Splice Now

Here are a few more tips I picked up at the Keycode demo.

Scroll Wheel Joy

If you’re like me, you’ve become dependent on a mouse with a scroll wheel (my favorite is the Microsoft Intellimouse Optical). But until Adrenaline, this didn’t work in the Media Composer, and even in Adrenaline, scrolling speed was so slow as to be all but useless. Version 2.7 changes that. Scrolling is now quite effective, and once you start using it I suspect you’ll soon wonder how you did without it all these years. If you don’t like the default scrolling speed you can change it via Mouse Settings. I would have preferred somewhat finer control — normal was a bit slow and moderate was too fast — but regardless, your scroll wheel is now functional. You can assign other mouse buttons to Media Composer functions, as well.

Horizontal Scrolling

If you’re working on a late model Mac laptop, you can now scroll horizontally with the track pad. Drag two fingers left or right and you can scroll bins and even the timeline itself. The catch, unfortunately is that you’ll scroll backwards. This makes a certain kind of sense in the timeline (try it to see what I mean) but in windows it’s pretty unnerving. (If your Mac doesn’t permit two-finger scrolling from the trackpad you can add it with iScroll.)

Matchframe Without Selecting a Track

You can quickly matchframe on a specific track without first selecting it, using a contextual menu pick. Just park your cursor over the track light for the track you want to match to and right click (on a Mac without a two button mouse, use control-shift-click). A menu pops up. Select “Match Frame Track” and you’ll match that track only.

Enter Text for Several Clips at Once

Suppose you want to enter the same text in a certain column for a group of clips. You can now do that in a single step. Select the clips, then put your mouse over the column in question. The cursor turns into a double-headed arrow. Now right click and a contextual menu appears. Choose “Set Comments column for selected clips…” Another window opens and you enter your text. Voila, that text is entered in that column for all the selected clips.

Technorati Tags: avid, edit, film, video

At Keycode’s ScriptSync demo last week Michael Krulik described several smaller improvements that have been recently introduced, and I noticed a couple of others. It seems that Avid has been steadily incorporating such changes, but hasn’t done a good job of telling anybody about it. Hopefully, we’ll see more seminars like this one in the future.

Along with the major improvements introduced in version 2.7, these represent some additional reasons to upgrade.

Segment Drag Sync Locks

I always leave sync locks turned on when I’m cutting. This feature inserts or deletes black in trim mode to keep you in sync. But for as long as I can remember, it hasn’t worked correctly in segment mode. Rather than simply fix the problem, Avid has made the fix a preference — in the Timeline Settings. I tried it briefly and it seemed to work.

Auto-Patching

The same settings panel offers another choice, which many editors seem to be unfamiliar with: Auto-Patching. If you turn this on, your patching will automatically follow your track selection. As you select your tracks patching follows automatically. It’s quick and intuitive and might work for you.

The Return of the Scrolling Timeline

Meridien’s scrolling timeline disappeared in Adrenaline, but it’s back. Just select “Scroll While Playing” in Timeline settings and the timeline will move under a stationary cursor.

In general, timeline performance is much improved in 2.7, and dragging through the timeline feels extremely responsive. This had been a big problem in some early versions of Adrenaline.

I’ll continue with more tips tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: avid, edit, film, video

One of the trickiest things editors have to do every day is manage versions. I always try to keep one ‘hero’ sequence clearly identified. If I’m not sure about a change, I’ll experiment with it in a shorter sequence and call that an ‘alt.’ Then I can compare the master with the alt, either for myself or for a director or producer.

If I decide that the alternate is an improvement, I have to integrate it into my master sequence. Here’s a trick that uses Avid’s “match frame edit” marks to make that easier. (These marks are modeled after the old “through” marks that we once put on film with a grease pencil — two parallel lines marked across the splice would indicate that it was unintentional.)

First, put your master version in the record monitor and your alt in the source. Here’s the master:

And here’s the alt. Note that two shots have been deleted.

Our first step is to mark two frames, one before and one after the change, where the alt and the master match each other. We mark in on a frame before the changed area and mark out on a frame after it. We mark the exact same frames in the source and the record, two marks in each, for a total of four marks. I prefer marking on “zero frames” where the frame count equals zero. That’s not strictly necessary but it makes it easier to keep all this marking straight.

Here’s the source monitor with both marks indicated:

Here’s the record monitor with the same frames marked.

Now we’re ready to make the replacement. First check your patching. Everything should go straight across. You don’t want to be moving material from one track to another. Then simply hit extract (the scissors) and insert (the yellow edit button). The old material is deleted and the new material is inserted. This is what the timeline looks like after the insertion:

Note the unintentional splice marks. That’s the key. They prove that you did the replacement correctly, that the new material dropped in at the right place and the cut points matched up. If you don’t see those marks in every track, you’ve made a mistake. Undo twice, check your marks and try again.

All that remains is to remove the unintentional splices. The easiest way is to lasso them and hit the delete key. Voila, your master version is up to date.