cached 2/29/02 from avid.com

Tips From Your Dusty Avid Manuals

by Steve Hullfish

Even the most experienced Avideditors will develop odd “holes” in their personal knowledge of Avid operational trivia. Either new features are added that you never utilized in your workflow, or you simply stopped incorporating the deeper features once you got comfortable with the tools with which you regularly work.

I consider myself a “power” user of the Avid editing products, yet I still learn new things from my assistant editors. The other day when I was cleaning out my basement I found my Avid 101 notes from seven years ago. There, in the margin, in my own handwriting, was a little gem of wisdom that I swear I did not know. Yet I had obviously noted its importance at the beginning of my years working on Avid editing systems.

A few summers ago, I read the entire user manual from cover to cover and found some hidden gems that filled in some of the gaps in my working knowledge of Avid editing products. I also made note of some other features that I did know about, but had never really incorporated into my workflow on a regular basis. You may know some of the tips in this article, but I guarantee you’ll learn something new.

(Most of these tips are universally useable across the range of Avid editing products, versions and platforms. They were all tested on Macintosh and Windows NT systems dating back to Media Composer 7.1. With the exception of the Script View Bin tip, they all work on Avid Xpress systems as well. My thanks to the many Avid-L volunteers who tested these tips on their systems.)

Console Tips

Generally speaking, the console is reserved for troubleshooting. Not too many years ago, the serious Avid editor used many console commands that seemed to give the machine magical powers. There was a console command that enabled the Avid EDL Tool to create a list that was pre-read enabled, a console command to change PlayLength, and another command to CheckDecks if you forgot to turn on your tape deck before you started up your Avid. Most of these have since been incorporated as “mainstream” operational tools of the Avid editing products.

Usually Avid recommends staying out of the console unless you really know what you’re doing, and if you look in the manuals for mentions of Console Commands, you will find a very limited selection. But there is a notable exception to this rule called DumpMaxPeaks.

If you would like to get a list of the highest Maximum Peak Level for each audio channel in your sequence, DumpMaxPeaks is the answer. This can work as a kind of unsupervised audio quality control check. Although it does not specify where the level problems are in the sequence, it does alert you to search them out. You can also try this tip using only portions of your sequence, helping you to narrow down the problem areas.

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Go to Audio Tool in the Tools menu and clear peaks.



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Play the sequence, or just a portion of the sequence.

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Open the Console (Cntrl+6 NT, Cmd+6 Mac or pull down from the Tools Menu)
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Type DumpMaxPeaks into the Console and the Console will list a peak level for each audio channel.






The DumpMaxPeaks tip is from the audio chapter of the User’s Guide. Another great Console tip is in the Quick Reference Card.

If you would like to know the total running time of all — or just some — of the clips in a bin, you can do it with the console. I’ve been doing this for years, so it goes back several releases.

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In a bin, select all clips (Cntrl+a for NT, Cmd+a for Mac or select All from the Edit Menu).
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On NT, hold down the control key while hitting the letter “i.” On a Mac, hold down the command key while hitting the letter “i.” This will call up the console, which will display how many clips are in the bin and what the total running time is of those clips.





This is very handy if you have used MediaLog on a group of clips and you want to know how much space they will take up on your drives or what resolution you need to use in order to fit all the logged footage.

This trick also works with smaller groups of clips in bins. Instead of selecting all clips in a bin, you can “lasso” or shift-select certain clips then hit Cntrl+i or Cmd+i. If you are interested in finding out the total length of all the clips in all of your bins, this same tip will work by using the Media Tool.

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Call up the Media Tool from the Tools Menu.
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Select “master clips only” and “all drives.”
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When the Media Tool window comes up, select all clips and hit Cntrl+i on NT or Cmd+i for Mac. The console will give you a project total of digitized and imported clips.


One caveat to this feature is to make sure you don’t have any sequences in the bin selection, since this command will add the total running time of the sequence to the total provided in the Console. Also, each title will add two minutes of time, and any imported graphics will add an amount equal to the length with which they were imported. So, for accurate results, only use this tip with digitized media.

Bin Tips

In the chapter “Organizing with Bins,” there are some very useful tips including this tip on how to view all the clips that are referenced by a given sequence, even if the clips do not originally reside in the same bin. Here’s what to do:

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Place your sequence in a new bin.
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Choose ‘Set Bin Display’ from the Bin Menu. The Display Bin Selection dialog box appears.



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Select the object types that you want to see, such as master clips, subclips, etc.
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Select the option “Show reference clips” to automatically display objects that are referenced by the sequence in the bin. Click OK.


This is a useful feature for finding clips or for consolidating media at the end of a project. I had previously used a fairly complicated method that used the Media Tool to achieve the same end result.

Another tip from this chapter allows you to perform a multi-level sort in a bin. This would be useful, for example, if you wanted to sort all your clips by tape name first, but also by starting timecode within each tape. In the above example, you would place the tape column to the left of the timecode column and then select both columns. Then hit Cntrl+e on NT or Cmd+e on a Mac. This is a useful procedure to perform before Batch Digitizing. (Works on Xpress 2.2 and 2.1 on the Mac.)



Sifting is another useful way to organize material in a bin. One of the great bin tips that many veteran Avid editors may be missing out on if they’re using version 8, 9 or 10 of Media Composer is the ability to sift a bin for a specific timecode number included between Start and End timecodes. Consider this example: you’ve digitized a large number of clips into a bin and your producer requests that you locate a specific timecode number. Here’s how to find the clip quickly:

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Choose ‘Custom Sift’ from the Bin Menu. If you think you’ll be doing this a lot, you should map the Custom Sift Menu to a button on your keyboard or to one of the “soft” buttons on your screen.
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Type the timecode number in the Sift criteria text box. The Sift criteria are determined by the headings in the bin. You need to have headings showing that use the ability to Sift. This would include Start, Aux TC or Key numbers. There is no need to enter colons or semicolons to separate the numbers or to type “leading” zeroes. For example, 00:05:06:20 would simply be typed as 50620.
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Choose “Start to End Range” in the column to the right. The bin will then sift out all the clips that do not contain the specified timecode, leaving you with just a few clips — or possibly only a single clip — that contain the desired timecode number.
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Choose “Show Unsifted” from the Bin Menu to get back to your “old” view.





Sometimes, using Sorts and Sifts will not provide you with the particular order that you need to organize your bin for a specific purpose. Once again, the “Organizing with Bins” chapter can often come up with just the right tip for such an occasion.

If you are looking to get your clips into a customized order, Script View provides the answer. For example, if you just want to put clips in your favorite order, or if you want to put all the clips you’ve used already at the top or bottom of the bin, then Script View is the answer. (This tip does not work for the Xpress family because Xpress systems only have frame and text views in bins.)

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Go to Script View by clicking on the small “S” in the bottom left corner of the bin.
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In Script View, simply drag your clips into the order that you desire.
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Go back to Text View by clicking on the “T” and the order you created in Script View will be maintained.





One particularly useful application for this tip would be if you have a specific clip that you need to access over and over during the course of the edit. You could drag that clip to the top of the bin for easier access. It is also possible to get a clip to the top of the list by placing a space or a number of spaces before the Name of the clip and sort (Cmd+e while the Name column is highlighted) the Name column. This “space” tip is actually good for sorting things inside of desktop folders. When I was a Mac user, I used this to sort my favorite Apple Menu items to the top of the Apple Menu.

As you can see from the many useful tips presented here, there might be good reason to blow the dust off those old manuals, even if you are an experienced Avid editor. Taking even a few minutes to mine the wealth of information in the Avid documentation might enhance your Avid editing system with “new” features you never knew it had. Give it a try and you could find some hidden gemsof your own.

 

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