Splice Now

In Media Composer 4, if you lassoed a clip from right to left, you selected it for slipping. Adding the Option key (Alt in the PC world) selected it for sliding. Many people have bemoaned the loss of this functionality in Version 5, but, in fact, it’s still there. The modifier keys have changed, and there’s also a hidden gotcha that can make you think the functionality has been lost.

Lassoing from right to left still works as before, selecting a clip for slipping. But the Option key is now used to let you lasso clips anywhere in the timeline. So to select a clip for sliding you have to add another modifier: Option+Shift.

The trick is that this works a lot better if no clips are selected in the timeline.

So here’s the drill:

1. First, click above the topmost video track or below the bottommost audio track to deselect all clips.
2. Then, to slip, lasso or Option-lasso a clip or clips from right to left. Rollers will appear at the interior edges, ready for slipping.
   
3. To slide, Shift-Option-lasso from right to left. Rollers appear on the outside edges of the clip(s), ready for sliding.

That’s it. Once you know the technique, it’s easy to use. Just don’t forget to deselect all clips before you start. You may be able to get into slip or slide anyway, but things will work more predictably if nothing is selected.

This is the quickest way to slip or slide a group of clips at once. But you can slip or slide clips in several other ways, as well. Get into trim mode any way you like. Then double-click a roller to select the clip it’s on for slipping. Double-click the roller a second time to slide. Or right-click on a roller to open a contextual menu and select slip or slide from there. Or use either of the Trim Smart Tools and select rollers, as needed.

Avid has quietly released some important improvements to the Smart Tool — features that go a long way toward making Trim and Segment modes function the way they did in Version 4. The updates are incorporated into recent “patch” releases, and therein lies a rub. Patch builds are designed to quickly solve specific customer problems, and they aren’t as fully tested as regular releases are. But I’ve been using version 5.0.3.1 for a month now, and I wouldn’t want to go back.

What are the changes? The first is in Trim Mode. Since the early ’90s, when you hovered your mouse over the Composer Window you saw three selection cursors: left, center, or right.

If you hovered your mouse over a transition in the timeline, you’d saw only two — left and right, no center. That made roller selection easier and more positive.

But now, with the Version 5 Smart Tool, you see three cursors in the Timeline, just like you do in the Composer.

This makes it much harder to predictably select one side or the other — that pesky center cursor gets in the way.

But Version 5.0.3.1 changes all that. If you enter Trim Mode by lassoing transitions or by clicking the Trim Mode button, and if the Smart Tool trim buttons are off, the center cursor doesn’t appear in the Timeline. (It’s still present in the Composer Window.) So roller selection feels much more predictable and much more like it was in Version 4. If you’ve been frustrated with Trim Mode in MC5, this fix is going to make you a lot happier.

The second change is in Segment Mode. In Version 4, you couldn’t have both red and yellow segment modes on simultaneously. If red was on and you clicked yellow you simply switched from one to the other. Version 5 allows both modes to be on simultaneously — you’ll see red when you hover over the top of a clip and yellow over the bottom.

For some people that’s more flexible, but if you prefer the old way, you can now have it via a selection in the Edit tab of Timeline Settings: “Only One Segment Tool Can Be Enabled At A Time.” Turn it on and you’ll get the Segment Mode of your choice — but when you turn one on, the other goes off.

Together these changes amount to a major improvement for folks like me who work in dense, multitrack timelines. The catch is that the only way to get them is via a patch release. If you’re willing to take a chance, jump in. If not, waiting till the next point release should get you these fixes in a fully tested build.

Avid’s patch releases are here. Keep in mind that with Avid’s new installer, upgrading is much easier. For more about the upgrade process, see this post.

Avid’s venerable Title Tool has come in for a lot of criticism over the years, but despite its limitations, it’s often the best way to get a simple titling job done, and it has many hidden features that many people don’t seem to know about. Here are a couple of my favorites.

First, when you’re creating a title, the tool normally defaults to draft mode, which makes your titles look crude and aliased until the title is actually created. That made sense in years past when processors were slower, but today you can work just as quickly in what Avid calls Preview Mode, and your work will look exactly as it will when your title is rendered. You’ll find the Preview command in the Object menu.

Here’s a title in draft mode:

And here it is in Preview mode, looking just like it will when edited into the timeline.

Second, Media Composer normally creates harsh and crude drop shadows — but you can soften them with a simple menu pick, and if you do, they’ll look a  lot more subtle. This option is also in the Object menu.

Here’s a standard drop shadow:

And here’s the same shadow, softened:

Finally, when you open the title tool, a font is selected by default. On the Mac, it’s Geneva, which is rarely what you want. You can’t permanently change the default, but as long as there’s no title present in the title tool, the font and size selections you make are “sticky” and will persist as the default until you quit. If you want to make a series of titles in 24 pt Helvetica, for example, start by selecting those options — before making your first title.