Pinnacle Systems Studio for iPad User Guide

Avid Studio for iPad
USER GUIDE
Version 1.1
Legal Notices
This guide is copyrighted ©2012 by Avid Technology, Inc., with all rights reserved. Under copyright laws, this guide may not be duplicated in whole or in part without the written consent of Avid.
Product features, specifications, system requirements, and availability are subject to change without notice.
Guide
Part Number 9329-65209-00 REV A 10/11
Documentation
Author: Nick Sullivan / AHA! Text Services We are always looking for ways to improve our documentation. If you have
comments, corrections, or suggestions regarding our documentation, email us at techpubs@avid.com.
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Visit the Online Support Center at www.avid.com/support.
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Contents
CHAPTER 1: Getting acquainted 1
Meet Avid Studio for iPad ................................................. 2
HAPTER 2: The Projects Page 4
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Project management .......................................................... 4
Other Projects Page functions ........................................... 5
HAPTER 3: The Edit Page 7
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The Library ........................................................................ 8
The Preview ....................................................................... 9
The Movie Editor ............................................................ 10
Movie Editor controls ...................................................... 12
Other Movie Editor features ............................................ 14
HAPTER 4: The Library 16
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Building the Library ........................................................ 16
Adding Library content to your movie ............................ 17
Inside the Library ............................................................ 18
Pre-trimming media items ............................................... 20
HAPTER 5: The Storyboard 22
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Dragging on the Storyboard ............................................ 23
Rendering ........................................................................ 25
HAPTER 6: The Timeline 26
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Trimming tools ................................................................ 26
The Precision Trimmer .................................................... 28
The Playhead ................................................................... 31
The Timescale ................................................................. 31
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HAPTER 7: Montages 32
Customizing a Montage ................................................... 33
HAPTER 8: Transitions and Titles 35
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Transitions ....................................................................... 35
Titles ................................................................................ 37
HAPTER 9: Audio 39
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Library audio ................................................................... 40
Voice-overs ..................................................................... 40
HAPTER 10: Exporting 42
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PPENDIX A: Importing with iTunes 45
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PPENDIX B: Touch-screen gestures 46
Contents iii
iv Avid Studio for iPad
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HAPTER
1:
Getting acquainted
Welcome to Avid® Studio for iPad, an app that lets you use your iPad to transform videos, photos, and music into multimedia experiences that are both easy to make and easy to share.
Avid Studio for iPad is designed to take full advantage of your device’s touch-screen. A convenient summary of the touch gestures used in the app can be found in Appendix B: Touch-Screen Gestures.
The Projects Page in Avid Studio for iPad, with four existing projects listed. The third has been highlighted by tapping its name or thumbnail and is ready for other operations.
Tip: Current Avid Studio for iPad system requirements and other information can be found on the Avid website. A collection of free
tutorial videos is available on YouTube. You are also invited to
join our Avid Studio community on Facebook.
Chapter 1: Getting acquainted 1
About this Guide
The rest of this introductory chapter provides a very quick Avid Studio for iPad orientation tour.
The later chapters cover the app area by area, starting with Chapter 2: The Projects Page. The core of the Guide is the sequence of editing chap ters from Chapter 3: The Edit Page through Chapter 9: Audio. These cover every aspect of constructing your movie, from gathering the raw materials to adding Transitions, Titles, and other finishing touches. When you are ready to share the result, Chapter 10: Exporting explains how to make your work available to others.
MeetAvidStudioforiPad
Avid Studio for iPad divides its controls into two screens, or pages: the Projects Page, for starting and managing projects; and the Edit Page, where the creative action of movie-making takes place.
The Projects Page
The primary role of the Projects Page is the creation and management of your movie projects.
Opening a project, existing or new, takes you to the Edit Page (introduced below), which is where you’ll spend most of your time with the app. However, you will need to return to the Projects Page in order to:
Start a new project; Switch to editing a different project; Rename or delete a project.
The Projects Page is also the location of several administrative functions, such as adjusting global settings, rebuilding the Library from your available media, and opening the documentation. See Chapter 2: The Projects Page for details.
2 Avid Studio for iPad
The Edit Page
This is the page where you build, preview, and fine-tune your movies. The work area is laid out differently (see below) according to whether your iPad is in portrait view or landscape view, but always contains three zones:
The Library, in which production materials like video footage,
photos, and effects, are contained;
The Movie Editor, which contains those Library materials you
have chosen for your current production. Here you can freely trim, organize, and edit the media clips in your project without affecting the Library-based originals;
The Preview, a viewing area with transport controls. You can
screen either the source material in the Library or the clips that you have created by adding Library materials to your movie.
Use the iPad in portrait view (left) for a more detailed preview, or in landscape view (right) to maximize the area available for editing.
The Movie Editor is the construction site where your movie will be built using the items in your Library as raw materials. Your production is presented for editing in two separate but complementary parts, called the Storyboard and the Timeline. Each visual item in your movie will appear both as a Storyboard thumbnail and as a clip on the Timeline’s video track. See Chapter 3: The Edit Page for detailed information, as well as the further coverage in Chapter 4: The Library, Chapter 5: The Storyboard, and Chapter 6: The Timeline.
Chapter 1: Getting acquainted 3
C
HAPTER
2:
The Projects Page
Every Avid Studio for iPad movie reflects the final state of a movie project. A project starts out as nothing but a name then grows into a unique personal creation as you bring together your source materials and apply the editing tools covered later in this Guide.
The Projects Page of the app provides simple tools for opening, renaming, deleting, and sharing existing projects (see “Project management” below). It also provides access to a handful of additional tools, including the Global Settings panel (see “Other Projects Page functions” on page 5).
To create a new project:
1.
Tap the new project icon in the header bar or any unused cell in the project filmstrip.
2.
Enter a name for your project and tap OK. The Edit Page now opens, with your new project loaded and ready for editing.
To open a project for editing on the Edit Page, double-tap either the project’s filmstrip thumbnail or the neighboring title. On your future visits to the Projects Page, you will be able to reopen this project for further editing. Saving is automatic: your latest changes are always preserved just as you last saw them on the Edit Page.
Projectmanagement
The main business of the Projects Page is to let you access and manage your projects. The tool buttons in the header bar of the page let you create, rename, share, or delete your project. They also provide access to help and master settings. The first tool button, which creates a new project, was described above.
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Tools on the header bar of the Projects Page let you
perform operations on the selected project.
The rename, delete, and share tools work on the currently-selected project – the one highlighted in the projects list. To select a project, tap either its thumbnail or its name.
Rename: Tapping the rename icon in the header bar opens the iPad virtual keyboard so that you can enter a new name for the selected project. Tap OK to save.
Share: Tap the share icon when you are ready to send your movie out into the world. This opens the menu of options described in Chapter 10: Exporting. The share icon is also available on the Edit Page.
Delete: Tap the trash can icon to delete the selected project. This operation cannot be reversed, so you will also have to tap Yes in a pop-up confirmation window before it is carried out.
OtherProjectsPagefunctions
At the top right of the Projects Page are two icons that control global functions. Tapping the help icon opens this Guide.
Global settings
The neighboring gear icon opens the Global Settings panel, with several options that will apply from now on when you are editing any of your Avid Studio for iPad projects, not just the one you are currently working on.
Chapter 2: The Projects Page 5
Here you can choose the durations assigned by default to photos, Titles, and Transitions when they are first added to a project (since these assets have no predetermined length). On installation the default durations are four seconds for both photos and Titles, and one second for Transitions.
Add Transitions automatically: If you would like Avid Studio for iPad to automatically insert dissolve Transitions between your photos or video segments as you add them to the Movie Editor, turn on the Automatic Transitions setting. This is handy when you want to quickly throw together a slideshow or highlight reel.
Updating the Library
If you have added video, music, or photos to your iPad, you can make them accessible to the Library by allowing it to “rebuild”. Open the Global Settings panel using the gear icon as just described, then tap Rebuild Media Library at the bottom of the panel. Rebuilding may take up to several minutes if there is a wealth of new material.
Automatic checks for new media are perfo rmed when certain even ts occur, such as re-opening the app. You will be invited to approve a Library rebuild if any uncatalogued media are found. The manual Rebuild Media Library operation is provided so that you can update the Library at other times if required.
6 Avid Studio for iPad
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HAPTER
3:
The Edit Page
The Edit Page in Avid Studio for iPad is dedicated to the creative process of assembling your movie project from the raw materials present in the Library.
Everything you will need is gathered in this one place. Browse your available media, bring together your video footage, photos, and soundtrack in the Movie Editor, then add finishing touches like Titles and Transitions.
Returning to the Projects Page: If you want to switch to the Projects Page to create, rename, or delete a project, or for one of its other functions, tap the home icon in the upper left corner of the Edit Page.
Previewing a project clip on the Edit Page.
When you leave the Edit Page, either by switching to the Projects Page or by closing Avid Studio, the project you were working on is automatically saved. When you reopen the project on another occasion, you can pick up from exactly where you left off.
Chapter 3: The Edit Page 7
TheLibrary
The Library is a storehouse for the media clips and other “assets” that are available for your productions. The first time you use Avid Studio for iPad, the app will request permission to build the Library from the media already stored on your device. All the videos, photos, and music present on your iPad will become accessible through the Library as raw material for your movie projects.
Another method of bringing in new material is to make it yourself. You can use your iPad to record photos, video, and audio from within the Avid Studio app by tapping the record button on the left side of the Library. Once recorded, new media items are immediately available for use.
For full coverage of the Library, please see Chapter 4: The Library. For information on using Apple’s iTunes to build your Library, please see Appendix A: Importing with iTunes.
Organization of the Library
Materials in the Library are organized by type, with videos in one section, photos in another, and so on. Select which section to view by tapping one of the six media type buttons along the left edge of the Library. See “Inside the Library” on page 18 for a description of the purpose and use of each section.
Browsing the Video section of the Library.
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Browse the Library sections for videos, photos, music, and any other items you wish to use in your movie. Tap the thumbnail of any Library item to display the item in the Preview, where you can also pre-trim it if desired before bringing it into your project.
Touch-and-hold any Library thumbnail until it responds by highlighting; then drag it straight into the Movie Editor to become part of your production.
ThePreview
The Preview occupies the top right of the screen in landscape view. In portrait view, it fills nearly the entire upper half of the screen.
Project video plays in the Preview (landscape view).
The Preview lets you screen material either from the Library or from your current project. In most cases, Avid Studio for iPad automatically selects the appropriate source, but the source icons at the top left of the Preview not only indicate which source is being previewed but also let you switch between the Library and the project by tapping if required.
Library Preview: Tap any item in the Library to see or hear its content, and the Library’s source icon will highlight. The Preview for most kinds of material (all but photos) includes both a set of transport controls for navigating through the item, and a pre-trimming tool (see page 20) for paring away excess material prior to bringing the item into the Movie Editor.
Chapter 3: The Edit Page 9
Project Preview: With the Movie Editor as its source, the Preview always displays the video frame corresponding to the current position of the Timeline Playhead within your movie. Tap any clip in the Movie Editor to move the Playhead to the start of the clip and begin previewing. The provided transport controls let you navigate to any part of the movie, or use a swipe gesture on the Timeline to scroll (“scrub”) through your project. To preview your project from the beginning, tap the first clip in the Storyboard.
Full-screen view
The full-screen icon at the top right of the Preview temporarily enlarges it to the full size of the iPad display. Tap the icon again to restore the normal Edit Page view.
TheMovieEditor
The Movie Editor offers two representations of your project simultaneously. In an upper strip called the Storyboard, each element on the main video track – each video clip, photo, Transition, Title, or Montage sequence – is represented by an icon of fixed size, regardless of its duration. The Storyboard is ideal for roughing out or reorganizing a project since each clip, however short or long, is clearly visible and easy to manipulate.
The Movie Editor: The horizontally-scrolling tray of thumbnails at the top is the Storyboard; below it, the Timeline presents your project on a video track and three audio tracks, all synchronized to the Timescale (bottom).
The lower portion of the Movie Editor is called the Timeline. It shows all the elements of your movie, including the audio clips, but scales their widths to their durations. This provides a graphical
10 Avid Studio for iPad
overview of the production that lets you position and trim clips interactively relative to the Timescale. In addition to its main video track, the Timeline provides three tracks for the audio assets of your production: music, voice-overs, and sound effects.
The Storyboard
The Storyboard shows a separate thumbnail for each video clip, photo, Title, or Montage theme in your movie. The thumbnails are all the same size, rather than being proportional in width to their durations as on the Timeline. The clip duration is displayed in hours, minutes, seconds, and frames in the bottom-right corner of each thumbnail.
Transitions – the animated effects often used in movie editing to bridge the passage from one clip to the next – are represented on the Storyboard as smaller thumbnails positioned between the main clips.
If a clip in your movie requires rendering to play smoothly, a gears icon will appear in the top-left corner of its Storyboard thumbnail. Other graphical hints tip you off to certain clip features. Title clips have a stylized T in the bottom-left corner, while Transition clips are smaller with a purple border.
The Storyboard shows the content of your movie.
For a detailed account of the Storyboard area, please see Chapter 5: The Storyboard.
The Timeline
The Timeline consists of four parallel tracks positioned over an expandable ruler called the Timescale (use pinch gestures to control the ruler’s magnification level). The uppermost track is the video track, whose contents correspond exactly to those of the Storyboard. Whereas Storyboard thumbnails always have a fixed width, however, the position and size of Timeline clips is determined by
Chapter 3: The Edit Page 11
their screen time in the movie as represented on the Times cale. If th e video clip has a built-in audio track, that is indicated by a volume graph overlaid on the clip box.
The lower three tracks of the Timeline are for audio. Audio clips – music, sound effects, and voice-overs – can be positioned on any of these as desired.
The Timeline consists of four tracks, only the uppermost of which is for video. A graph of the clip volume is shown both on all-audio clips and on video clips with integral audio.
The Playhead is a vertical orange line whose position on the Timescale specifies the current frame for the Movie Editor Preview. Dragging the Timeline past the Playhead allows you to s crub freely through your movie. Suitably adjusting both the expansion level of the Timescale and the speed with which you drag can help make scrubbing more efficient.
By giving you an interactive graphical representation of your project, the Timeline excels when it comes to positioning and trimming clips as precisely as your movie requires. Please see Chapter 6: The Timeline for detailed coverage of this topic.
MovieEditorcontrols
Some operations in the Avid Studio for iPad Movie Editor are performed directly in the Storyboard or on the Timeline, but the controls in the header bar apply regardless of which area you are working in. They are:
Voice-over: This is the tool to use if you want to add a voice-over clip to any part of your movie. For more information, see “Voice-overs” on page 40.
Razor blade: This tool lets you split any video, photo, or audio clip on the Timeline or Storyboard except those that use the pan-and-zoom or picture-in-picture features. This
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