AVID EDITING NOTES

CUSTOMIZING SETTINGS, WORKSPACES & LAYOUTS


COMPOSER SETTINGS
• DON’T USE, Single Mark or Phantom Marks
• Leave Auto Create Tracks ON
• Can Change the Interface Settings
• Enable Auto-enable Source Tracks. Whenever you load a clip into the Source monitor, its tracks will be on
• Disable Copy Source Locators


TIMELINE SETTINGS
• Show Marked Waveforms will only show between In and Out Points
• Show Four Frame Display- this is good for when moving shots around in Segment Mode
• Auto-Patching (in the Edit Tab)- Active Track will go to Active Track. This is GOOD for when adding music
• Auto Monitoring- The default is on, set it to Off. This is good for when working with effects. Sometimes you wan the monitor to stay at the tip, if it’s on , the monitor will follow the track you select


MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF SETTINGS
• This is good for when doing different tasks such as a setting for Capturing, Editing, Multi-cam, Effects and so on
• Select the setting you want to Duplicate and highlight it and press Apple + D and rename it.
• Double click your new setting and reconfigure it
• To make a setting active, make sure the check mark is checked


CUSTOMIZING YOUR WORKSPACES
• Create User Settings per System. Newer systems make not work
• For instance, make a Workspace for Capturing and in this workspace I will want to display the Capture Tool and the Video Input Tool in specific locations and for Effects editing I may want to display the Effect Palette and Effect Editor in a particular location and size.
• To assign a workspace, click the Settings tab and scroll to the bottom and select Workspace and Apple + D to duplicate it. In the 2nd column to the right of the word Workspace, click on it and rename it. Click on the left of the workspace I want to use and a check mark will appear. Open the windows that I want to assign to the workspace and rearrange them. After I get the windows the way I like it, double click on the word Workspace and save as a Manual Update
• To map the Workspace to a button or key, go to the More Tab of the Command Palette and drag a Workspace Button to a key or button
• To Delete a Workspace, select the workspace in the settings tab and press the Delete key
• To take a snap shot of my screen, press Shift + Apple + 3.
• To draw a Lasso around an image I want to save (such as my keyboard layouts), press Shift + Apple + 4.
• To Copy User Settings between Platforms, copy the user folder to a PC-Formatted Disk (or to a server over the web). If I were to move from Mac to PC, I will lose any function mapped to the F1and F13-F15 keys. When I open the settings on the new platform or to another system on the same platform with different monitor resolutions, I will need to move the Composer and Timeline windows to their home positions (choose Windows-Home)


TIMELINE VIEWS
• The aim in creating these views is to reduce the number of times you must use the pull-down menus to reconfigure the Timeline.
• Offline Audio Timeline View is a good one to make. Offline audio does not show a Media Offline frame in the source or record monitors so it is not always apparent it is offline. Choose Timeline Fast Menu-Clip Text-Media File Names. Each clip in the timeline now displays the name of the associated media file. Then Choose Timeline Fast Menu-Clip Color-Offline. Any offline clip will appear bright red in the Timeline. Then choose View-Save As and type Offline. Any time that I want to check if a clip in a sequence is online, Select View – Offline. If the media is offline, the clip in the Timeline will display Media Offline. When done return to the default view.


TO SAVE SETTINGS BETWEEN SYSTEMS
• Quit Media Composer after my session. Otherwise, activate the Project Window and choose File – Save All.
• Open the harddrive and Navigate to the Avid Users folder. Plug in my Flash Drive and copy the folder with my name and any other settings folder I would like to take with me.
• Create different User Folders for each version of the system I work on.
• INSTALL SETTINGS PROIR TO LAUNCHING AVID. To install my user settings onto another system, copy the folder from my Flash Drive into the Avid Users folder on the new systems internal harddrive and then launch Media Composer.
• To Save Bins, it’ll go into the Project Files and not Avid Users


01 - Avid Editing Essentials

When beginning, make a user setting for myself and a project setting if it’s not already done.

Preset Window settings are in the Toolset drop down menu.

Project Window- if I close this window, I close the project. This window contains tabs for (Bins, Settings, _______ and Info.





MODES – WINDOW LAYOUTS

In the Toolset drop down, I can choose different Modes such as working in Color Correction or Audio Editing. They are also keyboard shortcuts using the Shift Key & F7 or Basic and F8 for Color Correction and so on.

TIMELINE SETTINGS

• The FOCUS BUTTON toggles to a fixed magnification and back again. This can be set to happen automatically when entering trim mode.
• TRACK HEIGHT- There are two ways to change this
1. Select the tracks you wish to adjust (make sure any tracks you don’t want to change are De-selected on both the source and record sides of the track panel) and choose “Enlarge Track – Apple/Ctrl + L” and to “Reduce Track size press Apple/Ctrl + K”
2. Hold down the Option/Ctrl key and click and drag on the black dividing line between the two tracks in the track panel


TIMELINE FAST MENU (the little Hamburger icon) below are some features:
• Zoom In - Apple/Ctrl + M
• Zoom Back – Apple/Ctrl + J
• Track Color- This is good for distinguishing between the contents of a track. For example, you can make the VO blue and the music red and so on. To do this, select the track(s) on the Record side only and then click the “Timeline Hamburger” and choose Track Color and pick a color from the palette. If you hold down the Option/Alt key, a color picker opens with more color options.
• Dupe Detection- This is good to always keep on.
• Audio Data- to show the Audio Waveforms of a clip in the Timeline, go to Timeline Settings and use Clip Gain or Audio Gain. This displays with a wide track width to display audio levels within a clip.
• Clip Color- colors assigned to clips can be displayed in the timeline using the choices in this sub-menu


SAVING TIMELINE VIEWS
• After customizing your timeline, click on the box at the bottom of the timeline (it will show the name of the current view or the word Untitled. Then click on Save As an name your view. Your views are listed in the Project Window when Settings are displayed. It’s good to use different views for different purposes.
• To Delete a Track from the timeline, deselect all the other tracks and press the Delete Key.


TIMELINE SETTINGS (and what they do)
• Show Marked Waveforms- displays the audio waveforms only between an In and an Out if one of the waveform options is selected in the Timeline fast menu
• Show Marked Region- turns the purple highlight over a marked region on and off of the timeline
• Scroll While Playing- moves the timeline past a stationary position indicator.
• Show Four Frame Displays- turns on and off the four window display usually seen when segment editing. This can speed up the moving of segments when the user plans to snap the moving segment to a particular cut or mark. This is useful when working with unrendered effects as the system does not have to spend time previewing the frames
• Audio Patching- if this is selected, the source side tracks automatically patch themselves to selected record side track lights in a logical way
• Audio Monitoring- this forces the video monitor in the timeline to move to the track being edited – this may not always be desirable when working with unrendered video effects so it can be disabled here
• Dupe Detection Handles- by adjusting this, frames that are very close to other frames that have been included in the sequence will be flagged as being duplicated. This is very valuable in film projects
• Segment Drag Sync Locks- this prevents sync being broken when moving segments with the Extract/Splice-In button. The Timeline sync locks need to be on, too, for this to be effective.
• Start Filler Duration- this sets the amount of filler added at the start of a sequence when using the “Add Filler” command in the Clip menu.
• Find Flash Frames


CUSTOMIZING THE INTERFACE

In the Settings tab there are a few different interfaces that Avid offers me. To create my own, go to the original one and double click on it and go to the Appearance tab.

Another place to do some customized is in the Command Pllette. Go to Tools - Command Palette. This is where all the buttons are.

All Pulldown Menus can be mapped to a Button. Click on Menu to Button Reassignment in the Command Palette and then click on the button on the interface that I want to change and then go to a pulldown menu I want to use that may not have a keyboard short cut and click on it and it will now appear where the other one was.

I can also customize my keyboard by going to Settings Tab - Keyboard. Also open up the Command Palette. Click on Button to Button Reassignment. Drag the buttons and drop them on the keys. Hold down the Shift key and I have a whole new layer of mapping keys.

To Jump back and forth to different Avid Modes (Window Layouts) press:

Basic - Shift + F7
Color Correction - Shift + F8
Source/Record Editing - Shift + F9
Effects Editing - Shift + F10
Audio Editing - Shift + F11
Capturing - Shift + F12

Learn these and I will save tons of time.

In the settings next to Keyboard, I can type my name in there. When I save my User Settings it will save my keyboard. I should have customized keyboards for different functions like (audio, effects, color correction and what not).


CUSTOMIZING TOOLSETS

Open up what Avid offers and I can customize it to what I want. For example, open Audio Editing. Avid doesn't automattically open the Audio Tool, so I should open it and make it bigger. I can also open the Audio Mix tool along with the Audio Gain tool. Arrange everything the way I want them and to save it, go to Toolset - Save Current. This will now be apart of my User Settings.


TYPES OF SETTINGS

1. User Settings (keyboard, toolset) every time i log on it will be there and I can save it to a flash drive to take with me to other gigs and copy them onto the new system

2. Project Settings (audio setup, beginning timecode
3. Site Settings (certain post houses have this so all bays have the same settings.


HOW TO CHANGE A PROJECT SETTING

In the settings tab go to General. I can change the default starting timecode.


CUSTOMIZING THE TIMELINE

For example when working with Audio Toolset, I could make my Video tracks smaller and my Audio tracks bigger.

I can also change the color of each track to coincide with what's on it. For instance A1 could be all VO and I could make it one color and then A2 could be SOT, A3 & A4 could be Music and so on. I can do this by selecting the track and with the Fast Menu (Hamburger) on the bottom of the timeline going to Track Color.

When I'm done adjusting my timeline and I want to save it, go to the bottom of the timeline next to the red arrow, click on the Button (may say Untitled) and click on Save As and name it something like Audio Timeline.

If I want to go back to the way it was before, go to the Fast Menu on the timeline and select Default Setup and save this one as Default Timeline.

I can then go to the Toolset - Audio Editing and then I could select Link Current to...and it will allow me to link this toolset to another setting. I can link it to a named setting and can call it Audio. Make sure it is spelled exactly correctly (case sensitive) as I did when I named it in the Timeline. This way all of my toolsets will show up and the timeline will change.

I could even go to Toolset - Basic and then Toolset - Link Current to...and change the drop down menu to Link to Named Settings and write in Default & OK. Now when I switch toolsets my timeline view changes and is appropriate to what I'm about to do.

I can do the same for Effects editing and Capturing and Color Correction and what not.


SETTING TIMECODE DISPLAYS
• Go to Tools – Timecode Window. You can resize it (to be really LARGE for a client to see) from the corner of the window
• Click the Timecode pop up menu and choose an option
• To replace a timecode, click and hold the cursor over the timecode you want to replace and choose another timecode
• To display multiple timecodes, place the cursor in the Timecode Window and press the mouse button to choose Add Display from the pop up menu. Click the timecode line and choose a timecode option
• To remove a timecode, click the timecode and choose Remove Display from the pop up


TIMECODE DISPLAY OPTIONS
• Mas- Displays Master timecode at present location
• Dur- Displays total duration of the sequence
• I/O- Displays duration between In and Out marks
• Abs- Displays duration from the head of the sequence to the position indicator
• Rem- Displays duration from position indicator to the end of the sequence
• V1-V24- Displays the timecode of the source clip video on the selected track
• A1-A24- Displays the timecode of the source clip audio on the selected track
• Footage- Displays tracking information as feet and frames


SETTING FONT & POINT SIZE
• Make your Source or Record Window active and choose Edit-Set Font
• Choose a font and a point size and click OK.
• This can also be done in the Timeline, project window and in a Bin.


AT THE VERY BEGINNING OF YOUR PROJECT, SET THE FONT SIZE OR ELSE YOU’LL HAVE TO DO IT TO EACH WINDOW


WORKSPACES
• You can save a snap shot of the windows on the monitor and allow the user to return to this setup later. For example when digitizing, the Digitize Tool, the Audio Tool and the Video Input tool will all be needed and it would be useful not to have the project window obscured by the Digitize Tool.
• To configure a workspace, click Settings in the Project window and scroll to the bottom of the list. There will be a setting called Workspace. Duplicate this (Apple + D). Now you have 2 workspace settings and you can name one of them Digitize. Make sure that the small tick (including the active setting) is next to the new Digitize Workspace setting. Now you’d open and arrange the tools and windows you’ll need for digitizing. Then you can click next to the other workspace and name it “Edit” and rearrange the windows and tools as you’d like them for normal editing. You can make more workspaces if you wish.
• To swap workspaces, it is faster to have buttons or keyboard keys programmed. Open the Command Palette and in the Other tab are a number of workspace buttoms (W1, W2, W3, etc). These can be mapped as desired. The workspace buttons automatically assign themselves to the workspaces you’ve created in alpha or numeric order.


DUPLICATE SETTINGS

Click on a setting in the project window to select it and then Apple + D. This is useful if there are two variations of a setting you’d like to use regularly. Modify one of the settings and name it. To switch settings, simply click to the left of the setting of choice and a tick appears.
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