu-ray players. Successful editing of AVCHD files requires more computing power than other formats supported by Avid Studio.

DV: This term refers to DV and Digital8 camcorders, VCRs and tapes. HDV: A ‘high-definition video’ format that allows video in frame sizes of

1280x720 or 1440x1080 to be recorded in MPEG-2 format on DV media. 1394: The term ‘1394’ applies to OHCI-compliant IEEE-1394, F ireWire,

DV or i.LINK interfaces, ports and cables. Analog: The term ‘analog’ applies to 8mm, Hi8, VHS, SVHS, VHS-C or

SVHS-C camcorders, VCRs and tapes, and to Composite/RCA and SVideo cables and connectors.

Buttons, menus, dialog boxes and windows

Names of buttons, menus and related items are written in italics to distinguish them from the surrounding text, whereas window and dialog names are written with initial capital letters. For example:

Click the Edit menu button to open your menu in the Menu Editor.

Choosing menu commands

The right arrowhead symbol () denotes the path for hierarchical menu items. For example:

Select File  Burn Disc Image.

Before you start xi

Context menus

A ‘context menu’ is a pop-up list of commands that appears when you click with the right mouse-button on certain areas of the application interface. Depending where you click, a context menu may pertain either to an editable object (like a clip on an editing timeline), to a window, or to a zone such as a control panel. Once open, context menus behave just like the ones on the main menu bar.

Context menus are available in most parts of the Avid Studio interface. Our documentation generally takes for granted that you know how to open and use them.

Mouse clicks

When a mouse click is required, the default is always a left-click unless otherwise specified, or unless the click is to open a context menu:

Right-click and select Title Editor. (Or, one might say, “Select Title Editor from the context menu.”)

Key names

Key names are spelled with an initial capital and are underlined. A plus sign denotes a key combination. For example:

Press

Please refer to Appendix D: Keyboard shortcuts for a comprehensive table of available shortcuts.

+A to select all the clips on the Timeline.

Ctrl

On-line help

Two kinds of immediate help are available while you are working in Avid Studio:

• Help file: To open the Avid Studio help file, click the

help button in the main menu bar, or press

• Tool tips: To find out what a button or other Studio

control does, pause your mouse pointer over it. A ‘tool tip’ pops up, like ‘Help (F1)’ in the illustration above, to explain the control’s function.

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CHAPTER 1:

Using Avid Studio

For a simple outline of the digital movie-making process, you don’t have to look any further than the central tab group of Avid Studio’s main window.

Avid Studio’s main control bar summarizes the movie-making process. (The Export button does not appear if you have the Li brary tab selected.)

The Importer

Import, on the left, is a preparatory step. It involves procedures like ‘capturing’ video from your analog or DV camcorder, bringing in photos from a digital camera, and copying media files to your local hard drive from a network location.

Principal controls in the Importer’s Snapshot tool.

Chapter 1: Using Avid Studio 1

The Avid Studio Importer provides tools for these tasks, along with a Snapshot feature for grabbing frames from video files, and a Stop motion tool for building up video frame-by-frame. See Chapter 10: The Importer for details.

The Exporter

At the other end of the movie-making process is Export. By the time you get to this stage, the hard part of the task is behind you. The creative energy that went into making your movie has paid off in a production that now lacks only one ingredient – an audience.

Preparing to create a video file in the Exporter.

The Avid Studio Exporter helps you over that last hurdle with tools for taking your movie to its viewers, whoever and wherever they might be. Create a digital movie file in the format of your choice, burn a DVD , or even upload directly to your YouTube account.

Like the Importer, the Exporter opens in a separate window, and returns to the main window after its work is done. Turn to Chapter 11: The Exporter to learn more.

The central tabs

The three central tabs, Library, Movie and Disc, are where most of your work in Avid Studio takes place. The first of these opens the main view of the Library, where you can ‘curate’ your media collections.

The other tabs open the two project editors, one for digital movies, and the other for disc projects, which are digital movies enhanced with interactivity in the form of DVD menus.

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The Library

The Library is a cataloging and management tool for all the file-based resources – or assets – that you can draw on when authoring. Almost all of the materials of your movie – video footage, music and audio files, and many specialized resources such as transitions and effects – originate as assets in the Library. Many Library assets are supplied with Avid S tudio, and are available for royalty-free use. These include professionallydesigned titles, DVD menus, sound effects and more.

The Library uses watch-folders for keeping up automatically with the changing population of media files on your system. On the watch-folders page of the Avid Studio Settings, enter the names of your media directories, especially those that you update frequently. From now, the Library will scan those directories regularly for changes, and update itself accordingly. See “Watch-folders” on page 235 for details.

Main view: When you click the Library tab, the Library takes over the main window. This ‘main view’ gives you spacious access to a number of cataloging and search tools, including those for categorizing assets by means of ratings and tags, and those for creating user-defined asset collections.

The main view of the Library consists of navigation controls for exploring the catalog structure (left) and a browser for examining and selecting assets (right).

Chapter 1: Using Avid Studio 3

Compact view: The ‘compact view’ of the Library squeezes virtually the whole functionality of the main view into a panel embedded within certain other windows, such as the Movie Editor and the Disc Editor. The primary purpose of the compact view is to allow assets to be brought into a movie or disc project from the Library by drag-and-drop.

Player: The tools available from within the Library include the Player, a viewer that works for all media types handled by the application. When used from the main view of the Library, the Player opens in a separate window. When the compact Library is used, an embedded version of the Player appears in the same window. See “The Player” on page 7 for further information.

Previewing a Library video asset in the resizable Player window, with full transport controls including a shuttle wheel. You can keep working in the main window while the pop-up Player is open.

For comprehensive coverage of the Library and its uses, please see Chapter 2: The Library.

The next step

The next step, once you know your way around the Libr ary and have made any changes needed to the default set-up, is to start creating a movie. There are two ways to go about this.

The usual way: If you want to exert detailed control over the way media assets are used in your production, you will usually start building your movie or disc project from scratch in one of the two project editors. These are described below.

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The easiest way: For ultra-quick results, the Library offers another way. Clicking the SmartSlide or SmartMovie tools at the bottom of the Library main view opens an extra tray of controls. With either of these you select some visual media assets to serve as the basis of the project, choose music for a soundtrack, and make a handful of other customizations. Then the software takes over, automatically generating a full-scale Avid Studio project containing the media and options requested. You can export the project immediately, or edit it further by hand as you choose. For details, please see “SmartSlide” on page 33 and “SmartMovie” on page 35.

The Movie Editor and the Disc Editor

Once you have gathered your materials together and organized them to your satisfaction in the Library, it’s time to get to work on a video or a slideshow. If you are working on a disc production specifically, you can immediately start work in the Disc Editor, which is just like the Movie Editor but has extra tools for creating and setting up DVD menus. The Disc Editor is described in Chapter 9: Disc projects.

If you aren’t planning on creating a disc, or aren’t sure, or if disc is only one of the output media you are targeting, the Movie Editor is the right place to start. Once your movie is completed, you can export it to the Disc Editor and add in the menus.

The Movie Editor and the Disc Editor exist side-by-side, but apart from the export feature just mentioned, they do not interact. If you want, you can have a regular movie project and a disc project loaded simultaneously, and switch from one to another at will.

In both the Movie Editor and the Disc Editor, a multitrack timeline occupies the lower part of the display. Most of the ‘clips’ on the timeline come from the Library; a few types, like automatic background music, are generated with special tools.

Chapter 1: Using Avid Studio 5

As mentioned above, both project editors include embedded versions of the Library and the Player in addition to the timeline display. To build a project, drag assets from the Library onto the timeline tracks, where they are known as ‘clips’.

The preview type control above the Player lets you switch between viewing the current Library asset (‘source’) and the current timeline clip. In the Disc Editor, an additional preview type (‘menu’) lets you use the Player as an editor for linking disc menus to points on the project timeline.

Timeline editing, a central activity in project authoring, is covered in detail in Chapter 3: The Movie Editor.

The media editors

When needed, both the Library and the project timeline open additional windows for working with particular types of media and other assets. In general, you can open an editor window appropriate to any asset or clip by double-clicking the item.

Corrections from the Library: The editors for the standard media types of video, photo and audio are particularly important. When invoked from the Library (by double-clicking an asset), each of these editors provides a suite of correction tools appropriate to its media type. These tools can be applied directly to Library assets in order to remove camera shake from video, trim unwanted material from a photo, or suppress audio hiss, to give just a few examples.

When a correction is applied to a Library asset, the media file is not modified. Instead the correction parameters are saved in the Library database. They can be altered at any time, or removed, as your needs dictate. The corrections you make in the Library are brought with the asset when you add it to your project timeline as a clip.

Corrections from the timeline: When you open one of the standard media editors by double-clicking a timeline clip, the correction tools are again available, although in this case they apply only to the clip in the pr oject, not to the underlying Library asset.

Effects: When they are invoked from the project timeline, the media editors also offer effects, which cover a wide-range of enhancements in all three media types. Effects range from the practical (Brightness and contrast) to

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the theatrical (Fractal fire). Effects can be animated with keyframed parameter changes to any degree of complexity. They provide innumerable ways to add creative interest to your productions.

Pan-and-zoom: The Photo Editor provides one more tool, pan-and-zoom, of its own. Like the effects just discussed, pan-and-zoom can be animated with keyframes to create any desired combination of simulated pan and zoom camera moves within the boundaries of a single photo.

The Correction tools, and the media editors in general, are the subject of Chapter 4: Media editing: Corrections. The effects, and the pan-and-zoom tool, are described in Chapter 5: Media editing: Effects.

The Player

The Player is a preview screen in which you can examine Library media, play back your movie project, work on disc menus, and much more. In each window or context in which it is used, the Player exhibits somewhat different controls.

For an introduction to the Player and its basic controls, please see “The Library preview” on page 23. For the use of the Player in trim mode on the timeline, see “Clip operations” on page 55. For information on using the Player with Montage, see “The Montage Editor” on page 115. For the use of the Player in editing disc menus, see “Previewing disc menus” on page

174.

Chapter 1: Using Avid Studio 7

CHAPTER 2:

The Library

The Avid Studio Library, or simply ‘the Library’, is a cataloging and management tool for all the file-based resources you can draw on when authoring. Its purpose is to let you choose and use the video segments, photos, sound bites, transition effects, titles and other ‘assets’ (as they are often called) for your movies as easily, rapidly and intuitively as possible.

The Avid Studio Media Library opened on a folder of graphic images.

The Library’s classification scheme resembles what you might see in a filesystem viewer. While the viewer groups files under their physical storage locations such as hard drives, the Library groups assets under their type – video, photo, and so on. In other respects, the tree view concept for accessing subgroups of assets is virtually identical and should feel immediately familiar.

In addition to audio, photo and video files in standard formats, the Library includes specialized auxiliary media like titles and disc menus. They are found, along with transitions, filters and other effects, in the main category called ‘Creative Elements’.

Chapter 2: The Library 9

The Library can easily manage large media holdings such as are often found nowadays even on a home system. All of the dozens of media file types usable in Avid Studio can be browsed, organized and previewed within its integrated interface.

Assets are displayed either as icons or text records within collapsible folders that stack up in the Library’s Browser. The folders may correspond either to real directories in your computer’s file system, or to virtual groupings based on ratings, file type, creation date, or membership in a user-defined Collection.

Adding assets to a project

Two views of the Library are found in Avid Studio. The Main view takes over the application window when you click the Library tab. It uses the full available space to provide as much information as possible.

To open the Main Library view, click the Library tab

at the top of the Avid Studio application window.

The Compact view of the Library is a panel, either docked (as in the Movie and Disc project editors) or floating (as in the Title Editor). The Co mpact view retains the full functionality of the Library. Its pri mary purpose is to allow you to bring Library assets into a movie or disc project with dragand-drop.

The current set of Library tabs, and the contents of the Browser, are common to all views of the Library. For instance, if you are browsing in a particular folder of disc menus in the Main view, that same folder will be open in the Compact view if you now switch to the Movie Editor.

Correcting media files

With regard to technical quality, media files are not all created equal. Occasionally, you do come across the perfect photo, clip, or sound effect. More often, though, the photo needs cropping, the video is shaky, or the

10 Avid Studio

sound starts with an annoying hiss. Avid Studio’s media correction tools let you fix these and similar issues by applying correction filters to a problem clip after you have placed it on the timeline of your project.

Often, however, an even better solution is to apply the correction to the Library asset itself, before adding it to a project. That way, any production using the asset will start with the corrected version, not the uns atisfactory original. Such corrections can quickly be made by opening media editors from the Library. The file underlying the corrected asset is not modified: instead, the correction parameters are stored in the Library database and reapplied whenever the item is displayed or used.

Instant gratification: SmartSlide and SmartMovie

In addition to the core functions mentioned so far, the Library offers a matching pair of tools for automatically constructing a complete project using media resources you specify. Just select some photos or video sequences, enter a few settings, and start. You can output the proj ect Studio generates without further modification, or refine it with manual ed iting as you prefer.

UNDERSTANDING THE LIBRARY



The Avid Studio Library lets you manage and efficiently use the entire pool of media and other assets available for use in your productions.

What exactly does the Library contain?

The full range of assets that you can draw on for your projects is summarized by the four main branches of the Asset Tree. Each branch is further divided into more specialized subsections.

All Media contains the standard media files on your system in subsections named Photos, Video and Audio. Many standard file types are supported. The purpose of the fourt h s u bsection, Missing media, is described below.

Projects are your own Avid Studio movie and disc projects, with subsections named accordingly. You can open a project right from the Library and begin editing it, or you can add it to the timeline of another project to serve as an ordinary clip.

Chapter 2: The Library 11

Collections are custom groupings of Library media. The more time you spend on media management, the more you will probably use Collections. They can serve as temporary holding places while you work, or for classifying and setting aside media for later use. Collections may be automatically generated, but most are user defined. Hierarchicallyorganized Collections are also supported. The top-level Collections in the hierarchy are used as the subsections of the Collections branch.

The Creative Elements branch is shown open in the illustration at right, revealing its subsections. Each is either a type of special effect (Effects and Transitions), or a special media type (the rest). Ready-to-use, royaltyfree collections of all seven types are included with Avid St udio.

Storage of Library assets

Every asset in the Library – every clip, sound, transition, and so on – corresponds to a file somewhere in the local storage of your computer system. The Library doesn’t ‘own’ these files, and never modifies them unless specifically requested to do so. Rather, it keeps track of their names, locations and properties in an internal database. The information stored also includes any tags and ratings with which you have annotated particular items, and the parameters of any correction filters you have applied.

The database

The files that make up the Library database are stored in a folder with single-user rather than shared access rights under Microsoft Windows. If Avid Studio is used on your computer by multiple users with individual log-ins, a separate Library will be created for each.

Missing media

Operations like adding, removing and renaming a Library asset are database operations that have no effect on the media file itself. When you remove an asset from the Library, an option on the confirmation dialog box does let you go one step further and delete the actual file as well, but the option is off by default – you have to specifically request the action.

12 Avid Studio

By the same token, when you delete or move an asset file in Windows Explorer or another application outside of Avid Studio, the database record of the file continues to exist. Since the Library can’t actually access the file, however, an error graphic is added to the f ile’s listing. If the file still exists, but has simply been moved to another folder or device, relinking it to the Library is easy. Double-click the item to pop up a standard File Open dialog with which you can point the way to the file’s new location.

Incidentally, to check if there are missing media anywhere in the Library, look in the special subsection All media  Missing media of the Asset Tree. The Asset Tree is descri bed below (page 14).

Location tabs

Editing a video project involves coordinating the various media and other assets at your disposal. As you proceed, it’s likely that you’ ll find yourself browsing repeatedly in various parts of the Library that are relevant to the project. No doubt you will also change your viewing and filtering options from time to time, depending on the material you’re reviewing.

Like a web browser that uses a row of tabs to allow flipping effortlessly amongst multiple open web sites, the Library lets you create and configure location tabs as you work. The tabs provide direct access to each of the various locations in which you are currently working.

Here three tabs give access to media required by different parts of a disc project. The mouse pointer is poised to create a new tab. To close a tab, click the x icon to the right of the tab caption.

To set the location of the current tab, click a name in the Asset Tree. Changes you make to viewing and filtering options while the tab is active are retained between accesses.

Chapter 2: The Library 13

The Asset Tree

The entire gamut of Library assets is organized into a folder tree whose structure and general usage should be familiar from file-system tools like Windows Explorer. When you select a location in the Asset Tree, the folder name appears on the caption of the active location tab, and its contents are displayed in the neighboring Browser.

In the Main Library, shown here, the Asset Tree occupies the left-hand pane of the workspace. In the compact view of the Library used by Avid Studio’s project and media editing tools, the Asset Tree is presented instead as a dropdown li s t on the active tab.

The four main ‘branches’ of the Asset Tree were introduced above (page

11).

The Group By menu

The header line of the All media branch offers a small dropdown menu of options to control how the groupings within each subsection of the branch are created.

When you group by folder (the default), the folder structure corresponds to actual directories on your hard drive, flash drive, or other file-system device. Some standard folders are included by default; you can add others at will using the watch folder system. Grouping by folder is shown in the Main Library illustration above.

14 Avid Studio

When you use another grouping, by rating, by date or by file type, exactly the same asset files are listed within each subsection as with the by folder grouping. However, instead of classifying them by the file system folders in which they are stored, the Asset Tree groups them into ‘virtual folders’ according to the chosen property.

Grouping by rating, for example, divides each subsection into six virtual folders. Five of them display media files to which you have given star ratings; the sixth is for those you haven’t rated yet. See “The Browser” (page 19) for more information about file ratings and their uses.

The Main Library with grouping By Date selected in the All Media branch of the Asset Tree. The bottom-level folders in the Asset Tree are displayed in the Browser (right). These ‘virtual’ folders each represent all the photos whose file date falls within a particular month.

In the illustration above, the Photos subsection of the All Media branch is shown grouped by file type. The virtual folders have names like bmp, gif and jpg – one virtual folder for each recognized file extension in the subsection’s media files.

Under group by date, the fo lders represent the year of the file’s creation; within these, the files are further grouped by month.

Grouping in other subsections

The Projects and Creative Elements branches of the Asset Tree also provide a group by menu, so it is possible for branches to be in different grouping modes. The menu commands are the same as described above for the All Media branch, except that the by file type option is not needed and doesn’t appear.

Chapter 2: The Library 15

The add collection button

The Collections branch does not exhibit a group by menu. This button on the branch header lets you create a new Collection as described under “Collection operations” below.

Collections

From the Library’s point of view, a Collection is just an arbitrary grouping of assets – a set of Library items with no organizing principle. You may well have a good reason for gathering certain files into a particular collection, but the Library doesn’t have to know what it is. Inside a Collection, any asset can rub shoulders with any other.

One special Collection, with the name Latest import, is automatically updated after each import operation to display the media added. Immediately after importing, you can turn to this Collection and start working with the new material.

Another automatically-generated Collection is Latest Smart Creation, which stores the media you selected for your most recent SmartSlide or SmartMovie production.

Collection operations

To create a new Collection, click the icon in the header line of the

Collections branch and enter a name in the provided text field. Complete

Enter

the process by pressing Create new collection from any asset’s context menu.

Manage Collections: The context menu for any Collection provides commands for renaming and deleting the Collection, and one for creating a subcollection that has the current Collection as its parent ‘folder’.

Drag and drop: Collections can be organized in the Asset Tree with the mouse. A dragged Collection becomes a subcollection when dropped upon another.

16 Avid Studio

. Alternatively, choose Add to collection 

Displaying collected assets

Clicking the name of a Collection causes it to be displayed in the Browser. There is one important difference between the Browser view of Collections

and those of all other categories: The media assets in any subcollections are visually merged with those of the selected Collection, but not subgrouped.

However, a special feature of the Browser makes it easier to keep track of the assets when viewing Collections, even if you’re not a robotically systematic sort of person: As your mouse pointer passes over any listed asset, the Collections to which the asset belongs ‘light up’ in the Asset Tree.

Operations on collected assets

These operations can be performed from the context menu of any Collection item. To act on a group of items, first select them with the mouse (using by dragging out a frame around the items. Then right-click within the selection to access the context menu.

Add to collection: Choose a target Collection on the Add to collection submenu to add the selected item or items. Alternatively, drag the selection onto the target Collection.

Ctrl-click and Shift

-click for multiple selections as needed) or

Remove from Collection: The Remove command removes the item (or items) from the Collection. As usual with the Library, the underlying media items involved are not affected, so removing a video or other item from a Collection in the Library will neither delete the media file from your hard drive nor from the asset type category.

Managing Library assets

Media and other assets find their way into the Library in several ways. For instance, the original contents of the Creative Elements branch of the Library are installed with Avid Studio.

The Library automatically discovers some assets on your system by regularly scanning Windows-standard media locations. These are set up on Avid Studio installation as watch-folders. Media files in these locations will

Chapter 2: The Library 17

automatically be brought into the Library. You can add your own watchfolders (see below), and they will be automatically updated, too.

Finally, you can import media manually by any of several methods (see “Importing” below) .

Watch-folders

‘Watch-folders’ are directories on your computer that Avid Studio monitors. If you add media files such as video clips to a watch-folder, or one of its subfolders, they automatically become part of the Library. Updating occurs each time the application is launched and while the application is running.

Watch-folders are set up on the Watch-folders page of the Settings dialog. For each folder that you add, you can specify that either one particular supported media type will be ‘watched for’, or all of them.

Importing

If you need to import a large amount or variety of media, or to import from analog media such as VHS tape, click the Import button near the top of the application window to open the Importer. See Chapter 10: The Importer for full information.

Quick Import

The Quick Import button at the top left of the Library opens a Windows file dialog for fast import of files from a hard drive or other local storage.

New folders in the corresponding media categories (video, audio and images) are created for the files specified. In addition, the imported items are included in the Last Import Collection. (Collections were described earlier in this chapter, on page 16.)

Direct import via drag and drop

To select and import items in one step, use drag-and-drop from Windows Explorer or the desktop into the Browser. The new items are immediately displayed in the Collection ‘Latest Import’, which is created for the occasion if necessary.

18 Avid Studio

Removing items from the Library

To remove an item from the Library, or a selection containing multiple items, choose Delete selected from its context menu or press the key. A confirmation dialog verifies the names of the media files to be removed from the Library database. By default, the media files themselves will not be affected, but the Remove from library and delete option lets you delete the files too, if desired. Be careful, as this command works on all kinds of Library assets, including your Avid Studio projects if any of those are selected.

When all the files in a folder are removed, the Library hides the folder as well.

You may also remove a folder and all the assets it contains from the Library when removing the folder from the watch-folders list. However, this is not automatic and you will be asked if you want to keep your current assets listed in the Library, but still stop monitoring the location.

Delete

The Browser

This is the area in which the Library displays its media assets – the videos, photos, audio, projects, collections and ‘creative elements’ that are available for you to use in your movie and disc projects. The items are displayed either as a list of text records or as a grid of icons. Visual asset types use thumbnail images for their icons; other types use graphic symbols.

The Library would not be much help if the Browser displayed all its assets at once. It therefore has several controls that help you screen out items that aren’t relevant to your purpose. See “Choosing what to display” below for details.

Thumbnails, Details, Show scenes

Each asset is displayed in the Browser in one of two formats, depending on the view selected. Because the icons of thumbnails view and the text records of details view represent the same assets, they have certain features in common. For instance, the context menu for assets is the same regardless of which representation is used.

Chapter 2: The Library 19

Similarly, standard media assets (video, photo and audio), along with Sound effects in the Creative Elements branch, open an appropriate media correction editor when double-clicked in either view. The correction editors are also available from your project timeline, but when applied to a Library asset the corrections are carried forward into any future project that includes it. See “Correcting media defects” on page 30 for more information.

Details

In details view, each asset is presented as one line in a list of text records. In thumbnail view, it appears as a thumbnail image (for visual media types) or graphic icon.

To switch the Browser to details view, click the icon on the details view button at the bottom of the Library. The arrow beside the button opens a panel where you can choose the columns to be included in the text records. The columns available for inclusion are Name, File size,

File type, Date, Tags, Rating and Duration.

In Details view, each asset is displayed as a one-line text record. A dropdown list beside the Details view button lets you select which columns to show. In the illustration, ‘animals’ and ‘scenery’ are the names of folders in the All Media branch of the Library.

Thumbnails

The button to the left of the details view button selects thumbnails view, in which assets are represented by icons rather than text. The arrow beside the button opens a panel where you can choose additional data to be shown in conjunction with each icon. The options are Text, Tag indicator, Collection indicator, Ratings and Corrections indicator.

20 Avid Studio

In addition to these optional controls, whenever the mouse pointer is positioned over the icon, an info button is displayed. Clicking the button opens the information panel at the bottom of the Browser view. See page 23 for details.

When the mouse pointer is over a Library asse t icon

the Info button (top right corner) appears.

At the bottom left of most asset icons a preview button, a standard triangular play symbol within a circle, is displayed. In the compact version of the Library (used in the project editor and some media editors), the preview is shown on the Source tab of the embedded Player. In the Main Library, preview occurs in a separate Player window. See “The Library Preview” on page 23 for more information.

Alt

In either version of the Library, preview button will give you a mini-preview on the asset icon itself. With video and audio media, you can preview under manual control with a scrubber that appears below the thumbnail whenever the mouse is over the icon.

-clicking the

Show Scenes

On video files this button will switch to Scene View. Scenes are managed by the Library Player. See “The Library Preview” on page 23 for more information.

The optional controls

The optional indicators and buttons on an asset icon let you access asset information without having to burrow deeper.

Text: The caption below the icon is the Library alias for the asset, which you can set with the Edit caption context menu command for any asset. It is not necessarily the name of the asset file (which is shown in the tooltip).

Chapter 2: The Library 21

Tag indicator: The lower of the two symbols at the bottom right of the thumbnail is shown if the asset has any tags assigned to it. Hover the mouse pointer over the indicator to bring up a menu on which the existing tags for the asset are shown. As you pass the pointer over a tag name on this menu, a remove button appears. Click it to unset the tag. Click remove all at the bottom of the menu to clear all tags from the asset. The creation and application of tags is discussed further below, and under “Tags” on page 28.

Collection indicator: Just above the tag indicator, the presence of this icon indicates that you have included the asset in one or more Collections. To see which ones, hover the mouse over the icon. As with the tag indicator menu, a remove button is shown as you position the mouse on each Collection name; click it to remove the asset from the Collection. The remove all command removes the asset from all Collections of which it is a member.

The Ratings control is displayed at the left above the thumbnail (or graphic icon, depending on the media type). At top-right is the Info button. The Corrections indicator is also at upper right but within the thumbnail.

Ratings: The row of stars above the top left of the icon lets you set the asset rating. If no stars are lit, the asset is said to b e unrated. To set the rating of one asset or a selection of assets, either click the corresponding star on the indicator (click the first star twice to make the asset unrated again) or choose the setting on the Apply rating context submenu.

Corrections indicator: The Library allows you to apply image and audio correction filters ‘non-destructively’ on Library media assets, meaning that the original file remains intact. The types of corrections that have been applied to an asset, and the parameters that were used to control them, are stored in the Library database. The corrections indicator is shown on all assets to which corrections have been applied. See page 30 for information about applying correcitons to Library assets.

22 Avid Studio

The Library preview

Most types of Library asset support previewing in the Browser. The capability is indicated by a preview button on the asset icon, and the presence of a Show preview command on its context menu.

Remember too that most asset types can be previewed on the icon itself

Alt

with an

The Library Player

Clicking the preview button in the lower left cor ner of the asset icon loads the item into the Library Player for viewing.

-click on the play button.

Previewing a video clip in the Library Player window. The transport controls are at the bottom, starting with a Loop button at the far left and a Shuttle wheel. The third in the group of five arrow buttons starts playback. The two buttons on each side of it are for navigating from asset to asset in the Library folder.

Along the top of the Player, the current viewing p osition is displayed. At the bottom is a toolbar of transport controls and function buttons.

Transport controls

First among the transport controls is the loop button, which causes playback in a continuous loop from the start of the media. Next is a shuttle wheel

Chapter 2: The Library 23

with which you can sensitively control the speed of playback by dragging backwards and forwards on the control.

The center play button in the cluster of five arrow controls begins preview of the video or audio asset. The two buttons on either side of it are for navigating from the viewed asset to others in its folder. When previewing a photo the play button does n o t appear; only the navigat i on buttons remain.

Click the mute button to the right of the transport controls to toggle the audio associated with the clip. A volume slider appears next to the mute button when the mouse is over it.

Function buttons

Some buttons in the final group at the bottom of the Player appear only with particular asset types. A video file uses all four types, in the order shown and described here.

Here, data regarding a Library asset, a photo, is displayed in the Information view of the Player. Click the Info button again to return to the Playback view.

24 Avid Studio

Show Scenes: This button activates a mode in which the Browser displays a separate icon or text record for each scene in the video file. (As explained under Video scene detection, a scene in the most general sense is just any portion of a video file.)

When Show Scenes is active, the neighboring Open in media editor button is removed, and a Split scene button takes its place. This allows you to define your own scenes instead of, or as well as, relying on the automatic scene detection feature.

For more information about video scenes in the Library see “Video scene detection” on page 30.

Open in media editor: The media file is opened for editing in the correction editor appropriate for its type.

Full-screen: The preview is shown in a special full-screen window, with its own basic set of transport controls. To close the full-screen display, click

Esc

the close button in the top right corner of the window, or press Info: This button switches between the Player’s information and playback

views. The information view can be opened directly by clicking the info button on a media asset icon in the Browser. Audio assets have no separate

playback view; instead, full scrubbing controls are shown in the information view.

USING THE LIBRARY



The Library is much more than a passive storehouse of material for your Avid Studio productio ns .

Choosing what to display

The Library Browser has several features for decluttering your view by hiding assets that aren’t relevant to your purpose. No matter how numerous your media files, the combined power of these techniques can greatly speed your browsing.

Chapter 2: The Library 25

Location tabs

Most importantly, each location tab corresponds to a different selection on the Asset Tree. Like web browser tabs, location tabs are readily defined (by clicking on the ‘+’ icon at the right end of the tab list), and come in handy for keeping track of multiple things simultaneously.

Clicking within the Asset Tree sets the location for the current tab; conversely, clicking another tab transfers you to its saved location on the tree. Only the assets within the chosen location are displayed in the Browser. If the location has subfolders, however, their contents will be included. To keep things simple, choose a location as near the bottom of the folder hierarchy as possible.

Other controls let you restrict the display further b y filtering out some of the assets in the chosen location. Each location tab maintains its own set of filters, so any change of filtering settings affects the current tab only.

Filter by rating

The Filter by rating control at the top of the Library hides all assets that don’t have at least the specified rating from one to five stars (zero stars means ‘unrated’). To use the filter, simply click on the star that represents the minimum rating you want to bother with. The default filter setting is to show all assets regardless of rating.

See “Inadvertent filtering” (page 27) for instructions on switching off all filters at once. To deactivate just the rating filter click the last selected star or double-click any star.

In this close-up, three stars are highlighted, meaning that only assets with ratings of three stars or better are on display. The mouse is poised to click the fifth star, which would set the rating filter to hide all but fivestar assets.

26 Avid Studio

Filter by tags

Another way to narrow the field of displayed assets is with filtering by tags. Tags are keywords that you can assign to assets as you work. Once tags have been defined, you can use them in several ways to control which assets are displayed by the Browser. See “Tags” on page 28 for details.

At the top right of the Library is a search field that gives one further way to filter the display. As you begin entering your search term, the Browser continually updates the view to include only those assets with text that matches your search term.

Even when multiple terms are separated by spaces, partial-word as well as whole-word matches are allowed in each term. A dropdown list lets you choose whether the search will be satisfied if even a single search term matches the asset text, or if all terms must match.

Inadvertent filtering

The three filtering types can be combined at will. Should you leave any of the filtering types switched on when you don’t need it, it’s likely that some assets will be hidden that should be displayed. When an item is unexpectedly missing in the Browser, verify that filters are inactive.

The Browser guards against the possibility of inadvertent filtering by displaying a ‘filter alert’ that remains visible as long as any filter is in use.

A filter alert like the one shown here is displayed at the top of the Browser whenever filtering is in force. Click the x icon at the right-hand end to clear all filtering at once.

Chapter 2: The Library 27

Correcting media

You can apply the media correction tools in the video, photo and audio editors directly to Library assets. This kind of editing does not change the underlying files. Instead, the editing parameters are stored in the Library database and are reapplied whenever the asset is recalled. See Chapter 4: The media editors for details.

Video scene detection

Using the Library’s automatic scene detection function, video footage can be split into multiple scenes either au tomatically or manually. Dividing raw files into scene-length portions can make some editing tasks much less cumbersome than they w ould be otherwise.

The time required for scene detection varies depending on the length of the clip and the detection method selected. A progress bar keeps you informed of the status.

To initiate scene detection, select one of the methods on the Detect scenes context menu command for video assets.

30 Avid Studio

By date and time: This option often results in logical scene boundaries that reflect your intention while shooting. In many digital recording formats, such as DV and HDV, a discontinuity in the recorded timecode data occurs whenever the camera is restarted after bei ng stopped. These shooting breaks are treated as scene breaks under the option.

By content: Under this option, the scene detection tool analyzes the image content of the material frame by frame, and establishes a new scene whenever there is an abrupt change in content. However, a quick pan or rapid movement across the frame may produce some unneeded breaks.

By time interval: In this variant you define the length of the scenes to be created. A small editing window opens for entering the desired

Enter

value in hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds; press

to confirm

your input.

Show the scenes

To show the catalog of scenes for a particular video file, either select Show scenes from its context menu; or select the clip, then click the Show scenes

button that appears at the bottom right of the Library.

A single video file can contain many scenes. This makes the footage easier to manipulate during editing than if it were treated as a single segment. The scenes are visually indicated by stylized film perforations.

Chapter 2: The Library 31

Scene view is a temporary viewing mode. The orange bar at the top of th e Browser alerts you that scene view is active. At the right hand end of the bar is an x button you can use to terminate the mode. Click ing the Show scenes tool again has the same effect.

During editing, scene clips behave identically to other video clips.

Manually creating scenes

If you want to manually divide a video file into individual scenes, select Show scenes from the asset’s context menu. If you haven’t previously subdivided the file, it will now appear in the Browser as a single scene.

In the Library Player, navigate within the clip to each frame where a scene break should occur, then click the split scene button. See “Function buttons” on page 24 for further information.

Removing scenes

To empty the entire list of scenes for a video file, select Scene detection  Remove scenes on the asset’s context menu.

Delete

To remove individual scenes, select one or more scenes then press

SMARTSLIDE AND SMARTMOVIE



SmartSlide and SmartMovie are built-in project generators that allow you to create a slideshow or movie automatically based on media you supply. The created production will include animated transitions, a full music soundtrack and eye-catching image effects.

At the bottom of the Library window, click SmartSlide

for fast slideshows, or SmartMovie for fast movies.

To begin, select from the Library a series of photos (or other images) or video files. Your music might come from digital audio assets already in the Library, or you can cook up a soundtrack on the spot with the Scorefitter tool.

32 Avid Studio

That might be all it takes, though you can work on the project further with manual editing if you wish. Once you have a final product you like, it takes only a few clicks to burn it onto a disc o r save it as a file for other uses, such as upload to the web.

SmartSlide

To open the SmartSlide tool, click the SmartSlide button at the bottom of the Library window.

The SmartSlide controls are presented on a panel that slides up into the window from below. It contains three subpanels. The leftmost of these presents information about SmartSlide, and advice on how many files to include. The center subpanel is a storage area with bins for photos and other images (top) and audio. The right subpanel contains controls for customizing the show.

Adding media

To add images to the slideshow, drag them from the Browser into the upper bin in the storage area. Drag thumbnails within the storage area to get the order you want. Continue adding further images until you are satisfied.

To add music, drag one or more sound files to the lower bin in the storage area. Alternatively you can click the clef button in the bottom left corner of the audio bin to create a music soundtrack in ScoreFitter.

Preview, edit and export

Once your media are in place, click the Preview button on the footer bar below the tool. The project is created and presented in a preview window. If necessary, you can return to the SmartSlide tool to modify your media selections.

When you click the Preview button, the media you have chosen are automatically saved in a Collection named Latest Smart Creation. If you expect to make further use of this grouping of assets, rename the Collection to prevent it being overwritten the next time you look at a SmartSlide or SmartMovie preview.

Chapter 2: The Library 33

The Edit button brings your slideshow to the Movie Editor timeline for detailed editing. It’s a good idea to check that the timeline video settings match your requirements for the show. The video settings button on the settings panel (below) provides access to these. Also see“Timeline” on page

41.

When the presentation is the way you want it, click Export to burn a disc or create a file for upload.

The storage area

The photos in the upper bin are displayed as icons, while the music and sound files in the lower bin appear as text lines giving the file name and duration of each asset. Both bins support multiple selection, drag-and-drop reordering, and a context menu with just two commands:

Delete selected: The selected media are removed from the SmartSlide production. They remain available in the Library for other uses. (Shortcut: Delete

Open editor: This command opens the Corrections tool of the Photo Editor or the Audio Editor. Any modifications you make to the media apply only within this SmartSlide production. (Shortcut: double-click.)

SmartSlide settings

The settings on this subpanel are for customizing the SmartSlide production.

The settings entered will be used the next time the slideshow is generated. The video settings button lets you set up the timeline options that will apply if you take the production into the Movie Editor. The clear project button removes all media from the project and returns to default settings.

Title: Enter a caption to be used as the main title of the slideshow. Adjust length to music: When this op tion is checked, SmartSlide attempts

to adjust its timing p arameters so that the generated s lideshow lasts exactly as long as the music soundtrack you have specified. The information subpanel provides advice about how many images to employ when the option is in force.

34 Avid Studio

Pan and zoom: Checking this option enlivens your presentation with simulated camera moves.

Fit image: Check this option to enlarge images that are too small for the selected format. For a more flexible approach, you can also consider correcting the asset with the Crop corrections tool.

Here the mouse pointer selects chronological order on the Media Order list of the SmartSlide settings panel. At the bottom of the panel are buttons for adjusting video settings for the generated project, and for starting over from scratch.

Media order: Select an option for the order of slides, from ‘As defined’ (the sequence is set by you), ‘Chronological’ (according to the file timestamp), and ‘Random’.

SmartMovie

To open the SmartMovie tool, click the SmartMovie button at the bottom of the Library window.

SmartMovie, like SmartSlide, presents its controls on a panel that slides up into the Library from below. Again there are three subpanels. The leftmost presents information and advice concerning your SmartMovie. The center subpanel is a storage area with bins for video and photos (top) and audio. The right subpanel contains controls for customizing the show.

Chapter 2: The Library 35

Adding media

The visual elements in your SmartMovie can include photos and other still images along with the video. Drag the assets you want to use from the Browser into the upper bin in the storage area. You can also drag thumbnails within the storage area to get the order you want. Continue adding further material until you are satisfied.

As media are added, the total running time of the source material is displayed in the top-left corner of the bin. This is not necessarily the length of the resulting movie.

Preview, edit and export

Having placed your media, click Preview on the footer bar below the tool. The project is created and opened in a preview window. If necessary, you can return to SmartMovie to modify your media selections.

The analysis phase of generating a SmartMovie may take some time to complete the first time the material is analysed. Full rendering of the project, with progress indicated by shading on the time-ruler of the Player, may introduce an additional delay before a fully-detailed preview is available.

When you click Preview, the media you have chosen are automatically saved in a Collection named Latest Smart Creation. If you expect to make further use of this grouping of assets, rename the Collection to prevent it being overwritten the next time you generate a SmartSlide or SmartMovie preview.

The Edit button brings your production to the Movie Editor timeline for detailed editing. As usual, it’s a good idea to check that the timeline video settings match your requirements for the show. The video settings button on the settings panel (below) provides access to these. Also see“The project timeline” on page 41.

When the presentation is the way you want it, click Export to burn a disc or create a file for upload.

36 Avid Studio

The storage area

The visual assets in the upper bin are displayed as icons, while the music and sound files in the lower bin appear as text lines giving the file name and duration of each asset. Both bins support multiple selection, drag-and-drop reordering, and a short context menu:

Delete selected: The selected media are removed from the SmartMovie production. They remain available in the Library for other uses. (Shortcut: Delete

Open editor: This command opens the Corrections tool of the Video Editor, the Photo Editor or the Audio Editor. Any modifications you make to the media apply only within this SmartMovie. (Shortcut: double-click.)

SmartMovie settings

The settings on this subpanel are for customizing the SmartMovie production.

Here the mouse pointer selects the ‘long’ Clip Length setting on the SmartMovie settings panel. At the bottom of the panel are buttons for adjusting video settings for the generated project, and for starting over from scratch.

The settings entered will be used the next time the movie is generated. The video settings button lets you set up the timeline options that will apply if you take the production into the Movie Editor. The clear project button removes all media from the project and returns to default settings.

Title: Enter a caption to be used as the main title of the movie. Clip lengths: The visual tempo of your movie increases as the clip length

is shortened. To use the original length of the asset, choose Maximum.

Chapter 2: The Library 37

Pan and zoom: Checking this option enlivens your presentation with simulated camera moves.

Fit image: Check this option to enlarge material that is too small for the frame format of your project.

Video volume: Set the volume of the original audio in the video segments you are using. If you want the soundtrack to contain background music only, set this value to zero.

38 Avid Studio

CHAPTER 3:

The Movie Editor

The Movie Editor is Avid Studio’s main editing screen for digital movie creation. The editor brings together three main components:

The Library, in its compact view, provides the assets available to your project.

The project timeline lets you organize the assets as clips within a schematic representation of your production.

A portion of the Movie Editor display, with the compact view of the Library at upper left, the Player at upper right (partly visible), and at bottom the timeline and the Navigator.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 39

The Player lets you preview Library assets before adding them to your project. It also lets you view – on a frame-by-frame basis if you like – how any part of the production will actually appear to you r audience when you export it (save it as a file or upload it to YouTube).

In addition, the Movie Editor calls upon a variety of tools and windows for creating and editing titles, adding effects, and other purposes.

Disc editing

If you plan ultimately to release your movie on DVD with interactive menus, you will at some point need the special features of the Disc Editor. It provides all the same timeline editing features as the Movie Editor, but also lets you create and work on the disc menus with which users will navigate your product i on.

Avid Studio lets you smoothly transition a movie to a disc project at any time during development, so it’s all right to start in the Movie Editor even if you end up targeting DVD for output instead of or as well as the other options. Please turn to Chapter 9: Disc projects for information about the special features provided for disc authoring. The other aspects of timeline editing are covered in this and subsequent chapters.

The compact Library

The compact view of the Library, which uses the top left of the Movie Editor screen, is a core feature of the editing environment. If you switch back and forth between the Library and the Movie Editor, you will see that the same location tab is selected in both views, and that the same Library assets are on display.

With the compact Library and the timeline together in the same window, adding assets to your movie becomes a breeze: just drag the items you want from the Library Browser onto the project timeline.

Slideshow productions

In addition to all types of video productions – ‘movies’ – the Movie Editor (and the Disc Editor) can be used for authoring complex slideshows and presentations from still images. The same editing techniques apply in both cases.

40 Avid Studio

THE PROJECT TIMELINE



The timeline is where you create your movie, by adding video, photo and audio assets from the Library, by editing and trimming these core media, and by enlivening them with transitions, effects, and other enhancements.

Timeline fundamentals

The timeline consists of multiple tracks – as many as you require – in a vertical stack. Tracks nearer the top of the stack are positioned towards the front when viewed, their opaque parts obscuring the tracks below.

The basic action of movie authoring is to drag an asset from the Library to a timeline track, where it is called a clip. With a little pr actice, you can lay out a rough edit of a movie very quickly just by adding its main media assets at their approximate timeline positions.

At the left end of the timeline are track headers with several controls per track: a lock button, the track name, and monitoring buttons for the track’s video and audio. Here the current default track is ‘Main’.

The track header: To the left of each track is a header area that provides access to functions such as disabling video or audio monitoring for the track.

The default track: One track is highlighted with lighter background color, and is also marked with an orange bar to the left of the track header. This is the default track. It has a special role in certain editing procedures; for

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 41

instance, it serves as the target track for paste operations. To make another track the default track, simply click in its header.

Your current position on the timeline corresponds to the video frame shown in the Player when it is in Timeline mode. The current position is indicated by a vertical red line, at the top of which is a draggable scrubber handle. Another vertical line marks the same position in the Navigator (see below).

The toolbar

Above the tracks, the timeline toolbar provides several clusters of editingrelated tools. (In the Disc Editor, the toolbar also includes tools specifically for disc authoring.)

The Navigator

Below the tracks, the timeline Navigator shows a bird’s-eye view of your whole project at a reduced scale. The bars representing clips have the same colors as on the timeline, except that the bar representing the selected clip is drawn in orange. Clicking in the Navigator allows you to speedily visit any timeline location.

A portion of the Navigator view window, showing the current position (vertical line, left) and a sizing handle (right).

The orange rectangle that encloses a portion of the Navigator display – the view window – indicates the section of your movie currently visible on the timeline tracks.

To change which part of the movie is in view, click and drag horizontally within the view window. The timeline sc rolls in parallel as you drag. Since your timeline position does not change, this may take the scrubber out of view.

Zoom

To change the zoom level of the timeline, either click and drag horizontally in the time-ruler along the top of the timeline, or drag the sides of the view window. The first method has the advantage that it always leaves the screen

42 Avid Studio

position of the play line undisturbed, which may make it easier to orient yourself after the zoom.

To change the zoom of the Navigator itself, use the plus and minus buttons immediately to its right.

Double-clicking on the view window adjusts the zoom of both the Navigator and the timeline such that your entire movie fits within the Movie Editor window.

Resizing

The height of the timeline, along with the relative proportions of the Library and the Player, can be adjusted with the sizing grip in the form of an inverted T in the middle of the screen.

To adjust the height of individual timeline tracks, grab and adjust the separator lines between the track headers on the left. If the vertical size of all tracks exceeds the available viewing area, a scroll bar at the right will allow you to select which tracks are in view.

Set the height of the Navigator by vertically dragging the horizontal separator across the top.

The timeline toolbar

The toolbar above the timeline offers various settings, tools and functions that apply to the timeline and timeline editing.

Timeline settings

By default your timeline settings are copied from the first video clip you add to the timeline. If that will give the right result, you won’t have to alter them.

If you do want to change them, click the leftmost button on the toolbar to open the Timeline Resolution window and configure the three settings provided.

Aspect: Choose between a 4x3 and a 16x9 display. Size: Choose amongst the HD and SD pixel resolutions available for the

given aspect ratio.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 43

Frame rate: Choose from a selection of frame rates consistent with the other settings.

Timeline settings

These settings can be changed at any time during development of your movie, but you should be aware that a change of the frame rate can cause a slight shifting of clips on the timeline as they adjust to new frame boundaries.

Video material that is not in compliance with the chosen project settings will be converted automatically on being added to the timeline.

If you want to choose a video standard for your projects explicitly, rather than relying on inheriting the format from the first clip added, open the Project settings page of the application settings. See “Project settings” on page 238.

Audio mixer

This button opens the enhanced audio control area with volume adjustment tools and access to the Panner, a surround panning control. See “Timeline audio functions” on page 49 for details.

Scorefitter

Scorefitter is the integrated music generator of Avid Studio, providing you with custom-composed, royalty-free music exactly adjusted to the duration required for your movie. See “Scorefitter” on page

164.

Title

The Create title button opens the Title Editor. If none of the many supplied titles answers your need, why not author one of your own? See “The Title Editor” on page 117.

44 Avid Studio

Voice-over

The voice-over tool lets you record commentary or other audio content live while viewing your movie. See “The Voice over tool” on page 165.

Razor blade

To split one or more clips at the play line position, click the razor blade button. No material is deleted by this operation, but each

affected clip becomes two clips that can be handled separately with respect to trimming, moving, adding effects and so on.

If there are selected clips at the play line on any track, only those clips will be split. Both parts of those clips remain selected after the split.

If there are no selected clips at the play line, all clips intersected by it will be split and the right-hand parts w ill be selected to facilitate easy removal in case that is desired.

Locked tracks are exempt from the split operation.

Trash can

Click the trash can button to delete all selected items from the timeline. See “Deleting clips” on page 54 for details on how other timeline clips may be affected by the deletion.

Markers

The marker functions available here are identical to those provided in the media editors for video and audio. Please see “Markers” on page 88.

Instead of being attached to a particular clip, however, timeline markers are considered to belong to the video composite at the marked point. Only if there is a clip selection embracing all tracks at the marked point, and only if no track is locked, will the markers change positions during timeline editing.

Magnetic snapping

Magnet mode simplifies the insertion of clips during dragging. While the mode is active, clips are ‘magnetically’ drawn to other items on the timeline when they approach within a critical distance. This makes it easy to avoid the unnecessary – though often indiscernib ly small –

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 45

gaps between items that are otherwise apt to arise during editing. If you want to deliberately create such a gap, however, simply turn off the mode to allow the preferred placement.

Volume keyframe editing

The volume keyframe editing button toggles keyframe-based editing of clip audio. While the button is engaged, the green volume contour on each timeline clip becomes editable. In this mode you can add control points to the contour, drag contour sections, and other operations. While the button is off, the volume keyframes are protected against modification.

Opening the Audio Mixer automatically activates the button.

Audio scrubbing

By default, the audio portion of a project can be heard only during playback in the preview. The audio scrubbing button on the timeline toolbar provides an audio preview even while just ‘scrubbing’ through your movie by dragging the timeline scrubber control.

The shuttle wheel of the Player also provides audio scrubbing.

Editing mode

The editing mode selector at the right-hand end of the timeline toolbar determines the behavior of other clips when editing changes are made. Material to th e left of the edit point is never affected in timeline editing, so this applies only to clips that extend rightward from the edit point.

Three choices of editing mode are available: smart, insert and overwrite. The default is smart, in which Avid Studio selects from insert, overwrite and sometimes more complex strategies in the context of each editing operation.

Smart mode is designed to maintain synchronization between timeline tracks as far as possible. In a multitrack editing situation, clips typically have vertical as well as horizontal relationships. When you have carefully placed your cuts to coincide with the beats of a music track, for example, you don’t want to disrupt everything when you make additional edits.

Insert mode is always non-destructive: it moves other clips on the track out of the way before inserting new material. It will also automatically clo se

46 Avid Studio

gaps created by removing material. Only the target track is affected. Any prior synchronization with other tracks from the edit point rightwards is lost.

Insert is most useful in the early stages of a project, when you are collecting and arranging clips on the timeline. It ensures that no material will be lost, and makes it very easy to reorder clips and sequences of clips.

In the later stages, when the structure of your project is approaching its final state and you have started carefully synchronizing material on different tracks, insert mode is less helpful. The very properties that favor its use for the early stages (the ‘ripple’ behavior) count against it when finalizing. This is where overwrite comes into play.

Overwrite d irectly affects only the clip s you select. Changing the length or position of a clip in overwrite mode will o verwr ite neighb oring clip s (if you lengthen) or leave gaps (if you shorten). It will never affect the synchronization between tracks.

Alternative mode

The smart editing mode works by predicting what you’re trying to do and determining whether insert, overwrite or even some more complex strategy would be best to apply. You’ll find it usually does what you want, but there are sure to be other times when you have something else in mind.

Many actions support both insert and overwrite, but no other possibilities. Smart mode will use sometimes one and sometimes the other, but if insert isn’t what you want, overwrite usually is, and vice versa. All you need, therefore, is a method of overriding smart mode’s default beha vior.

To change insert to overwrite behavior, or overwrite to insert, hold down

Alt key while carrying out your edit as usual. You can press (or release)

the Alt

as you please while setting up the edit: what counts is the state of the key at the instant the operation is finally enacted – when you drop dragged items on the timeline, for example.

The trick works in all editing modes, so it’s always available when you need it. If you are not satisfied with the default behavior, just cancel or

undo as needed, then try again with

Alt

In one timeline editing operation – that of replacing one clip by another

key

while retaining its duration, effects and other properties – the takes on a similar role. See “Replacing a clip” on page for details.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 47

Shift

The timeline track header

In the header area of the timeline are a number of controls affecting the arrangement and organization of the timeline tracks. These are covered here, while the audio functions controlled from the timeline header, such as track volume, are described starting on page 156.

The all tracks area above the track headers offers controls similar to those found on each track header but with global effect: they apply to all tracks simultaneously, overruling the individual settings.

Default track

The orange vertical line to the left of the track header, together with a lighter background shade, identifies the default track. It provides a destination track for certain functions, including send to and paste. Newlycreated titles and Scorefitter songs are also added on this track. For more information see “Sending to the timeline” (page 53), “Using the Clipboard” (page 64), “The Title Editor” (page 117) and “ScoreFitter” (page 164).

To make another track the default track, simply click anywhere within the track header boundarie s other than on a button or other control.

Locking

Click the padlock buttons to protect a track from unintended edits. The same button in the all tracks area confers this protection on the whole project.

Track name

To edit the name of a track, click the name once to access the in-place editor, or select Edit track name from the track header context menu. Confirm your edit with

Enter, or cancel it with Esc

Video and audio monitoring

The video and audio buttons in the track header control whether this track contributes its video and audio to the composite output of the project. They support the many editing situations in which it is advantageous to block the output of one or more tracks in order to simplify the preview. The same

48 Avid Studio

buttons in the all tracks area toggle audio and video monitoring for the entire project.

Additional track functions

The following functions are available in the track-header context menu: New track: You can insert a new track either above or below the existing

track.

Delete track: Delete a track and all clips on it. Move track: Drag the track header up or down to a new layer position. As

you drag, a bright horizontal line appears at valid placements.

Ctrl

Copy track: Keeping the the track instead of move it.

Track size: The context menu contains four fixed track sizes (Small, Medium, Large, Very large). For custom sizing, drag the separator line

between the track headers to seamlessly adjust the height. View waveforms: Toggle the waveform view for audio clips.

key p ressed while moving a track will copy

Timeline audio functions

Please see “Audio on the timeline” on page 156 for coverage of these functions.

EDITING MOVIES



The first step in any movie editing session is to bring your project into the Movie Editor to begin wo rk.

To launch a -new production: Choose File  New  Movie from the main menu. Before adding your first clip, make sure that the timeline video format will be right for the project (see below).

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 49

To edit an existing movie: Select a recent project from th e File  Recent menu; click File  Open  Movie to browse for a movie project to open; or locate the movie you want to open in the Projects  Movies folder of the Library.

To open a Pinnacle Studio project: Choose File  Import previous Studio projects. Please note that some features of your Pinnacle Studio project

may not be supported in Avid Studio.

Timeline settings

To start editing a new project, verify that the video format settings of your project – aspect ratio, frame-size and playback speed – are as you want them. You can choose in the Project settings tab of the application settings to set the values of these properties automatically by matching the f irst clip added to the project. You can also set them manually. See “Project settings” on page 238 for configuring the automatic feature, and “The timeline toolbar” on page 43 for instructions on entering project settings manually.

Depending on your timeline settings, clips in some formats might not be instantly playable. Such content will automatically be rendered in an appropriate format.

Establishing tracks

With only minor exceptions, timeline tracks in Avid Studio do not have specialized roles. Any clip can be placed on any track. As your projects become more complex, however, you will find it increasingly helpful to give some thought to the organization of tracks, and rename them according to their function in the movie. For information on track properties and how to edit them, please see “The timeline track header” on page 48.

Adding clips to the timeline

Most types of Library asset can be brought onto the timeline as independent clips. The types include video and audio clips, photos, graphics, Scorefitter songs, Montage and Titles. You can even add your other movie projects as container clips that work just like video clips in your project. Disc projects, however, cannot be added as container clips to a timeline, since they require a capability – user interactivity – that timeline clips don’t have.

50 Avid Studio

Drag-and-drop

Drag-and-drop is the commonest and usually the most convenient method of adding material to a project. Click any asset in the Movie Editor’s compact view of the Library and drag it wherever you like on the timeline.

When crossing into the timeline area during the drag and continuing to the target track, watch for the appearance of a vertical line under the mouse pointer. The line indicates where the first frame of the clip would be inserted if dropped immediately. The line is drawn in green if the drop would be valid, and red if it would not be possible to insert a clip where indicated (because the track is protected, for example).

It is possible to insert multiple clips into the timeline at the same time. Simply select the desired Library assets, then drag any one of them t o the timeline. The sequence in which the clips appear on the track corresponds to their ordering in the Library (not the order in which you selected them).

Magnet mode: By default, magnet mode is switched on. This makes it easier to insert clips so that their edges meet exactly. The new clip snaps to certain positions, like the ends of clips or the positions of markers, as if drawn by a magnet once the mouse pointer gets close to the potential target.

On the other hand, don’t worry about whether the first clip is right at the start of the timeline. Not every movie starts with a hard cut to the first scene!

Live editing preview

In order to eliminate the confusion created by complex editing situations, Avid Studio provides a full dynamic preview of the results of editing operations as you drag clips around on the timeline. If things seem to jump around a bit more than you’re used to during timeline editing, this is the cause. Don’t worry: you will quickly get used to and learn to take advantage of the extra information provided. Take it slowly at first. Watch the changes on the timeline as you hover the dragged item over various possible landing places, and complete the drop when you see the result you want.

If it turns out that drag-and-drop isn’t working the way you want, either

Esc or move the mouse pointer out of the timeline area and release the

press button. Either of these abandons the drag-and-drop operation. To call back

Ctrl

a drag-and-drop after it’s complete, press Don’t forget that you can vary many timeline editing operations with

alternative mode: just press and hold one-for-one clip replacement (see “Replacing a clip”, below), significant.

+Z or click the undo button.

Alt while dragging or trimming. In a

Shift is also

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 51

Advanced drag-and-drop

After you have assembled an assortment of clips on a timeline track, it’s only matter of time before you want to start changing things around. For instance, you might want to:

• Fill a gap with clips.

• Insert some clips before a specific clip.

• Replace a clip already on the timeline with a different one.

The smart editing mode helps you achieve any of these goals with ease.

Filling a gap

Smart mode makes it simple to fill a particular timeline gap with new material, for example. Rather than having to painstakingly pre-trim the new material to the space available, you simply drag items into the gap. Any clips that are not needed for filling the gap will be dropped, and the last clip used will automatically be trimmed to the appropriate length. No existing clips are affected, so no synchronization problems can result.

Inserting clips

Suppose that your goal is to add new material to the timeline at a point where there is an existing clip. You don’t want the clip already there to be overwritten, however; you just want it (and any clips to its right) to move rightwards far enough to make room for the new material.

Here again, smart editing provides a painless answer. Simply drag the new material to the start of the clip that is in the way, rather than into a gap. The clip moves aside exactly as far as necessary.

Inserting with split

If you drop an item onto the middle of an existing clip, rather than at a cut, the clip will be split. The new material is inserted at the point you specified, and is followed immediately by the displaced portion of the original clip.

In smart mode, synchronization of the target track with all other tracks is maintained by inserting in each of them a gap of length equal to the new clip. To avoid affecting the other tracks in this way, use insert instead of smart mode. Alternatively, pressing cause it to overwrite a portion of the existing clip. A third approach is to lock any track that should not be modified, although this will affect the synchronization of clips on locked tracks with those on unlocked tracks.

52 Avid Studio

Alt as you drop the new material will

Replacing a clip

To replace a clip, drag a single Library asset onto the clip you want to replace while holding down effects and transitions that were applied to the orig inal clip. Correction s are not inherited, however, since they are usually meant to address the issues of a particular media item.

In smart mode, the replace operation will succeed only if the Library clip is long enough to cover the full length of the clip being replaced. In other modes a Library clip of insufficient length will be extended using over- trimming. The direction and amount of the extension is based on your mouse position as you drag. For information on over-trimming, please see page

56.

If the Library asset is longer th an needed, it will be truncated to the same length as the clip being replaced.

Shift

. The replacement clip will inherit any

Sending to the timeline

In addition to dragging a clip to the timeline, you can ‘send’ it to the default track at the position of the play line. The operation is equivalent to drag- and-drop, so smart mode is applied accordingly when deciding how other clips will be affected.

The Send to timeline command is found on the context menu of an individual asset or multiple selection in the compact view of the Library.

Sending from the Player

There is also a second ‘send’ method that provides greater control. If you click on a Library asset when working in the Movie Editor, the

Player switches to Source mode for previewing. For trimmable media (video and audio), the Player also provides trim calipers for cutting out a starting or ending portion of the asset.

Clicking the Send To Timeline button in the Player

after trimming a Library video asset.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 53

After previewing the asset and trimming it if required, use the send to timeline button at the bottom left of the Player. As usual, the asset is added

to the project on the default track and at the play line. A useful variation is to drag the send to timeline button itself onto the timeline track. The asset is then added at the drop point rather than at the play line.

Title Editor, Scorefitter, voice-over

These three functions add new clips to the project timeline, clips that are not underpinned by any Library asset. Instead, they are created from settings and other actions you take during editing.

Once your editing is complete, both titles and ScoreFitter clips will be sent to the default track on the timeline using the Send to timeline function, while voice-over clips will go to the special voice-over track instead. For details please see Chapter 7: The Title Editor (page 117), “Scorefitter” (page 164) and “The voice-over tool” (page 165).

Deleting clips

To delete one or more clips, first select them, then press Delete Alternatively, click the trash can icon on the timeline toolbar, or choose Delete from the selection’s context menu.

In smart mode, if the deletion produces a gap that spans all tracks, it is closed by shifting material to the right of the gap lef twards. This lets you avoid accidentally creating empty sections in your movie, while still ensuring that synchronization between tracks is maintained.

Alt

If the unclosed.

In insert mode, gaps on the tracks from which clips are deleted will also be closed, but other tracks will be unaffected. No effort is made to preserve synchronization to the right of the deletion.

With regard to synchronization, the safest editing mode for deletion is overwrite, which will simply remove the clips and leave everything else unchanged.

54 Avid Studio

key is held down when deleting, any gaps produced will be left

Clip operations

The project timeline provides comprehensive support for selecting, adjusting, trimming, moving and copying clips.

Selecting

Select clips in preparation for performing editing operations upon them. A selected clip receives an orange frame and is displayed as solid orange in the Navigator.

To select one clip, click it with the mouse. Any previous selections are removed. For a fast multiple selection, click in an open timeline area then drag out a selection frame that intersects the clips of interest. To select all

Ctrl

clips with one command, press To clear a selection click into any gap area of the timeline.

Multiple selection with keyboard and mouse

To create more complex multiple selections, left-click while pressing Shift, Ctrl

or both together.

+A.

To select a series of clips: Click on the first and two clips together define a bounding rectangle, or selection frame, within which all clips are selected.

Toggle selection of one clip: Use a single clip without affecting any of the others.

Select rest of track: Press after the start position of the clicked clip. This function is particularly useful if you quickly want to get the rest of your timeline ‘out-of-the w ay’ for inserting new material, or to manually ripple left to close timeline gaps.

Ctrl

Ctrl+Shift

-click to reverse the selection state of

-click to select all clips that start at or

-click on the last. The

Shift

Adjusting

As you move your mouse pointer slowly over the clips on your timeline, you will notice that it changes to an arrow symbol while crossing the sides of each clip, an indication that you can click and drag to adjust the clip boundary.

Adjusting changes the length of a single clip on the timeline in overwrite mode (since insert mode would cause synchronization issues). If you drag

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 55

the start of a clip to the right, a gap will be opened on the left side. If there is a clip to the immediate left of the clip being adjusted, dragging to th e lef t overwrites it.

The adjustment pointer also appears when the mouse hovers at the ends of a gap – an empty space on a timeline track with at least one clip to its right.

It turns out that adjusting gaps in overwrite mode, as we do for clips, is not especially helpful. However, gaps do come in handy when you’re editing in smart mode if you want to ripple an individual track left or right, ignoring any resulting synchronization issues. Adjusting gaps therefore occurs in insert mode.

Even if no gap is available, incidentally, you can get the same result by

Alt

holding

while adjusting the sides of a clip.

Over-trimming

Over-trimming occurs when you try to extend the duration of a clip beyond the limits of its source material, a situation you typically want to avoid.

Notice that if you have over-trimmed your clip the invalid parts are shown in pink.

Overtrimmed clip: The first and last frames

will be frozen in the over-trimmed sections.

Over-trimming is not a crisis situation. You do not need to take action immediately. Avid Studio will simply extend the clip as specified by ‘freezing’ the first and last frames of the clip into the over-trimmed areas.

Depending on the duration of the over-trim, and the context, this simple approach may be all you need. A brief freeze-frame can even be visually effective in its own right.

The freeze-frame method will probably not give satisfactory results if it happens during a sequence involving rapid motion, however. In such exacting cases you might consider supplementing or replacing the clip, or prolonging it with the Speed function. (See “Speed” on page 65.)

56 Avid Studio

Trimming

Changing the length of clips or gaps on the timeline is called ‘trimming’. Multitrack trimming is a valuable editing skill. By tr imming multip le tracks

at once, you can assure that the clips coming later on the project timeline maintain their relative synchronization.

Trimming clips without consideration for content later on the timeline can disrupt the synchronization of your project. Soundtracks that don’t match the action and badly-timed titles are the kinds of problem that may result.

Multiple track trimming

A rule for staying in sync

Avid Studio has powerful trimming tools to allow you to perform multitrack trimming without risk. Fortunately, there is a simple rule for safeguarding synchronization even on a complex timeline: open exactly one trim point on every track. Whether the trim poin t is attached to a clip or a gap, and at which end, are up to you.

Opening trim points

Move the mouse pointer to the beginning or end of a clip. No tice that the trim pointer faces left at the start of the clip and right at the end.

While the trim pointer is showing, click once at the point you want to trim. Then continue to open trim points on other clips if required.

Ctrl

You can open two trim points per track by holding down the create the second point. This feature is useful for the trim both, slip trim, and slide trim operations, all described below.

You can also open a trim point by positioning the timeline scrubber near the cut you want to trim, then clicking the toggle trim mode button on the timeline toolbar.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 57

key to

When a trim point is opened several things happen:

• The left or right edge of the clip is highlighted with an orange bar.

• The toggle trim mode button becomes active.

• The transport controls under the Player become trim adjustment tools.

• You will see an orange outline around your preview to alert you that you

are now in trim mode.

Trim mode with trim adjust buttons

Closing trim mode

Trim mode can be closed either by clicking in a gray area away from the trim points, or by clicking the toggle trim mode button.

Editing modes

The current editing mode – smart, overwrite or insert – determines how trimming will affect other clips on the timeline. Select the mode from the dropdown list at the far right of the timeline toolbar.

58 Avid Studio

Insert mode: Clips to the right of a trimmed clip and on the same track will shift left or right to accommodate the new length of the clip. Synchronization with other tracks may be lost, but no clips are overwritten.

Overwrite mode: Only the clips you are trimming, and any neighboring clips they happen to overwrite, are altered in this mode. Synchronization across tracks is not affected.

Smart mode: During trimming, smart mode is equivalent to insert mode.

Trimming the beginning of a clip

Prepare to trim the beginning of a clip (the ‘mark-in’ point) by clicking at the left-hand edge of the clip while the trim pointer is v isible. With a trim point thus established, you can add or remove frames from the beginning of the clip.

To trim on the clip, drag the trim point to the left or right. To trim on the Player, use the trim buttons to trim one or ten frames either

forwards or backwards. Click the loop play button for a looping preview of the trim region.

In-point trim selected

Trimming the end of the clip

To trim the end of the clip (or ‘mark-out’ point), open a trim point by clicking at the right-hand edge of a clip when the mouse pointer changes to a rightward-pointing arrow. Now you can add or remove frames from the end of your clip.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 59

Once again you can trim directly on the clip by dragging the trim point, or on the Player while it remains in trim mode.

Out-point trim selected

Trimming gaps

The project timeline lets you trim not just the clips upon it but also the gaps between them. Trimming gaps might not sound terribly useful at first, but is in fact handy. For instance, the easiest way to insert or delete space on a single timeline track is to trim the right-hand edge of a gap. All clips to the right of the gap are shifted as a block when this is done.

Two gaps selected and an audio out point trim

Also, when you need to open a trim point on each track in order to maintain synchronization while trimming, you may often choose to trim the duration

60 Avid Studio

of a gap rather than that of a clip. (Remember the rule: one trim point on every track is required for keeping in sync.)

Trimming a gap, whether at the start or the end, is accomplished in exactly the same way described above for trimming a clip.

Trim both

In this operation, two adjacent clips (or a clip and an adjacent gap) are trimmed simultaneously. Any frames added to the left-hand item are taken away from the one on the right, and vice versa, as long as space and material are available. All you are moving is the cut-point where the items meet. One application for this technique is adjusting visual cuts to the beat of a music soundtrack.

To start, click at the end of the left-hand clip to open the first trim point,

Ctrl

then When positioned over the adjacent trim points you just opened, the mouse

pointer should be a horizontal two-headed arrow. Drag left or right to move the clip boundary, or use the Player in trim mode.

-click at the beginning of the right-hand clip to open the second.

Trim both: Adjacent out and in trim-points have been selected

Slip trim

To change the starting frame of a clip within the source material, but leave its duration unchanged, open one trim point at the start of a clip, and another at the end of either the same clip or one later on its timeline track.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 61

Drag either trim point horizontally or use the Player trim controls to reposition the clip within its source.

Slip trim: In and out trim-points of clip selected

Slide trim

A slide trim is an extended version of the trim both technique described above. In this case you open trim-points at the end of one clip and the beginning of another later on th e timeline. Instead of sliding a single clip boundary along the timeline, as in trim both, you are sliding two that move together. All clips between the two trim points are repositioned earlier or later on the timeline.

Slide trim: An out trim-point has been opened

on the first clip, and an in-point on the third

62 Avid Studio

Both slip trimming and slide trimming can be useful for synchronizing clip contents to material on other tracks.

Monitoring trim points

When you are trimming with multiple trim points, it is helpful to switch the preview from one trim location to another to make sure that each is properly set. Selecting a trim-point for monitoring makes it the source for audio and video during preview.

Opening a trim-point causes it to be monitored. When multiple trim-points are involved, therefore, you can check on each one as it is created. To select a trim-point for monitoring directly,

Tab

pressing

cycles through the open p oi nts.

Ctrl-click it. While trim mode is active,

Moving and copying

To move a selection of one or more clips, place the mouse pointer on any selected clip and watch for it to change to a hand symbol. When it does, start dragging the clip to the desired position.

Move can be thought of as a two-step process. First, the selection is deleted from the current timeline, according to the rules of the current edit mode. Second, the selection is moved to the desired end position, where it is inserted in a left-to-right fashion per track. The relative position of all selected clips on all tracks is retained.

Moving a ‘sparse selection’ (a selection in which some clips per track are selected while others in the same region are not) is possible, but may be confusing unless executed in overwrite mode. Moving either single clips or a complete timeline cross-section is more straightforward and should be preferred when possible.

Alt

Holding down the insert and overwrite modes. Standard smart operation is the same as insert, since the most frequent use of horizontal moves is to reorder the playback sequence.

key while moving clips allows you to toggle between

Copy

Holding down the clips instead of moving them.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 63

Ctrl key while moving a selection of clips, will copy the

Using the Clipboard

Although drag-and-drop operations provide somewhat greater power when dealing with clips, the timeline does support the standard Clipboard operations cut, copy and paste, with the usual shortcut keys. The Clipboard also provides the only method for moving and copying transitions and effects between clips.

From the Library

After selecting one or more clips in the Library, select Copy from the

Ctrl

selection’s context menu or press application’s Clipboard. (Cut, the other usual command for adding to the Clipboard, is not available in the Library.)

On the project timeline, position the play line at the point where the paste operation should begin, and select the desired track by clicking in its header.

+C to put the selection on the

Now press Ctrl track, starting at the play line.

If you select Paste from the timeline’s context menu rather than pressing Ctrl

+V, the clips will be pasted at the mouse pointer position on the default

track, not at the play line. You can rep eat the paste operation with the same set of clips as often as

desired.

+V to insert the clips from the Clipboard onto the given

From the timeline

Select one or more clips on the timeline, then click either Copy or Cut on the selection’s context menu, or press commands add the clips to the Clipboard; Cut removes the original clips from the project, while Copy leaves them in place.

Paste the Clipboard contents onto the timeline as described above. The clips paste onto the same tracks as they originally occupied; and with the same horizontal spacing. Unlike drag-and-drop, the Clipboard does not support moving clips between tracks.

64 Avid Studio

Ctrl+C ( copy) or Ctrl

+X (cut). Both

Effects on the Clipboard

Clips to which effects have been added have a magenta line along the upper edge. Right-click the line to access the Effect context menu, which provides Cut all and Copy all commands for transferring or sharing a set of effects

Ctrl

between clips. Select one or more target clips, then press Paste on the timeline context menu.

The effects stack will be pasted to all selected clips. The target clips retain any effects they may already have had. The pasted effects stack will be placed on top of the existing effects.

+V or click

Transitions on the Clipboard

Right-click in the transition area in the upper corner at the start or end of a clip to access the Transition context menu. Select Cut or Copy to put the transition on the Clipboard.

As with effects, transitions can be pasted to one or more target clips, but any existing transition of the type (start or end) being pasted will be overwritten. The paste fails if the duration of the transition on the Clipboard is longer than the target clip.

Speed

The Speed Control window is launched by selecting Speed  Add or Speed  Edit in the context menu of a timeline video or audio clip. You can adjust

the settings to produce any degree of slow motion or fast motion over a wide range.

The actual playback speed of your project always remains the same. It is set once and for all by the frames per second rate in your project settings. To achieve slow motion, new frames are interpolated between the original ones; for fast motion, some source frames are suppressed.

The options provided on the dialog are divided into several groups.

Constant

Select the clip playback speed as a value from 10 to 500 percent relative to the original material. Anything under 100 percent is slow motion.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 65

Anchor: When Constant is selected, the clip is anchored to the timeline by a specified frame during trimming operations. You can choose the first or last frame of the clip, or the frame indicated by the current position of the play line, to serve as the anchor. This can be useful for coordinating action between the speed-affected clip and material such as background music on other tracks.

Stretch

Under this option, the first and last frames of the clip as currently trimmed will remain locked when the clip is trimmed on the timeline. Shortening the clip, instead of trimming material from the end, speeds it up just enough so that it finishes at the same frame as before. Lengthening the clip by trimming its end rightwards slows it down rather than exposing any trimmed material.

Video

Reverse reverses the direction of playback without affecting the speed. Synchronous audio, if any, is suppressed with this option, since it is generally undesirable to play sound backwards.

The Speed Control window

66 Avid Studio

Smooth motion: This option applies a special transition technique to achieve maximum fluidity of movement from frame to frame.

Audio

Hold pitch: This option maintains the original pitch of the recorded audio even when it is played back accelerated or slowed. The function becomes less effective the more the speed is changed. Beyond certain limits, it is switched off completely.

Movies within movies

All the movie projects that you create in Avid Studio appear as assets in the Projects branch of the Library. But the purpose of Library assets is to serve as the ingredients of movies. What will happen if you try to drag Movie Project A onto the timeline of Movie Project B?

The answer is simple enough: As with most types of assets, Project A becomes a single clip on Project B’s timeline. From the standpoint of timeline editing, it behaves just like any of your other video assets. You can trim it, move it around, apply effects and transitions, and so on. (The same is not true of disc projects. These cannot be used as clips in another project.)

Nevertheless, a copy of the internal structure of Project A remains intact inside this container clip, along with all of the project’s clips, effects, titles and other components. What’s more, if you double-click the container clip or select Edit movie from its context menu, a subsidiary Movie Editor opens in a new window to let you work on the ‘sub-movie’. Any modifications you make affect only the copy of the project inside the container clip, not the original.

The length of the container clip on the timeline of the main project is not tied to the length of the sub-movie on its own timeline. Extending or shortening the sub-movie in the nested editor does not alter the length of the container clip in the parent movie. You need to manually trim the container clip if you want it to match the duration of the sub-movie.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 67

Transitions

A transition is a specialized animated effect for easing – or emphasizing – the passage from one clip to the next. Fades, wipes and dissolves are common types of transition. Others are more exotic, and many employ sophisticated 3-D geometry to calculate the animated sequences.

Creating a default fade-in transition by

‘folding back’ a clip’s upper left corner.

Two transitions can be assigned to any clip, one at each end. A clip newly created on the timeline has neither. When a new clip starts, it does so with a hard cut to the first frame. When it ends, it switches to the next clip (or black) with equal abruptness.

Avid Studio offers a wide variety of transitions for softening, dressing up or dramatizing the change from one clip to another.

Creating a transition

The most straightforward method of creating a transition is to click in the top left corner of the clip and ‘fold back’ the corner. This creates a fade-in. The wider you make the fold, the longer it will take the transition to complete. A fade-out results from the corresponding operation on the top right corner of the clip.

A transition dragged to the project timeline.

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Transitions can also be added to the timeline from their section of the Library (under Creative Elements). When you find one you want, drag it onto a timeline clip. If you drag the transition onto the start or end of the clip, you can mark the length of the transition and drop it into place in a single operation. If the clip already has a transition at the chosen end, the dragged one replaces it.

Yet another way to apply a transition uses the Send to timeline context menu command for assets in the Movie Editor’s compact Library view, or the Send-to timeline button in the Player when in Source mode. The transition is added to the clip on the default track at the play line.

Types of transitions

If magnetic snapping is on, the duration of transitions is snapped to the default duration defined in the Avid Studio Control Panel Project settings (one second by default). You can still drag freely to any duration outside the snap range. See “Project settings” on page 238 for details.

A fade-out transition is applied in ripple (or insert) mode, which creates an overlap by shifting the right-hand clip and all its neighbors somewhat to the left. This behavior saves the left-hand clip from having to be extended rightwards to create the transition, which might produce over-trimming. However, shifting the rightward clips causes a break in the synchronization with other tracks that may have to be worked around.

A fade-in transition is added in overwrite fashion. No synchronization issue will result, but over-trimming may be produced in the left-hand clip.

Alt

To invert the fade-in and fade-out behaviors, press the

key during

dragging and trimming. To apply a transition to multiple selected clips, hold down the

Shift key while dragging a transition from the Library onto one of the selected clips. The position at which you drop the transition on that clip determines whether it will be placed at the beginning of each selected clip, or the end. The duration you drag out for the transition on the target clip is used for all the transitions created. The transition will not be applied to any clips that are shorter than the transition you create.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 69

To keep tracks synchronized when inserting transitions in the out position, use this multiple-apply feature to add the same transition once on each track. Since each track will be affected in the same way, they will all remain synchronized.

When a fade-in follows a fade-out, the result is termed a ‘fade through black’. The left-hand clip fades all the way out, then the right-hand clip fades all the way in. It is not necessary to leave a one-frame gap between the clips.

Replacing a transition

Select the transition you want and simply drag it onto an existing transition. This replaces the transition animation while retaining the original type (in or out) and duration.

Adjusting transitions

The durations of transitions can be adjusted just like those of clips. Notice the adjustment pointer when the mouse is positioned near the vertical side of the transition rectangle. Use this to change the duration of your transition.

As usual, fade-out transitions use insert mode during adjustment, whereas fade-in is done in overwrite mode. Hold down this behavior.

Alt

while adjusting to invert

You can adjust a transition so that its duration is zero, effectively deleting it. Alternatively, use Transition  Remove on the transition’s context menu. Once again, ripple mode is used for fade-out, and overwrite for fade-in, with the

To set the duration of a transition numerically, click the duration field that appears when the mouse pointer is above the transition rectangle. (Zoom the timeline in to enlarge the screen width of the transition ‘fold’ if the field does not appear.) Clicking the field activates in-place editing, allowing you to enter a duration via the keyboard.

Alt

key available to reverse the default.

Transition context menu

Edit: This command invokes a pop-up window, the basic transition editor, where the transition duration can be set.

If the transition is one that offers a custom editor for configuring special properties, the Edit button in the basic transition editor provide s acc es s.

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A Reverse checkbox is available with some transitions for reversing the transition animation.

Basic transition editor

Copy: This comman d puts the transition on the Clipboard, together with its type (fade-in, fade-out) and its duration. These proper ties will be retained by the transition when pasted. It is therefore no t possible to paste a fade-in as a fade-out or vice versa.

To paste the transition to a particular clip, select Paste on its context menu. To paste the transition to all selected clips, selec t Paste from the context

menu of either an empty timeline area or any selected clip; or just press Ctrl

+V.

Remove: This command deletes a transition. Fade-in transitions are removed without further ado. Removing a fade-out transition causes clips to the right to be rippled further rightwards by the duration of the transition. This can cause loss of synchronization with other tracks.

Clip effects

Clip effects (also called filters or video effects) operate on one clip at a time. Effects are of many kinds, and vary widely in purpose. With keyframing, effect parameters can be arbitrarily varied throughout the clip.

To apply a specific effect to a clip, either locate it in the Effects section of the Library and drag it to the clip you want to enhance, or double-click the clip and select the effect from those offered under the Effects tab of the clip’s media editor.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 71

Multiple effects can be applied to a clip using either or both of these methods. By default, multiple effects are processed for playback in the order they were added.

On the timeline, the upper border of any clip to which an effect has been applied is drawn in magenta. This clip effect indicator has its own context menu, which provides the Clipboard commands for cutting and copying effects between clips. See “Using the Clipboard” on page 64 for more information.

Double-clicking any clip opens it in its media editor, where effects may be added, removed or configured. Please see Chapter 5: Media editing: Effects for detailed information.

Clip context menus

Right-clicking a clip opens a context menu with commands appropriate to the item type. A video clip has a different menu than a title clip, for example. Some commands are shared between most or all types however. Differences of applicability are noted in the following descriptions.

Edit movie: Available only for movie (container) clips, this command opens the container in its own movie editor. The nested editor offers the same functions and areas as the primary one.

Edit title: For titles only, this opens the Title Editor. (See page 117). Edit music: This command is for editing Scorefitter clips. (See page 164.) Edit montage: Edit a montage clip in the Montage editor. (See page 115). Open effects editor: Opens the media editor for the clip, whatever its type,

with the Effects tab selected. Montage, title and container clips are treated in the same manner as ordinary video clips.

Speed: This command opens the Speed Control dialog, where you can apply fast and slow motion effects to selected clips. This option is not available for containers. See “Speed” on page 65.

Scaling: The first two options affect the treatment of clips that are not in conformance with the current timeline format when brought into the project. See “Timeline toolbar” on page 43).

• Fit displays the image at its correct aspect ratio, and scaled as large as

possible without cropping. Unused parts of the frame are treated as transparent.

72 Avid Studio

• Fill also maintains the aspect ratio of the image, but scales it such that

there are no unused parts of the screen. Portions of the image will be cropped if the aspect ratios do not match.

To further fine-tune the scaling behavior of a clip, try pan-and-zoom.

• Keep alpha, Remove alpha, Generate alpha: These commands apply to

content with an alpha channel (specifying transparency pixel-by-pixel). Such alpha information can conflict with Avid Studio effects. The command isn’t available for pure audio clips.

Active streams: This command is available for disabling individual streams in clips containing both video and audio. It is typically used as an easy way to discard unneeded camera audio.

Adjust duration: Enter a duration numerically in the pop-up window. A ll selected clips will be trimmed to the duration requested by adjusting their out points.

Detach audio: In clips with both video and audio, this command detaches the audio stream into a separate clip on a separate track, allowing advanced editing operations like L-cuts.

Find source: This command opens the Library Browser at the folder containing the asset that is the source of the video, photo or audio clip.

Cut, Copy, Paste: Move or copy a selection of clips using Clipboard commands instead of drag-and-drop.

Delete: Delete the selected clip or clips. Display information: Display properties of the clip and underlying media

files in textual form.

Chapter 3: The Movie Editor 73

CHAPTER 4:

Media editing: Corrections

Avid Studio provides media editors for each of the three main media types: video, photos (and other images), and audio. The usual way to access one of these editors is by double-clicking either a media asset in the Library or a media clip on your project timeline.

All three editors provide two main families of tools, called Corrections and Effects. These are presented as tabs at the top of the editor window. (The Photo Editor has a third tab, for the Pan-and-zoom tool.)

The six groups under the Effects family in the Video Editor. When an editor is invoked from the Library, the Effects tab does not appear.

The tools in the Corrections family are designed to fix imperfections in the video, photos and other media that you use in your projects. The defects addressed by the tools are those most frequently encountered in recorded media. You can straighten a photo with a tilted horizon, improve the clarity of a muffled music track, or correct the ‘white balance’ of a video scene, to name just a few possibilities.

The application of Corrections does not modify your media files themselves. Instead, the parameters you set are stored either in the Library database (associated with a particular asset) or in a project (associated with a particular clip).

Chapter 4: Media editing: Corrections 75

Correcting Library assets

Just one tool-family tab – Corrections – is available for use when you bring Library assets into a media editor. The Effects tab, and Pan-and-zoom for photos, appear only when the editor was opened to work on a timeline clip.

Using corrected assets: When you apply Corrections to a Library asset, the correction settings ride along with the asset when you add it to a project. All future projects get the benefit of the correction. You can make further corrections on the timeline, if you want, but they will have no effect on the Library asset.

Save alternative corrections: Corrected Library assets can optionally be saved (with File  Save as) as independent asset files. This lets you have two (or more) variations of a particular asset under different names, each incorporating a different set of corrections.

Removing corrections: The context menu for Library assets that have corrections includes a Revert to original command for restoring the uncorrected state.

Corrections under direct export: If you choose to export Library media directly, rather than build a project on the movie or disc timelines, the correction settings are applied to the output.

Correcting timeline clips

When a clip from the Movie Editor or the Disc Editor timeline is opened in one of the media editors, you can use the Corrections family of tools to change it in any way you like without affecting either Library assets or other clips. Such changes to the clip become part of your project.

If you want to remove corrections from a clip on the timeline, select the context menu command Open Effects Editor, then switch to the Corrections tool. The settings panels indicate with highlighting which settings have been modified. Use this to locate and reset the corrections.

For details on using a particular media editor, please turn to “Correcting photos” on page 81; “Correcting video” on page 86; or “Correcting audio” on page 90.

76 Avid Studio

Media editing overview

The media editors can be opened to access the available tools in a number of ways from both the Library and the project timeline.

To open from the Library:

• Double-click the icon or text record of a video, photo or audio asset; or,

• Select the Open in corrections command from the asset’s context menu.

To open from the Library Player:

• After clicking the play button on a Library item to open the Library

Player, click the gear wheel icon at bottom right.

To open from the project timeline:

• Double-click the clip in the timeline; or,

• Select the Open effects editor command from the clip’s context menu;

or,

• Use the context menu Effect  Edit on the colored strip that appears

along the upper edge of clips to which any effects have been applied.

To close the media editor window:

• Click the Cancel button; or,

• Click the close (X) button in the upper right corner. If you have made

changes, you will be given a chance to save them.

• Click the OK button.

Previewing

The central panel in each of the media editors is either a visual preview of media showing the result of applying corrections and effects, or an audio visualization.

When video media with an integral soundtrack is being edited, both the Audio Editor and the Video Editor are simultaneously available via tabs at the top left of the window.

Chapter 4: Media editing: Corrections 77

Title bar

File and Edit menus: If you invoked the media editor from the Library, the

File menu offers the ability to save a new copy (or ‘Shortcut’) of the currently-loaded asset. Shortcuts are stored back to the Library und er the original name plus a sequence number. The Edit menu offers the standard editing commands for Undo / Redo, as well as Cut, Copy, Paste.

Undo/Redo: At the upper left of the window, beside the menus, the graphical undo and redo buttons let you step forward and back through your editing history.

Working with the Enhance group of corrections in the Video Editor.

The Navigator

The Navigator strip at the bottom of all media editor windows gives you an opportunity to load other Library items or other timeline clips.

When called from the Library, the Navigator strip at the bottom of the media editor lets you ac c e ss other assets on display in the Library.

The current item is highlighted. You can switch to editing a different ite m by clicking a different element in the Navigator, using the arrows at right and left to assist scrolling if required. When you do so, any changes made to the currently-loaded item are automatically saved, as though you had clicked the OK button.

78 Avid Studio

You can hide the Navigator by clicking its button at the bottom of the media editor window.

View options

Sharing the bottom toolbar with the Navigator button is a series of viewrelated buttons.

Solo: This button is available only if the media editor is selected from the project timeline. While it is highlighted, the current clip in the Navigator is shown in isolation when previewed, without taking into account the effect of any clips either above or below it on the timeline. While the button is not highlighted, all timeline tracks can contribute to the preview.

Zoom: The scroll bar at the far right of the toolbar provides continuous scaling of the preview image.

Preview zoom options: Fit adjusts the size of the preview so that the height and width of the image do not exceed the available space even when all tools are open. Fill utilizes the entire available working area, including under the settings panel and ruler. Actual size (1:1) displays the image at the original size of the source.

Full screen: When active, this button scales the preview image to the size of the current monitor and removes other tools from view.

Esc

To exit the full screen mode, press top right of the window.

, or use the close (X) button at the

Before-and-after view: This button appears for photo media only. For details, see “Before-and-after” on page

81.

Magnifier zoom

Unless an effect or correction tool is active, the mouse pointer is a

Alt

magnifying glass icon. With this pointer, a simple click enlarges, reduces, and double-click toggles between Fit (see “Preview zoom options” above) and the current sc a l ing.

-click

Moving the preview in the window

The preview image can be dragged with the mouse anywhere within the working area. This is useful for scanning the image while it is zoomed in. The wave visualization in the Audio Editor is not draggable, however.

Chapter 4: Media editing: Corrections 79

Info and captions

The Info button at the bottom left of any media editor opens a window with information about the current file.

The Caption field, which is available only when you invoke the media editor from the Library, allows you to rename the current asset.

The settings panel

When you select an effect or tool that has adjustable settings, a panel appears in the upper-right section of the window.

The settings panel lets you adjust the available settings for a correction or effect. Here the settings for the Enhance group of photo corrections are displayed.

Setting numeric values: Numeric settings fields have a gray slider bar within a darker gray field. Click once within this field to put it into n umeric input mode, where you can type the desired value for the parameter. Alternatively, drag the slider bar to the left or right using the mouse. Double-clicking restores the default value.

Comparing parameter sets: A highlighted (orange) dot appears to the right of the field when the value of a setting is changed from the default.

80 Avid Studio

Thereafter, clicking the dot toggles between the default and the most recent non-default values. The dot to the right of the effect or correction name toggles between the default and custom values of all parameters.

Linked parameters: Some parameters are configured to change in lockstep. The presence of a lock symbol indicates this. Click the symbol to toggle the link.

CORRECTING PHOTOS



For information about opening the Photo Editor to access the correction tools, along with general functions of the media editors, please see “Media editing overview” on pa ge 77.

Photo editing tools

These tools are located on the bottom bar of the Photo Editor. They are available for photos and other graphic images loaded from the Library only. Images opened from the project timeline do not have access to them.

Image rotation

Two rotary arrow icons are located to the left below the image preview. Click the icons to rotate a Library image either clockwise or counterclockwise in 9 0-degree increments.

Rotation is only available in the Photo Editor when a photo is opened from the Library. Clips opened from the project timeline can be rotated using the 2D Editor effect.

Before-and-after

When editing photos you can directly compare the original against the corrected version. The three available views can be accessed b y the arrow at the right of the button.

Chapter 4: Media editing: Corrections 81

Split image: The lower half of the preview displays the corrections. You can adjust the vertical position of the dividing line by dragging the center portion of the line up or down with the mouse. You can also divide the image diagonally by grabbing the line on either side and rotating.

Full image side-by-side: The right image shows the corrections. Full image above and below: The lower image shows the corrections.

Photo corrections

The Corrections within the Photo Editor are Enhance, Crop, Straighten and Red-Eye.

Enhance photos

This area includes tools for fixing problems to do with color and illumination.

Contrast

This control increases the difference between the light and dark areas of an image. Boos ting the con tras t may enliven a d ull photograph, although at the risk of losing definition in areas that are already very bright or very dark.

Temperature

The color temperature control changes the color composition of an image to make it seem ‘warmer’ or ‘cooler’. Indoor lighting such as a tungsten bulb or candlelight is perceived as warm, while daylight, especially shade, is perceived as cold. Using the temperature control primarily changes the yellow and blue values in an image, with little effect on green and magenta.

Brightness

This control functions like the brightness button on a television . It impacts the light and dark areas of the image equally. For finer control in brightness editing, use Selective Brightness instead.

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Saturation

This control regulates the color intensity of an image. Increasing the value pumps up the colors, making them more vivid, or even lurid. Decreasing the value drains the image of color until at zero only shades of gray remain. For finer control of saturation, use Selective Saturation instead.

White balance

Poor white balance is detected when supposedly white areas of an image bear a slight tint or color cast. To correct this, you adjust the image spectrum with two controls.

Gray-scale picker: Activate the picker and click in a nominally white or gray area of the image, where no coloration ought to be present.

Color circle: Slide the control point from the center of the color field until the undesired tint is removed from the image.

Selective brightness

To enable you to edit particular brightness zones in an image without impacting others, five separate brightness controls are provided:

Blacks: This slider affects only the darkest areas in the image. For best results, leave editing both Blacks and Whites until last.

Fill light: Increasing this slider may produce better detail in shadowy (but not black) areas of a full-contrast photograph.

Midrange: The zone impacted by this slider includes the entire medium range of illumination.

Highlights: This slider affects the bright locations in the image. It can be used to mute areas overexposed due to flashes, reflections or brilliant sunshine.

Whites: This slider impacts the parts of the image that are considered ‘white’. Edit Whites and Blacks last.

Selective saturation

Whereas the standard Saturation correction increases color saturation equally across the entire spectrum, Selective saturation allows for individually boosting or suppressing the primary and secondary colors. For example, if blue appears to be too strong, it can be turned down while other colors retain their intensity.

Chapter 4: Media editing: Corrections 83

Advanced

This panel of additional controls provides a number of useful functions. Exposure: This simulates the effect that would have been produced by

increasing or decreasing the image exposure (the total amount of light used to create a photograph).

Soft clipping: Soft clipping attempts to recov er lost detail at the top and bottom of the luminance range and at the top of the saturation range by reducing extreme highlights, blacks and saturation.

Blend with original: This slider mixes the original image (in its initial position) with the changed one (0 to 100%).

CCIR Limits: This setting limits the color values used in the image to the range for TV video signals permitted by the CCIR (Comité Consultatif International des Radiocommunication).

Show info: Check this box to display various histogram representations of the image data.

Crop

Use this tool to emphasize a specific section in an image, or to remove undesired components.

Cropping an image.

Bounding box (cropping frame): After you select the cropping tool, a resizable frame is placed over the image. Drag the sides and corners of the frame to crop the image, or drag the center of the bounding box after cropping to adjust its position.

84 Avid Studio

Aspect ratio: The Aspect ratio dropdown on the control bar can be use to ensure that the crop rectangle maintains a desired standard proportion while being resized. Standard (4:3) and wide (16:9) frame aspect ratios are supported.

Preview: This function displays the cropped image without the surrounding

Esc

material. Press

or click the image to return to the editing view.

Clear, Cancel and Apply: Clear returns the bounding box to its original dimensions; Cancel closes without saving any edits made; Apply saves the changed image without exiting the editor.

Straighten

This correection enables you to straighten an image in which elements that should be exactly horizontal or vertical are visibly tilted. Unless you have cropped the image, it dynamically resizes as you rotate to keep the corners from being visibly cut off. With a cropped image, no resizing takes place as long as there is sufficient excess material to fill in the empty corners.

Ready to straighten an image (with crosshairs).

Several functions pertaining to Straighten are provided on the toolbar below the preview.

Guide line options: The two buttons at the far left of the toolbar set the mode for the lines that are superimposed on the preview as a guide to straightening. Selecting either button deselects the other. The Crosshairs (leftmost) button adds a pair of crossed lines that can be dragged with the mouse to serve as a reference for true vertical and horizontal alignment anywhere in the image. The Grid button produces a fixed, repeating grid pattern over the entire image.

Chapter 4: Media editing: Corrections 85

Set angle: To set the degree of rotation you can either use the slider on the toolbar below the image, or click and hold the left mouse button while dragging over the image. Rotations up to 20 degrees in either direction are supported.

Clear, Cancel and Apply: Clear sets the image back to its original state ; Cancel closes without saving any edits made; Apply saves the changed

image without exiting the editor.

Red-eye

This tool corrects the red-eye effect that often occurs in flash photography when the subject’s gaze is towards the camera. Mark the area around both red eyes with the mouse. Extreme precision shouldn’t be necessary, but you can experiment with changing the area slightly if you are dissatisfied with the correction.

Clear, Cancel and Apply: Clear sets the image back to its original state ; Cancel closes without saving any edits made; Apply saves the changed

image without exiting the editor.

CORRECTING VIDEO



For information about opening the Video Editor to access the correction tools, along with general functions of the media editors, please see “Media editing overview” on pa ge 77.

Like the other media editors, the Video Editor has a central preview display, and an area at right for correction and effect settings. If the video includes an audio track, floating panels for audio management will also appear. These are positioned originally at upper left, but you can drag them to new docking positio ns o n e i ther side of the window.

Video / audio switch

If an audio track is present, a tab is provided at the top left of the screen for switching to the Audio Editor. For details on the controls available when the Audio tab is selected, please turn to “The Audio Editor” on page 147.

86 Avid Studio

Waveform display

This floating panel shows a section of the audio volume graph over the span of the video. The region of the waveform that is shown is centered on the current playback posi t ion.

When you switch to the Audio Editor, you will see a video preview panel at the same screen location. See “The Audio Editor” on page 147.

Video tools

These tools are located on the timeline toolbar below the Video Editor preview. At the left are the marker controls described on page 88. The remaining controls are devoted to previewing and trimming the media.

Shuttle: The shuttle wheel provides smooth, bidirectional control over a range of speeds when browsing video or audio. Both media types can be viewed at a reduced speed. Shortcuts J and each of these in combination with the easy scrubbing and shuttling from the keyboard also.

(reverse), K (pause), L (forward),

Shift

key (for slow play), allow

Transport controls: The oval arrow icon activates loop playback. The remaining controls are (from left to right): Jump backward, Frame

backward, Play, Frame forward, Jump forward.

Audio monitor: The loudspeaker icon sets the system playback volume but does not affect the recorded audio level. Click once on the loudspeaker to mute, or click on the slider to the right of the icon to adjust monitoring volume. To set the playback level of the clip itself, u se the channel mixer. See “Channel mixer” on page 148.

Time-code displays: The left field indicates the duration of the media as trimmed. The right field displays the current play position. For a Library asset, the play position is relative to the start of the media. For a timeline clip, the play position within the project is given.

Setting the position numerically: Click the right-hand time-code field for the position and enter a position in ‘hh:mm:ss.xxx’ format. When you press Enter, the play line jumps to the specified location if that position is present on the clip. Press

Chapter 4: Media editing: Corrections 87

Esc to undo the change and exit the input mode.

Asset trimming: For Library assets, the orange calipers at either end of the time-ruler let you choose your own entry and exit points for playback. Doing so establishes the clip endpoints when the asset is used in a project.

Ruler: The time-ruler displays a scale whose gradations depend on the current zoom factor. If you click anywhere on this ruler, the play line (see below) jumps to this position.

Play line: This red line, with its handle the scrubber, is synchronized with the image currently displayed (for video) and also with the red line shown on the waveform display (for audio). You can position it arbitrarily by clicking and dragging the s c rubber, or by dragging within the waveform.

Scroll bar and zoom: By dragging the double lines at the end of the scroll bar to the right and left, you change the zoom level of the display. When the bar becomes smaller, the scroll bar can be moved back and forth as a whole, enabling you to zoom into an audio clip’s waveform or scrub with extra precision. Double-click the scroll bar to return it to the full width of the clip. You can also zoom in and out by dragging left and right on the ruler area.

Markers

Markers are visual reference points that can be set on the time-ruler to identify changes of scene or other editing cues.

The Marker Panel

Setting and moving markers: Position the play line at the location where the marker should be set. Click the toggle marker button at the left of the toolbar, or press M

88 Avid Studio

. Only one marker may be set per frame.

Pinnacle Systems Studio 1.0 Instruction Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

User Manual

Before you start

Equipment requirements

Abbreviations and conventions

On-line help

Using Avid Studio

The Library

The Movie Editor and the Disc Editor

The media editors

The Player

The Library

UNDERSTANDING THE LIBRARY

Location tabs

The Asset Tree

Collections

Managing Library assets

The Browser

The Library preview

USING THE LIBRARY

Choosing what to display

Tags

Correcting media

Video scene detection

SMARTSLIDE AND SMARTMOVIE

SmartSlide

SmartMovie

The Movie Editor

THE PROJECT TIMELINE

Timeline fundamentals

The timeline toolbar

The timeline track header

Timeline audio functions

EDITING MOVIES

Adding clips to the timeline

Title Editor, Scorefitter, voice-over

Deleting clips

Clip operations

Using the Clipboard

Speed

Movies within movies

Transitions

Clip effects

Clip context menus

Media editing: Corrections

Media editing overview

CORRECTING PHOTOS

Photo editing tools

Photo corrections

CORRECTING VIDEO

Video tools