Many of you may know this, but after what seems like years, wait - actually has been years, of talking about the new realtime timecode overlay, it is finally here in v3 of Media Composer coming in Q2. Some of the delays was due to the fact that we wanted to add some additional features such as display of source metadata as well as a notes track to combine a lot of needed functionality. For a video overview of the feature shown at NAB - go here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm3rWpth3jw

Michael

Great news ! I've seen that on Avid's web site a few days after NAB, and I can't wait to try it !

I saw it demoed at last night's Washington Users Group Meeting. Sweet, and a long time coming, but very flexible, scalable and just about any combination of metadata display is possible. Assignable colors as well.

"... after what seems like years, wait - actually has been years ..."

... the original post ....

Sat, Oct 15 2005 3:54 PM

.... meanwhile, the new plug-in rocks!

 I heard last night that it took as long as it did because they wanted to make sure they got it right, with all metadata fully accessible. The end product goes light years beyond the conventional burn-in window. Best of all, it is real time.

Worth the wait!  Nice video on the functions

Nice video on youtube, can't wait for this new AVX. But I didn't see any integration of Locator text, just a new comment box for typing text or "cut and paste". Please tell me this wonderful new thing will superimpose our Locator text....

 Sorry, not in this version. [:'(]

Something we can look into for a future version of the update. Another feature of this release is the ability to export timeline with all source/record metadata as XML that also includes locators and text. With the XML is the ability to create "transforms" which is a script (XSLT) that can take the master XML as exported by FilmScribe and turn it into almost anything else. What can be done here is transforming the timing and text from the locators into a DS Caption file supported by the new SubCap AVX which is about text overlays form imported STL or DS Caption files.

See this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cwKUm4FheQ

for details on how that works and you can easily see how that workflow would work for locator text, or any timed text being imported.

Michael

 An additional thought is that there also needs to be a preference for how long a locator text needs to appear on the screen since locators have a duration on 1 frame. Unlike MetaSync locators which can have a duration defined. In the case of locators, it could either be on the screen until the next locator, or a value defined in the XML transform to have a duration of "nnn" number of frames.

Michael

 Thanks for SubCap link... love those narrations, too.

So in terms of that text input box,  I was wondering how the Realtime AVX deals with text changes- is it a matter of adding a keyframe?

 In the case of the SubCap effect, the text changes are defined in the import files as timecode start and end. When imported, SubCap automatically divides itself into individual elements on the V track. If you are creating from scratch in the timeline without an import file, then "add edit" for each span is the way to go.

Michael