Avid Blog Network

This Avid Media Comopser training tutorial for Avid Marquee demonstrates how to create simple but yet stunning looking titles that include 3D extrusion, beveled edges, and textures with lighting effects. Avid Marquee is an incredibly powerful 3D titling package that is included with the latest version of Avid Media Composer . The lastest version of Avid Xpress also includes Marquee. Read More...

Masks vs. Alphas Alpha channels are our most sophisticated way to handle transparency, but they're by no means the only way.  We commonly use the term "Mask" to refer to something similar to the alpha channel above - that is to say, a full range of "see-through-ness" for each point.  Photoshop, for example, uses the term "Mask" to mean just that.  But more primitive incarnations of "image masks" in applications like DVDs and some still image files like GIFs use a different approach. Read More...

Alpha Channels As we first start thinking about transparency in a computer sense, let's go back to the beginning of how computers think about our NTSC broadcast images. You might remember that, for our purposes, a computer thinks about videos as a sequence of many individual images (frames). It thinks about each frame as a big rectangular "quilt" of pixels, or individual dots of color - for our purposes, 720 dots wide and 480 dots tall. And it thinks of each of those dots of color as the amount of...

Whether you're using titles, creating supers, or doing any other sort of compositing, you're trying to tell the computer to show some parts of an image but to hide other parts. I've been surprised by the number of folks who were never really taught how that process works from the computer's point of view. After the jump, an easy little primer that may help you understand -- Read More...

Both Avid and P2 use OPAtom MXF files; there is no transcode or rewrap required at all, the Avid reads the MXF hearder information and the MXF files can be thrown into the Avid MediaFiles folder if needed. P2 and Virtual P2 cards are treated as media drives; the files are available immediately and editing [...] Read More...

As you know, fonts normally come in a single color. Essentially, each letter is a shape - and the computer needs to describe your logo as a shape as well. Therefore, you need to reduce your logo into one or more black-and-white images that correspond to the regions you want the computer to fill when you're using your font. Incidentally, the very basic techniques we'll use in Photoshop might help you with other matte and compositing work as well. Read More...

Installing the free software you need to create your fonts can be a little bit tricky. Read on to find out how to set up the font software and the auto-tracing plugin on Mac or Windows. Read More...

Most modern titling software allows you to import logos or graphics to incorporate with your text. Avid's Marquee Title Tool does not , at least in any sophisticated way - which is a shame. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to do the easy 3D manipulations to logos just like you can to letters? That's what motivated this little tutorial series, but, depending on your workflow, the implications may be even broader. If you have a set of many logos or shapes that you use often, for example, you can put...

There seems to be a decent amount of confusion about which settings should be selected when exporting a video as QuickTime and then importing the QuickTime movie into an Avid editor. In this article I will describe the proper settings for exporting video out of  a third party application such as Adobe After Effects using the Avid QuickTime DNxHD codec and then importing the QuickTime DNxHD movie into an editor. Four workflows are shown, one of which is invalid. This same workflow should hold true for all the Avid QuickTime codecs. It will not apply to non-Avid QuickTime codecs.

 

Exporting Source Material With RGB Levels
 

Source media with RGB levels.

 

If you start with source material with RGB levels (0-255), such as the image above, you should select the RGB button in the QuickTime export options shown below. This is because the option in the QuickTime dialog specifies the levels of the source material. However, it isn't a disaster if you don't select the RGB button.

Assume you export two movies. The first has RGB level source material and is exported with the RGB option selected. This is called RGBsource_RGBOption.mov. The second movie has RGB level source material and is exported using the 709 option. This movie is called RGBsource_709Option.mov. 

 

Select the RGB brightness option with RGB source material.

 

Importing Source Material With RGB Levels

When you import RGBsource_RGBOption.mov into the editor, select the 601/709 option to perform a quick import. Selecting the RGB button will bring the  video in at the correct levels, but it will be a slow import. It is OK to select the 601/709 button as the levels within the QuickTime movie were converted to 709 compliant levels when the RGB button was selected on export. Quick import copies the 709 compliant video data from the QuickTime movie to the editor. See the image below for the optimal setting when bringing this movie into the editor.

  

Select the 601/709 option for import of RGB source material.

 

If you look at the levels while in color correction mode, you can see that the darkest black is 16 and the brightest white is 235 as shown in the image below. The left side of the color picker represents the darkest black value and the right side of the color picker represents the brightest white value. The levels of the imported media are correct.

 

RGB source material imported into the editor.

 

When you import RGBsource_709Option.mov, you must select the RGB button in the editor import dialog as shown below. Selecting the 601/709 option will cause the video to come
in at RGB levels. 

 

Select the RGB button for import of RGB material exported with 709 option selected.

 

Exporting Source Material With 709 Levels

 

Source media with 709 compliant levels.

When you export source material that is already 709 level compliant, as shown above, the 709 button should be selected in the QuickTime dialog options as shown below. The RGB button should never be selected in this scenario, as this will not import into the editor with 709 compliant levels. Assume you export two movies. The first contains 709 level compliant source material and is exported using the 709 option. This movie is called 709Source_709Option.mov. The second movie contains 709 compliant source levels and is exported improperly using the RGB option. This movie is called 709Source_RGBOption.mov.

 

Select the 709 button for 709 compliant source material.

 

Importing Source Material With 709 Levels

Import 709Source_709Option.mov using the 601/709 option. This is the only option that can be selected for proper import of this movie.

Now,  import 709Source_RGBOption.mov. No matter whether you select the RGB import option or the 601/709 option, the imported levels will be incorrect as shown below.

 

Media imported into the editor when 709 material is exported using the RGB option.

 

And That's The First Article!

I hope you found this article informative. If I receive positive feedback on this article, I would like to continue writing more articles about various Media Composer workflows.

Please feel free to email comments using the form at the top right or by emailing justin at kwancentral dot com. I can't guarantee that I will be able to respond to all questions.  

Our workflow had to change some from our original plans for this international collaborative documentary project. We intended to provide faculty/student teams in five different countries with Panasonic HD cameras. Throughout the year each team would shoot river footage and...

Have you ever run into a situation where you can't seem to find a particular clip within an Avid sequence? Well, you can assign various colors to clips as a nifty way to quickly find cips within an Avid sequence. To do this: click on the 'text' tab within an Avid bin. Then navigate to the bin menu and select 'headings'. Activate the 'color' heading. Now, click underneath the 'color' heading within your Avid bin and assign individual clips their own unique color. You can also asign a group of clips...

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In color correction mode, if you sample a color with the eyedropper you can alt-drag (PC) or opt-drag (Mac) the little colored square and drag it to a bin to save it. You can then drag that sampled color back into the Output color area from the bin and match to it later if you want. [...] Read More...

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Avid Technology announced today that it is shipping new version's of Avid Media Composer . This version of Media Composer 3.0 is the first qualified version to work Mac OS Leopard (10.5.X), and Windows Vista. This is one of Avid's the next generation editing platforms to conform with the latest operating systems. New pricing and upgrades are available for older versions of the software. Read More...