An Avid Beginner

[Gary Hazen]

https://community.avid.com/forums/TipsAndTutorials.aspx

[Mark A. stuart]

Hi Aicha,

Just a couple thoughts to hopefully help get you started:

What is the capture and export capabilities like on Avid? It is easy or hard to function?
Personally, I don’t think it’s the easiest set up of all NLEs, but not too difficult, either. There’s a lot of versatility you have from various sources to capture from, depending on your box (adrenaline, mojo, etc.). If you’re working with SD cards/P2 media, it’s a matter of importing rather than capturing. Exporting isn’t difficult, but I find at least our particular system to be more limiting to the types of files and codecs we have available compared to say, Adobe Premiere.

Does it differ on both the Mac and PC?
No, not as far as I know. I’ve cut on both, but haven’t on a Mac for a few years, but I doubt it’s different now.

Are there specific formats for files to be captured or exported in?
Avid will create their own file formats to edit: MXF or OMFI files. You’ll want these on your “Avid Media Drives” or separate hard drive from your system drive.

What is the simplest way to capture and export using Avid?
This depends on what source you’re capturing from and what format you want to output to. Here at the station, to make a DVD disc is easiest to simply roll the deck hooked into our Adrenaline box via the composite output; to tape, roll the DVC Pro deck hooked into our box via SDI output; for a .wmv email-able approval copy, just go to File/Export and have your codec set up there the way you want it. This can be set and saved so you don’t have to reconfigure it every time.

How much is the camera involved in the capturing and exporting of files? What are the main uses of the camera during this process?
Bringing in media from a camera is basically just another input device. This depends on your set up whether or not you want to capture from a camera or a deck, disc, etc.

Here are a couple excellent tutorials for starting with Avid:

https://www.gaijin-eyes.com/tutorials/xyz/migrate00.htm

https://www.avid.com/US/resources/media-composer-5-getting-started-training

It pretty much comes down to personal preference. To me, you can do a whole lot on an Avid. Comparing Avid to iMovie is something like comparing a Cadillac to a skateboard! Different NLEs are easier/more difficult, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. I work on Avid, Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas, and all 3 have their strengths and weaknesses in addition to their individual ease of use depending on what you’re doing. Some of the advantages of Avid, IMHO, are you can do many advanced effects easily enough and the color correction is superb. It’s also set up nicely for multiple users and you can easily customize your workspace to have it the way you like it. Although we don’t do this here, I’ve read plenty of it’s networking advantages, too.

I wish you well!

-Mark
Mark A. Stuart
Producer/Director/Editor

Art is completely subjective. It’s up to the viewer to judge whether or not it has merit. -Ken Danby