discreet to avid

[M. Jones]

Hey Beth,

I still have my discreet but I’m making the jump. I got an Avid Xpress Studio. It comes with the MOJO. The mojo allows me to digitize component RGB video. So when I rent a digibeta deck, it should work for me.

I’m still running tests. But I purchased it for that very reason. I also have an extra Matrox card if you’re interested.

But to answer your question, I’m a discreet user who HAD to make the switch. Reluctantly! I got the Xpress w/Mojo to save money. Digibeta is the highest format that I need right now. Adrenaline is more expensive, but I hear that it’s a monster. If I had the money I would have got an Adrenaline.
But for the record, Discreet Edit, is the most comfortable edit program I’ve ever used. (when it works). I can’t stand Final Cut.

So Avid seemed like the most logical, and practical choice. If you are coming from Discreet, then you probably should get your Avid on PC rather than mac. Unless you just like macs.

Hope I helped you a little. Keep doing your research.

I’m in L.A. if you’re near, we should keep in touch.

email- mj@setapartpictures.com

[Charlie Crone]

Our company just purchased 3 Avid Adrenaline. We are still running discreet edit until the middle of May, when we transition. We bought the PC version and I have a simple job under my belt, have read 1 of 3 manuals and viewed 3 out of the 4 training DVD’s. Nothing really jumped out at me as being radically different,as far as basic editing. It seemed I needed more time to familiarize myself with the interface so I could locate the buttons. When I tryed the online help it brought me around in circles, so I brought a book home over the weekend, read it, and made notes on how to locate the buttons I use the most. Most of the first book was how to customize your personal interface. The one thing that drove me crazy and was nowhere, was the system was setup as non-drop frame and all of our footage was drop frame. The interface complained on output but it did it. Could not locate where to change this, until we called the vendor.

[Les Kaye]

Will the transition be a piece of cake? No. Things to get used to? Yes. Some lame-brained programming in Avid? You betcha. Way more powerful than edit? Pretty much.

If you search the discreet edit archives there should be some posts from both Dave Friend and myself regarding caveats. Unfortunately moving to Adrenaline has its own pluses and minuses. One plus is that it’s more powerful than it’s XpressPro sibling simply by having the animatte, paint and a more versatile timecode window tool. From my experience on Adrenaline HD however, it also seems less stable than a regular Adrenaline or Media Composer, with much more rendering when in HD, and much more than on an XpressPro. You can also forget about Avid’s support in comparison to discreet’s (at least in the old days).

That said, I’ve been away from edit long enough that I’m very comfortable and more at ease with the Avid editorial workflow. I won’t say it’s necessarily better, just different. Trimming, nesting (subtimelines) for multiple clips or effects, multicam, audio handling and sharing projects are way more powerful in Avid. OTOH, there’s a certain ease of use and real time functionality in edit that can’t be dismissed. And both the Title Tool and Marquee in Avid pretty much blow…(although you can get – I believe – TitleMotion as an AVX plug in.

Avid’s fairly deep with multiple ways to accomplish something, and I’m still learning something every week. This might be one instance where patience and reading the manual would be virtues. Oh, and one more thing – don’t go mapping the Avid keyboard to edit’s before you learn the system. You’ll make it that much more difficult for yourself. Learn what can be accomplished first, then see what makes you comfortable. I myself leave the unshifted keyboard alone (except for using numbers for tracks as in edit) and use shifted functions for my normal edit type commands (Shift M=Mixer, Shift X= effects, etc. FYI – drop down and hamburger menu commands can also be keyboard mapped.

In any case, take all this from someone who’ll be (very) shortly moving over to FCP

[Michael Thomson]

Hi Beth

We use both Adrenaline and Discreet Edit 6 here.

Like everyone has said, both systems have their good and bad points, and you will have a period of adjustment to make.

I learnt originally on an old AVID system, then Edit 6 then Adenaline, so it was somewhat different for me.
The big benefit with the AVID is that it has more features/effects than edit, and also that the AVID “language” is a an almost universal one, with only minor operational differences between each variation.

You will find it relatively easy to change if you map the AVID to perform functions as they would in edit, and there are some things like selecting and deselecting all tracks that are similar. Where u will find a big change is in not having a specific “title” or “motion effects” track, and indeed the whole workings with effects is considerably different.

Anyway u will have a whole bunch of folk here on the cow, who have used both systems and will be only too happy to help

Good Luck and welcome to the world of AVID

[Donato M. rondinelli]

The big problem I had was getting use to use the record & source monitors to get footage to & from the timeline. In Edit, I used to drag & drop. When I went to Avid I felt like my right hand was tied behind my back. Few days later I got the hang of it. All is well now 🙂

Since I’ve been using Avid I’ve found far less errors in my timelines. Because it’s so easy in Edit to move things in the timeline, I found myself moving clips accidentally. In Avid you have to click a button to move things around which provides some safety.

-dMR