Avid has just released a video describing the new audio keyframe features in MC 6.5. It’s concise, well-produced, very informative and blessedly free of the marketing hype that you sometimes see in productions like this. For me, you don’t need any more reason than this to upgrade.
Today is release day for Media Composer 5, Avid’s biggest update in years. Let me offer a big, hearty, “congratulations” to everybody at Avid who made this possible. You all are doing great work.
Avid is listening to editors again, for the first time in many years. There are workflow enhancements in this build, to be sure, but there are also long-overdue changes to the editing model. To mark the day, I’ve posted a new tutorial, offering a brief introduction to the Smart Tool, Avid’s new timeline palette that merges Trim Mode and Segment Mode into an always-on interaction model that should appeal to people who prefer a more segment-based, grab-and-drag editing style. This doesn’t begin to cover all the new features, but it should get you started. Avid has also created some videos of their own, here and here.
I’ll be demoing many of the new features at the Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group (LAFCPUG) meeting next Wednesday, June 16th at 6:45 pm. Meanwhile, I’m making final changes on my upcoming book, Avid Agility. With luck, it’ll be available at Amazon sometime in July. I hope you’ll find it essential reading.
Check out the tutorial below. A larger version is available on Vimeo.
Overlap cuts (split edits) are fundamental for any editor. Most people create them in a two-step process, making a straight cut first and then overlapping it using Trim Mode. But there’s a hidden, one-step way to do it that you may find very intuitive. It only works at the end of your sequence, but that makes it very appropriate when you’re creating a first assembly and adding to the end of a growing sequence in the timeline. This short video (3:15) shows you how to do it. To view it at full size on Vimeo, click here.
Media Composer 4 introduced Transition Preservation, Avid’s term for a group of enhancements that improve the handling of dissolves during editing. It’s one of those features that’s so intuitive that it immediately feels like you’ve been using it for years — and then you wonder how you did without it for so long. It’s all about timeline dynamics, and that makes it difficult to explain in words. So I’ve posted a video that explains it.
As mentioned in a comment from Grant yesterday, Transition Preservation might be all the reason you need to move to 4.0. Watch the video below or check it out a larger version on Vimeo.
Avid’s toolsets and workspaces allow you to set up custom arrangements of your windows. You can turn windows on and off, change window sizes and positions and create various other customizations, and then invoke all of that with a single menu pick or keyboard shortcut. You can also select timeline (or other) settings simultaneously.
I’ve posted a video that shows you how to do it. (Note that these features were updated in MC6. This tutorial applies to MC5 and 5.5. )
Click below, or watch a larger version on Vimeo.
Avid’s advanced keyframes offer unprecedented control over visual effects in the Media Composer, but many editors don’t even know they exist. To help you get started working with them, I’ve put together a little introductory video tutorial. It’s about 13 minutes long. Check it out and let me know what you think.
Click below, or for a bigger image, watch it on Vimeo
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