[Chaz Shukat]

If you can do it with PPRO, you can almost certainly do it with Avid. Avid is very deep, has many ways to do one thing. You can customize your interface untill next leap year it has so many options. As for what you want, no you can’t do it.

Just kidding, here’s what you do.
In the bottom left hand corner of the timeline there is an icon that look like a hamburger, it’s called the hamburger menu. Open it and select Clip Frames to see the Video.
For the audio all you really need to select is Sample Plot. However, you’ll find it’s very slow to refresh unless you also select Audio Clip Gain and Audio Auto Gain. So select all three.
Having the video clip frames showing also tends to slow things down. Personally, I never use it, but that’s just me.

Hope that helps. Oh, and Jon Zanone, one of the regulars here on the Avid Cow forum, would be upset if I neglect to tell a new Avid convert “Welcome to the dark side”.

Chaz S.

[Chaz Shukat]

I’m probably going to show my ignorance here more than help, but, I don’t know how you are getting video out to a monitor in the first place without a Mojo. Is that not what’s needed?

[Chaz Shukat]

I’m gonna take a stab at this. I had the same or very similar problem when I first set up my Xpress Pro system many moons ago. I was very green technically at that time (not that I’m a geek now) but I recall that I didn’t have the proper driver for my graphic card. Had to download new one.

Chaz S.

[Chaz Shukat]

Please explain this “rule”.

Chaz S.

[Chaz Shukat]

What’s better, apples or organges. You could say apples are better because nothing rhymes with orange. But seriously, it depends on what situation, what type of production, how devouted you are to Mac products, and personal preference. If you are going to do the entire post process yourself, you could go with a FCP, but if you intend to finish your productions in an On-line facility and output your video for sweetening on Pro-Tools, etc., Avid is the safe bet. Also Avid has superior media management. But if you prefer a drag and drop interface, go with FCP, or Sony Vegas for that matter. I can tell you that some people prefer Macs or PCs and visa versa. Each will tell why their preference is better. Same for Avid & FCP. It all depends on what you need and what you want to do. BTW, just because you may see more discussion about FCP on a website, doesn’t mean it’s better. It could very well mean just the opposite. People are having more issues with it. Or that it’s newer than Avid and people need more info about it.

Chaz S.

[Chaz Shukat]

This is a great idea. I was fortunate enough to have footage to play with when I was learning to edit. It definitely has value as a learning aid and I think people will buy it if it gives them something they can’t easily shoot themselves. I don’t know how you shot it or what problems you may have had while shooting and if they are present in the footage, but a possible issue is that if the footage is too perfect it will not properly represent what an editor would have to deal with in a real production (like for instance there would be no match-action problems). I bring this up because, interestingly enough, I just wrote a book designed to serve as a surrogate mentor to young editors, assistants, and editing students. I just got some feedback on it from an assistant editor that said that the ficticious reality show that I used to illustrate my points was too perfect and didn’t reflect real world situations.

Chaz S.

[Chaz Shukat]

Thank you Father!

Chaz S.

[Chaz Shukat]

I did switch to a new version a long time ago and I had problems or couldn’t even use it (I forget) because apparently the newer version required more RAM than I have (512), so I switched back. Does that sound right? Any other suggestions?

Chaz S.

[Chaz Shukat]

Dear CrossWind,
Do not fear! First of all you are ahead of the game for a newbie because you know about the creative calf and where to get help. As for your questions:

No, editing does not remove the effect, however it may unrender it. But have no fear because you can always use “undo edit” to go back to the way it was, Or you can just re-render the effect. As for loosing dissolves, you should check it before you make the change to take note of it’s duration and position on the edit so that you can reproduce it after you make the cut. Just make sure you keep everything in sync when you are tightening. Keep your sync locks on. And for extra reassurance, you can make a duplicate of the original sequence and work on the duplicate. That way you always have the original to go back to if you “loose” something that you can’t get back for some reason.

Chaz S.

[Chaz Shukat]

There are 2 things I know of that you can try. Hopefully they are what you are looking for.

One is, you can use the “Custom Sift” function in the Bin menu to just show clips that have a certain word in the name or other specification that you tell it to search for.

Or you can open your “Media Tool” in your tool menu and use the “Media Relatives” function in the Bin menu to locate specific media on your drives or, visa versa, what project a specific clip of media is related to.

Chaz S.