Avid Mojo is here! Avid Xpress Pro is here!
 

The wait is finally over - Mojo is in stock!

I realize for many of you the jury is still out on Mojo, but Real-Time analog & DV output is a VERY big feature. And with Mojo you can do it with a laptop or workstation!

The component and uncompressed features are a nice addition to the feature set, especially if you do a lot of After Effects work and/or complex titling sequences. While these sequences must be rendered, you can drop them into your Xpress Pro timeline made up of DV footage and it will play out in real-time.

We've put together some pretty cool bundles with Mojo & Xpress Pro upgrades. http://www.videoguys.com/XpressPro.html

Gary
Videoguys.com

AVID Free DV available
 

As promised, AVID Free DV is now available for download:

http://www.avid.com/freedv/index.asp

New Liquid Edition Upgrade
 

Liquid Edition is the next version of Pinnacle Edition. They've added some great new features to Edition 5.5 that many users were requesting. My two favorite are:

CX Color Correction - Liquid Edition now has color correction capabilities that are as good as it gets.

Dynamic Speed Control - this allows you to control the sped of a clip over it's duration. Vegas calls this 'Velocity Envelopes' - i just call it "COOL!"

Users of Edition 5 upgrade to Liquid Edition for $49 (if you purchased Edition after 8/1 you qualify for a $49 mail in rebate)

Users of Adobe Premiere and Pinnacle Studio can now upgrade to Liquid Edition for $399.95. You don't have to send back any software or hardware. (The installer will require one oof these titles to complete).

For more info check out http://www.videoguys.com/edition.html

Gary

Avid Free DV and HDV editing
 

As part of writing a Free DV tutorial (see www.mindspring.com/~d-v-c if you are interested) I decided to see if Free DV could edit HDV.

Or, more specifically, if it could work with my 4HDV. I did not expect this could work.

But I found I had no trouble importing the AIFF and Proxy MOV files and editing them. It seems Free DV is very QT oriented so it accepts MOV files.

I then tried to import the MPEG-2 MOV files so they could get linked to the Proxies. By now I had hope that with the Apple MPEG-2 decoder installed, QT would let me open these MOV files.

The import started fine. But after a long delay -- while I stopped breathing -- an error message appeared. Damn.

But I don't yet know if this is a Free DV or an Xpress DV limitation.

I'll try next week when I get Xpress DV Pro (with Mojo) to review.

By the way, while Avid tried it's best to cripple Free DV -- oddly what they've provided for free is perfect for LONG-FORM video productions. Which is great news for us who do not do SHORT-FORM multi-layer effects-driven work. And so far on a Mac, it has been rock solid!

And, seems to work with iDVD.

Steve,

Is your experience only with the Apple version?

Has anyone tested Avid Free DV on the PC side?

Brian

Only on Mac, but don't expect any differences.

I've worked with Xpress DV on both Mac and PC and never found any differences.

Steve,

Coming as it does from a feature film production background, Avid's strong suit has always been long form. For media management, it's hands down the best. Glad you like FreeDV, enjoy PRO... my upgrade is on the way.

Richard

AVID releases new software
 

Could someone check to see if it will import HDV??

http://www.uemedia.net/CPC/videography/article_5030.shtml

It says, "MPEG-2" in the list of encodable formats.

Thanks,

Chris

As soon as Avid updates XpressDV Pro to support 10.3 I'll be reviewing it.

And will check both HD Pixlet and HD MPEG-2 import.

Thanks Steve.

Chris

avid Expres pro
 

I am used to editing on fcp but now I have a job on AVID Express pro, i checked the manual but its not clear on a few things
1) in fcp i can look at a videofile in my browser but i can also see the audiofiles, how do i do that in AVID? I look at the audiofile to see where i want to cut...
2) When editing in the timeline with fcp i can simply drag and pull under to let audio go under other shots, how do i do it with AVID?
Part from this what are the major differences.?

I have been looking through the manual, but my native language is not english so it takes a long time and is not explained fully...

greetings

David

Major work flow differences.

Down on the left hand corner of the timeline, is a "Hamburger" icon. Click on this, and it will give you menus. Choose "Sample plot" and it will draw the audio waves. You can enlarge the track as big as you want to view it.

Up on the top toolbar, is a "Toolset" menu. Audieo toolset opens all of the audio tools. (Also color correction toolset, recording toolset etc.)

Also down on the left hand side of the timeline, are two "arrows" . Click the red one to "overwrite" and the yellow one to "Splice" (with ripple). When you click on a segment, it will be ready to move, delete, whatever.

FCP and Avid come from very different parradigms, and the workflow is different. FCP more closely resembles "Premier"... though FCP is moving towards a more "Avid" like interface.

Good luck.

If you want to extend audio from one shot under another, you need to use what avid calls "trim mode". There is an icon that looks like a can of film, click on this. Then make sure only the tracks you want to adjust are activated, in this case the audio tracks. Now click on the transition you want to adjust. the sides will turn pink.


Up in the composer window you now see two shots. Beneath them are numbers of frames in two boxes. With both of these highlighted, click the >> or << arrows to pull the audio in the direction you want to go by ten frams.

It sound confusing but once you get the hang of it is a precise way to adjust edits. Look up "trim mode" in the manual for more info.

Liquid Edition |Manual
 

Is the manual that comes with Pinnacle Liquid Edition essentially the same as the one for Edition 5 with a few changes or is it a new re-write. Having not had edition, I can't tell the difference.

The "addendum" talks about colour tracking and the motion control, so I am assuming the Liquid manual is the same as the original Edition 5 version...
Is that correct?

Nick,

I'm not sure how different the Editon5 and Liquid Edition manuals are. But if you want to check for yourself I think you can download both manual versions, in PDF format, from the support sections of the Pinnacle website. I think you may need to use the US (rather than UK) site to access the version 5 manual.

Hope this helps