May 2007 Archives

Having the ability to adjust audio in your editing g application is crucial step in the editing process. Once you have adding and adjusted your audio keyframes you may need to move your keyframe from the left or to the right. It is not obvious how to obtain the results to make this happen but the procedure is very simple. Once you have placed your keyframes and you have determined you need to slide your keyframe to an earlier or later time down the timeline, simply place your mouse pointer over the keyframe until a hand appears. Once the hand appears you now hold down the alt key and click and hold the key frame. (You must press the alt key first and then click the keyframe.).

Now you can slide your audio keyframe to the left or right while preserving the audio level. Make sure you sign up for our next Avid Training class or Avid Training bundle, you will be glad you did!

It is easy to tweak effects in Live Type to achieve a particular movement or look once you have applied a prexisting effect to text, but keep in mind that creating a custom effect from scratch is an option as well!

1 After you have placed text in your timeline, add a blank effect track by clicking once on that text track to select it, then pressing Command E or go to Track > New Effect. You will see that a blank effect track without keyframes have been placed beneath the text you have created.

2 Name the effect by going to the Effects tab in the Inspector Window and double clicking on "New Effect."

3 Position the playhead were you want the effect to start in the blank effect track.

4 Press Command K to insert a keyframe.

5 Change a parameter from within the Inspector Window, whether it be a change in style, size, tracking, opacity, etc. Now, when you playback your text with the effect, you will see that the parameter changes you have made are represented by the keyframe.

Telestream, the media transcoding specialist, announced availability of Flip4Mac WMV version 2.1.1 software. The update adds new features and enhancements to the company's popular Windows Media Components for QuickTime. A major new feature is playback support for Windows Media 9 Advanced Profile, also known as the VC-1 Advanced Profile. Enhancements include improved 2-pass VBR encoding and MPEG-4 playback.

Itiva Networks, the on-line Video Content Delivery Solution for high quality digital assets, announced the successful completion of the latest capital campaign in the amount of $7 million in private funding. The company will utilize the working capital to expand its growing sales and marketing teams to meet surging customer demand for online high definition video.

"Itiva is poised for tremendous growth as our streaming and download services are now commercially available," said Michel Billard, CEO of Itiva Networks. "The consumption of rich media content streamed in full-screen video over the Internet continues to increase by orders of magnitude yearly. We are well-funded, and with this round we have the resources to actively engage with customers seeking to deliver controlled, high quality video to a mass audience at low cost - without compromising on quality."

Internap Network Services Corporation, an Internet solutions provider of choice for the world's elite businesses, announced its Performance IP, colocation and advertising services will power goChongo, a unique online entertainment destination and marketplace that embraces the consumer generated content movement. Internap's proprietary advertising and monetization software lets goChongo subscribers share revenue generated by in-stream ads, allowing participants to earn prize money for contributing the most popular content.

"As our products continue to grow, we are now serving more customers in this region. The addition of Adimex as a master distribution partner in Australia and New Zealand will help us improve local sales support services to users in this region," said Barbara DeHart, VP of Telestream Flip4Mac. "Adimex has an intimate knowledge of the technologies we serve and brings an understanding of the nuances of doing business in this region. They will enable us to strengthen our presence and position in this region."

On2 Technologies, a leader in video compression software and solutions, and C2 Microsystems, Inc., the leading developer of fully programmable media processor for low cost, high performance and networked media, announced that they have reached an agreement under which C2 Microsystems will incorporate On2's market leading TrueMotion codecs into its CC1100 media processor and integrated media framework.

If you are editing HDV footage in Avid Xpress Pro or Media Composer then you need to utilize the Export to HDV Device feature. I use it on all of my productions. Not only is it the best way to get your productions back out to tape but it is the cleanest way to down-convert your footage to a form of Standard Definition. My daily workflow consists of editing all my work in HDV and then outputting two forms of my productions: one version in SD and one in HD. I tired many different ways to get from HD to SD always keeping in mind that I not only wanted the highest quality but also the quickest down-convert. This is the breakdown of what I found to be the best way to not only output to HD but also down-convert to SD using Avid:

1. Export final program using Export to HDV device to my JVC BR-HD50 (this now gives me my master HDV copy of my edited program for archive and duplication). Also, remember, you will always have the original HDV transport stream on your hard drive until you delete it.
2. Play out of JVC HD50 through fire wire into my Sony DSR-11. This now gives me a master copy in Standard Definition.
3. I now capture the SD version from my DSR-11 back in Avid so that not only have an SD version to edit but also I can easily output to an SD DVD.

These steps not only give you an HD and SD version but it also perseveres quality as long as you use Fire wire and not your analog cables.

When you have text on a track in LiveType, you can manipulate a single character on that track to give it a unique movement and look all of its own.

1 Add text onto the track.

2 Go to the Text Entry Field and select a single character from within the text you have written. You will see a bounding box appear around the character in the Canvas.

3 Manipulate this one character by either dragging it to a new location, rotating it by dragging the handle in the upper left corner of the bounding box, change its size by dragging either inward or outward from the right handle.

4 You can even go to the effect tab > pick an effect > and click apply to add it to the selected character.

Avid has a great way to save the day if you either mess up your project, if something becomes corrupt or if you just need to go back to an older version of a sequence. This great tool is called the Avid attic. The attic provides you with a history of versions of your bins. If you manually save or auto save your bins are backed up in the attic. The biggest misconception of the attic is that is will bring back deleted media. The attic does not make copies of your media; it just saves versions of you sequences and clips information. If you delete the raw media you cannot retrieve it in the attic. The other thing you need to be aware of is the attic saves a default of 30 files; this is fine if your frequency of saves is 60 minutes or more but I like to save at least every 20 minutes so I like to bump my number to around 100. This allows me to go deep if I need to retrieve from a very old version. Just remember the attic is a great place to retrieve your lost clips and sequences but it will not bring back deleted media.

Internap Network Services Corporation (NASDAQ: INAP), and VitalStream Holdings, Inc (NASDAQ: VSTH) today announced that each company's respective stockholders provided the approvals necessary to complete Internap's acquisition of VitalStream and that the transaction has been completed.

The acquisition will allow Internap to facilitate the accelerated growth of VitalStream's global platform, which enables the delivery of rich media and includes streaming audio and video services. The addition of VitalStream's content monetization and advertising solutions also enhances Internap's portfolio of IP and data center services and meets the increasing demands of businesses looking to transform Web-based content and assets into revenue.

MainConcept won the "Third Annual MSU MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 Video Codecs Comparison" of the MSU Video Group
The goal of the comparison is a comparative evaluation of the quality of new H.264 codecs using objective metrics. The complete test consisted of three types of application, which strongly differ by resolution, bitrates and encoding speed requirements: Videoconferences, Movies and HDTV.

Jyske Bank, the second-largest independent bank in Denmark, successfully implemented an enterprise-wide IP video communication system using technology from Envivio Inc., the leading technology provider of IP video convergence solutions from mobile to HD. Live encoders for webcasting and on-demand video servers from Envivio are used to communicate product announcements, financial services, and news updates within the bank and to create innovative branding.

Jyske Bank uses the Envivio MPEG-4 products to change the way employees receive information and how it educates and markets to its customers. The decision to leverage internal and external video communications throughout Jyske Bank was crucial to its ability to attract 5,000 new customers in the fourth quarter of 2006 alone, compared to the 8,000-10,000 new customers that Jyske Bank signs up in a typical year.

There are many uses of the locator within the Avid editing application. I use them on a daily basis and I thought it would be good for you to put them into practice.

1. Visual track alignments: Use locators at matching points in synchronized audio and video tracks so that if the tracks lose sync, you can visually realign the locators in the Timeline to restore sync.

2.Music cues: Use locators to mark the IN and OUT points for music.

3. Trim markers: Use locators in the Timeline to return directly to an edit you have designated for further trimming at a later time.

4. Cutaway markers: Use locators to identify cutaway shots with comments so that when you return to cover jump-frame edits with cutaway footage, you can use Find procedures to quickly access the shots.

5. Replace markers: Use locators to mark filler segments with comments to identify the items that should replace the filler.

6. Semipermanent IN or OUT points: Use locators with the Mark Locators button to put multiple sets of locators on a long clip, and so on.

7. Add comments for EDLs: Use locators to add comments to sequence clips to appear in lists that you create, such as an EDL or cut list.

8. Print a list of reviewer comments: Use the Locators window to print a list of changes or comments that you can distribute to other people in the production. ( i use this on big projects where there is several people involved.

This is just a few ideas and I am sure once you begin to use them you won't know how you lived without them!

If you're experiencing beeping in your Final Cut Pro audio track while building a project, chances are you have exceeded your real-time audio capability. While in Final Cut Pro, go to the main menu and select Final Cut Pro > User Preferences. A dialog box will open and you will see, by default, that the Real-time Audio Track Mixing option is set to 8 tracks. Keep in mind that any filters you add to an audio track counts as an additional audio track. For example, if you had 5 audio tracks, each with 2 filters, then you essentially have created 10 tracks.

You can set the Real-Time Audio Mixing value to any number that you like, but that doesn't mean that your hardware can handle it! Be mindful of your hardware limitations before changing this value. If you're working on fast drives, you could well exceed the default 8 tracks.

On2 Technologies, a leader in video compression software and solutions, announced that it has acquired Finnish company Hantro Products, which provides video compression solutions for products in the mobile, consumer electronics, and IPTV spaces. Hantro's technology is used by companies including Nokia, Freescale, LSI, Vimicro, Sanyo, and more than 20 other leading global device and semiconductor manufacturers. More than 200 million devices to date use Hantro technology; 5 of the top 6 handset manufacturers deploy Hantro solutions.

Nero, leaders in digital media technology, announced today that Nero 7 is the first multimedia suite to be certified for both authoring and playback of the Advanced Video Codec High Definition Standard (AVCHD), allowing users to create and enjoy their AVCHD content in one solution. AVCHD is a new recording format introduced by Sony and Panasonic that uses an MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) video codec that allows for greater compression efficiency and higher quality audio and video capturing.

MainConcept, a leading provider of codecs and video technology, announced today that it has released a DVCPRO add-on to its existing MPEG Pro HD plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro. The add-on enhances MainConcept's MPEG Pro HD software by adding the ability to import, edit and export DV, DVCPRO 25, DVCPRO 50 and DVCPRO HD video from within Adobe Premiere Pro. The add-on also adds support for the Panasonic's P2 camcorder format, including multichannel audio.

Transitions are a part of our daily editing lives. There are several pitfalls when making your edit decisions but the main error you need to be aware of is having enough handles to edit your footage. As with FCP you need to have enough footage left over on the incoming shot and the outgoing shot to create any kind of transition. Fades, dissolves, dips and so on require the amount of footage you are requesting in your transition. Avid has a great graphical representation of this in every quick transition that you perform. If you have enough handle or if you need to make more handle it is very obvious to see. (I will cover how to fix this in the future.) Compare these two graphics and see for yourself an edit with plenty of handle and one with none on the outgoing shot.

If you are cutting a Documentary on a historical topic, you can just about count on having to incorporate still images into your timeline either via scanner or various storage media. It is to your advantage to know how to change the duration of a still image clip so it can be synchronized with the appropriate voiceover.

When you import a still image into Final Cut Pro, the default duration is 10 seconds and there are several ways to manipulate its length:

1 Go to Final Cut Pro > User preferences, then choose the editing tab.

2 Type a new value in the Still/Freeze Duration Field.

You can also:

- Double click the duration column in the Browser window and enter a new value.

- Double click the clip in the browser window to open it in the Viewer, then enter a value for that clip in the duration field.

- Choose a clip in the browser, click edit > item properties, then choose the timing tab and enter a new value.

- You can simply import the image into the browser window, then either perform an overwrite or insert edit to place it into the timeline, place the cursor at the end of the image and drag to adjust the duration of the image.

When working with transitions in Final Cut Pro there are a couple of tricks to help you along the way including how set transition favorites to hot keys, and how to add multiple transitions all at the same time.

When you utilize the matchframe capability of Avid Xpress Pro, you are calling up the frame that the blue locator bar is currently parked over in the timeline, from the original clip, which may be burried deep within a bin under many other clips. Perhaps you are looking for different framing of the shot you that you currently have in your sequence. Match Frame keeps you form having to manually dig through a sea of clips to find the original file.

If you find yourself using a particular clip over and over again, keep in mind that each time you perform a Match Frame the previously set in and out points for the clip will be erased. There are two things you can do to prevent this from happening:

After you have set the in and out points for the clip that you have added into your sequence, go back and replace those points with locators.

You can also hold down the ALT key for a PC or Option key for a Mac and click on Match Frame icon to preserve your in and out points when you recall that clip. If you do not have the matchframe icon assigned to your timeline toolbar, simply go to Tools > Command Palette > Other > Match Frame and drag the icon to a button you least use in the timeline toolbar to replace it.

By utilizing the Command Palette, you can assign the Option key modifier to the Match Frame icon so that this process will be automated. Go to Tools > Command Palette > Other > Add Option Key and drag it to the Match Frame icon in your timeline. You will see a black dot at the foot of the icon to signify a modifier has been added.

As an editor you know that spending time capturing is a part of every editing project. The capture tool in Avid Express Pro displays various information about what you are about to capture. When it comes to media management do not forget to check the Target Drive area of the capture tool. This is key for making sure that you select the preferred drive and make sure you have enough space on that drive to capture the amount that you need. You select the target-drive from the pop-up menu and check your amount of free disk space from the Time-Remaining display. The Time-remaining display is an estimate based on your resolution settings, the number of tracks you have to be stored on the drive, and the free space available on the target drive. When you capture paying close attention to detail it will help you manage your projects in the long run.

Our next Avid class is filling up quickly and seating is very limited!

Wowza Media Systems announced that its Wowza Media Server Pro has been named Streaming Media Magazine's 2007 Editors' Pick. Wowza Media Server Pro, a high-performance alternative to Adobe Flash Media Server, received this honor for dramatically improving the economics of Flash streaming.

According to Streaming Media's editor, Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, "The two biggest drawbacks to Flash Video are its lack of DRM and the cost of the Adobe Flash Media Server. We're still waiting on a solution to the former, but Wowza Media went a long way towards solving the latter with Wowza Media Server, which it introduced in late 2006." He continues, "It's still in beta, but the word from those beta testers is nothing but positive."

For those that did not attend Streaming Media East 2007, you can now watch some of the learning sessions from the event on-line. Visit TVWorldwide.com to watch the streaming content in Windows Media format.

Some of the session available for viewing are:

From the Web to Your TV: New Media Delivery Revolution

Making the Case for Streaming Media in Higher Education

Performance Metrics for Online Video Advertising

HOW TO: Evaluating and Selecting a Content Management Vendor

Unique Challenges to Enterprise Streaming

If you are unable to change the duration of a Cross Dissolve while working in Final Cut Pro, chances are their is not enough pad on each clip to allow for it.

When I say pad, I'm talking about the fact that in order for FCP to perform a cross dissolve, their has to be enough media at the end of the out going clip and at the head of the incoming clip to allow for it.

Example: if your original captured media clip was 8 seconds long, when you set your in and outs for the clip, the in point should be marked somewhere around 3 seconds into the clip. It doesn't really matter where the in point begins Just don't place it at the very beginning of the captured media. The same goes for the end of the clip. Don't place your out point at the very end of the captured media, unless you know that you are definitely going to perform a straight cut into the next clip. The room that you are leaving at the beginning and end of clips is what FCP will use to perform the Cross-Dissolve.

What are some of the critical settings within Avid Xpress or Media Composer that you should be aware of?

There are many different settings within the Avid software. At last count there are roughly 40 different categories of settings within Avid Media Composer, and that doesn't count all the various settings within each category.

We've compiled a list of common 'critical settings' that you might want to check before launching the software.

There are several ways to output your finished sequence. The term output can mean several things. For some of us, you may never intend on outputting back to tape. The most common output format is to output to a DVD. Other choices include outputting back to tape, or to a multimedia format.

One quick way to crank up audio levels in Final Cut Pro is to click on the Toggle Clip overlays icons at the bottom left of the Timeline Window >

park your cursor on top of the pink rubberband overlay in your audio tracks > click and drag the rubberband upward.

You can adjust specific areas of your audio by option clicking on the rubberband to set keyframes or nodes and pull selected areas up and dragging others downward.

NaviSite, Inc., a leading provider of application solutions, hosting and content delivery services, today announced its partnership with vidavee (www.vidavee.com), a video web services company that enables web publishers to easily upload, share, analyze and monetize Internet video content. Integrating NaviSite's managed infrastructure and content delivery network (CDN) and vidavee's patented video publishing technologies, NaviSite's Online Video Publishing Platform is a new solution for businesses looking to deliver web-based content, regardless of their size or the volume of content they produce. The service will be available by June 15, 2007.

Proclaim, a new personal multimedia webcast creation tool from Netbriefings, launched recently at the Streaming Media East conference. Proclaim is designed for professional communicators, training specialists, marketers, sales teams, video producers, business leaders and anyone who needs to make a personal connection with meaningful content.

Proclaim lets users quickly create rich-media presentations that are streamed to a live event audience or for individual, on-demand access. Proclaim lets users capture and send an audio or video stream right from the desktop while simultaneously rolling in additional video clips, audio bites, PowerPoint slides and images.

The color correction tool inside Avid is a great way to quickly get color correctins you are looking for. Match Control is a great way to get some good cosistant color corrections.
Both Color Correction groups include a Color Match control. This control allows you to quickly make a correction by selecting input and output colors from your images, or from the Windows Color dialog box. If you select the Eyedropper option in the Correction Mode Settings dialog box, you can also select colors from any other location within your Avid application, such as a custom color swatch saved in a bin.
When you use the Color Match control, the system replaces the input color value with the output color value and adjusts all the other color values in the image proportionally. The system also automatically adjusts the other controls in the group to reflect the change. You can set the combination of color channels or components the system uses to determine the match by making menu selections.
For example, if you want to replace the blue sky tone in one image with that in another to match the two shots, you can use the Color Match control to pick the two colors and automate the color adjustment. Because the Color Match control can display the RGB color values for any point in an image, it is useful as an information palette that allows you to check how far the colors in an area of an image depart from the color values you want to achieve.

Don't forget to sign up for our Avid color correction class our sign up for our all inclusive Avid bundles!

Being able to load a sequence into the source monitor is one of the great features of Avid. Taking certain elements from your sequence and applying them into your timeline is something you will find yourself doing if you work projects that require the use of the same media. The one problem you might find is how do you look at your sequence and its edits without loading them into your record monitor. Avid has a great solution for this and it is called Toggle Source/Record in Timeline.

The Toggle Source/Record in Timeline button allows you to view multitrack source material quickly in the Timeline for selecting and marking specific tracks. I use this in all of my editing to select specific portion of my sequence for editing into my new timeline. This is a great feature that you should learn to use to get the excat results you are looking for.

Kulabyte, a leading provider of advanced audio and video processing technologies, today announced a breakthrough solution for high-definition (HD) video encoding that enables faster HD encoding with significantly higher quality levels. Kulabyte's TimeSlice technology, incorporated into the popular On2 VP6 for Adobe Flash Player content , will enable the growing numbers of HD producers - including daily newscasters, satellite entertainment companies, Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) programmers, and streaming video services - to more efficiently complete production of HD files for delivery over a variety of networks while maintaining near source quality levels.

Kulabyte demonstrated their technology at Streaming Media East 2007.

Gotuit, a leading provider of next generation video discovery, navigation, and monetization technologies, announced the launch of the Gotuit PowerVideo Suite, which contains the patented Gotuit technology for powering video libraries across broadband and mobile platforms. As part of the Gotuit PowerVideo Suite, Gotuit announced its newest module, Gotuit VideoMixer, which enables publishers to deepen their relationship with their viewers by giving them the ability to produce video remixes, without ever altering the source video files. Gotuit made their annoucement at Streaming Media East 2007.

Built on the metadata-driven Gotuit technology currently being used by customers such as the National Hockey League and Sports Illustrated, the Gotuit PowerVideo Suite includes a compelling set of technology and solutions publishers can use to optimize both their video experience and their ability to monetize their libraries, using keyword targeted video ads.

The Gotuit PowerVideo Suite modules include:

Gotuit VideoPlayer - This modular player allows publishers to utilize the Gotuit Metadata for vastly improved video discovery and playback experience. Publishers can design and build their video application to their own specifications, with features such as a flexible and targetable advertising model, viral sharing options, user favorites, commerce and/or merchandising, and an embedded player (for scenes, videos, playlists, or remixes). Gotuit VideoPlayer is available with both broadband and mobile options.

If your QuickTime movies have poor quality playback, it may be because you haven't turned on the 'use high quality video setting' within QuickTime Pro. Final Cut Pro users often complain about low quality rendering of graphics or titles, when in fact they simply aren't viewing the full resolution QuickTime movie.

Take a look at this sample title that was exported as a QuickTime movie blown up 500% using the standard DV-DVCPRO codec. You'll notice the quality is fairly decent, considering DV is compressed 5:1.

If you are encountering poor quality playback with QuickTime movies using the DV-Codec you need to make sure the high quality video setting is turned on within QuickTime Pro.

LiveType makes it quite simple to copy and paste effects, keyframes and tracks between projects. This is excellent for saving you the time of having to recreate effects you have made from scratch.

Copying and Pasting Keyframes Between Projects

1 After you have opened the project that you want to copy a keyframe from, choose the keyframe by clicking it once, then Press command C to copy it. Keep in mind that if you were copying an entire track or effect you could have simply Control Clicked or Right Clicked with a two button mouse on a track, to copy a track or to the side of a keyframe, to copy an entire effect.

2 Open the project that you will be copying to and position the timeline indicator over the area where you wish to paste, in the effect track that you have laid down in the new project, and press either Command V or Control Click the track and select Paste from the menu.

With the development of the Silverlight plug-in for web browsers Microsoft's Expression Media Encoder will create much buzz. For those that aren't aware of it, Microsoft has created Silverlight, which is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of Microsoft .NET-based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web.

Expression Media Encoder will be a key tool in creating wonderful on-line video viewing experiences for Silverlight by allowing users the ability to compression video to VC-1 at various datarates. The nice thing about the encoder is that it is easy to use and doesn't require that users have expert knowledge of compression and encoding since it ships with many VC-1 presets. Expression Media Encoder also includes cropping, metadata support, trimming, cropping, watermarking, and a preview window.

In addition, the tool has the ability to add bumpers and trailers to videos and even supports the creation of thumbails. The 1.0 beta preview of Expression Media Encoder is amazing!

With all the excitement that is happening in the streaming media space, the Streaming Media East show in New York is the place to be for May 15th & 16th, 2007.

There will be seminars, panel discussions, keynotes and exhibits related to streaming media.

All the key companies in hosting, compression and other services will be on-hand to make special announcements and announce new developments. Gotuit Media, The FeedRoom, VectorMAX, Kulabyte, Internap and Entriq are among the companies that will be at the Streaming Media East 2007 show.

This week look for updates on the latest happenings at the show on GeniusDV.com.

Making sure that your Avid system runs smooth without interfering with your operating system is very important. Avid tests the Microsoft Windows OS for issues that may hinder Avid's products from running at the top potential.

I thought it would be very important to make you aware of the latest Service Pack issues with Avid. Avids strategy is to test all Windows Service Packs and all security patches which apply to the environments in which Avid products run. Their current methodology is to utilize Windows Update on a representative sample of Avid products under test upon notification of new security Bulletin availability by Microsoft. These systems are updated and observed while under test. Once the test period has completed (2 -4 days), support for the latest release of security bulletins is announced. It is Avid's goal to protect our customers’ infrastructures from the resource-draining effects of an enterprise-wide virus attack.

Check out the full .pdf of the service bulletins and make sure you will run smooth

One of the most common errors you may recieve while capturing is an audio error. At first glance this does not appear to be an audio error until you read more about the error. I have found that determining which rate to set your audio project to can take a few tries but once you set it for that tape you should be set.

If you receive this error message the audio sample rate in your 48kHz project does not match the audio sample rate on the tape. To fix this error, go to your main project window and select the Settings ab. Next, double-click Audio Project and change the Sample Rate to 32kHz.
If you are already in a 32kHz project sample rate and receiving this error message, switch your sample rate to 48kHz.

Avid Marquee can be a mystery to many Avid editors. It's really a seperate application within itself, but yet tightly integrated with Avid Xpress and Media Composer.

The problem is, learning Marquee can be a daunting task. Marquee is an incredibly powerful program allowing for true extruded 3D characters with 3D lighting effects.

This short marquee training tutorial will show you how to create and animate a basic 3D title.

Another way to alter premade effects in Apple LiveType is to manipulate just one keyframe parameter, then apply the change globally to the entire effect.

1 Apply an effect to the text you have created. In this example, I have chosen the Dirst Stop effect under the Caricature menu.

2 Select the effect in the timeline.

3 Make a change to the effect by manipulating a property in either the Text , Style or Attributes tabs. In this example, I will be changing the XY scale larger under the Attributes tab.

Note: You can either select an existing keyframe in the effect by clicking on it or parking the locator bar over an area that does not have a keyframe and one will be made for you as you adjust a parameter.

4 Option click the LED next to the parameter that you have just changed to apply it to the entire effect. You will see that the X and Y parameters will be altered for the entire effect.

To become an effective and efficient editor you must learn as many shortcuts as possible. My favorite and most used shortcut is the Fade Effect. Not only do I use this effect to fade but I created a keyboard shortcut for it because I use it so much. I have many titles through out my shows and about 90 percent of them need to fade up and then down. The fastest way to accomplish this is the first edit all of your titles into the timeline and then select multiple titles by using the segment mode.

Here is the breakdown:

1. Edit your titles, graphics, clips, ect. into your timeline.
2. To fade multiple titles at once, with the same values, enter either segment mode, and press the shift key while selecting your desired segments.
3. Click the Fade Effect button from the Tool Palette Fast Menu or use your keyboard shortcut once you have created one.
4. In the Fade Effect dialog box, enter the number of frames to fade up, down or both.
5. Click OK and you’re done.

Take this opportunity to sign up for one of our next Avid Xpress Pro/Media Composer classes, seating is very limited and going fast! Now go out and fade away!

The ability to set specific behavioral parameters to targeted objects within an Apple Motion project can provide you with animation that is truly eyecatching! For example, the Vortex behavior is set to one object and has the potential to effect every object that surrounds it, but you can specifically target the elements on which the Vortex behavior will apply its force.

Setting Specific Objects To Be Effected By the Vortex Behavior

1 Apply the Vortex behavior to one element within your project that you wish for other objects to circle around. You can do this in the Dashboard or the Inspector windows.

2 The Behaviors tab will supply you a list of affected elements. From the Layers list, drag the specific items that you wish to be effected by the Vortex Affect to the affected elements list.

All objects that you have placed within the Affected objects list will now circle around the object that you originally applied the Vortex behavior to in step 1.

It is important to understand what each preference means, because each preference will affect the functionality of the Final Cut Pro software.

Understanding your Final Cut Pro system settings is critical before you jump into the software and begin editing. There are several critical settings you should check before beginning your first edit.

For all of you Avid Xpress Pro and Final Cut Pro artists who are looking for quality High Definition and Standard Def stock footage, Mammoth HD has recently released their unique June and July collections. London and NewYork headline the cities collection in HD and SD anamorphic while the Amazon River collections headline a robust International assortment of footage including Holland, Iceland, Taiwan, and the Sri Lanka Tsunami aftermath.

This is a great site for Royalty free stock footage including 3D animations and motion graphics in 1080i, 1080/24p, 720p, HDV and SD(480p) complete with thumbnail previews, and item descriptions.

Check it out.

There is an interesting trick for changing the duration for multiple Final Cut Pro clips all at the same time. The catch is, you can only add or subtract frames. However, this is still a very powerful feature.

A great example would be when you want to put together a montage of clips, and you need to experiment with different durations.

The task sounds simple. You have a job where you need to put together a quick 'montage video' or 'slide show' with a few hundred photos.

Here is the problem: With Avid Xpress or Media composer, How do you mark in-out points for all those clips at the same time? Plus, don't forget that you will need some handles in order to add all your favorite transitions.

I once had a nightmare job where I had to mark in-out points for hundreds of clips, and then the client kept changing their mind about how long each clip was supposed to be. Don't worry, there is an undocumented trick that will allow you to mark durations for all your clips in a few quick key strokes.

Episode Series 4.3 Now Available

Episode 4.3 is the latest update for all Episode desktop and Episode Engine media encoding software products. This is a free update which adds new features, formats and enhancements.

Here are the highlights for Episode 4.3 Feature Highlights

*Adds Split-and-Stitch for all input and output formats as a standard feature for Episode Engine Pro - enabling top performance and many times faster than real-time encoding

*Adds the ability to integrate with third party products (like Apple's Compressor, which will be available at the time of the Compressor 3 release, targeted for mid-May)

*Adds support for all input formats supported by QuickTime (including plug-ins)

*Adds import of Flash 7 and 8

*Adds client mode for Episode & Episode Pro as a free settings editor for Episode Engine & Episode Engine Pro

*Adds full support for GXF HD and added XDCAM HD as output codec for Episode Pro & Episode Engine Pro

*Adds progress bar to Engine Monitor for Episode Engine & Engine Pro

Each item that you import into Motion is referred to as an object and each object is placed on a parent layer. As you continue to build your motion graphics project, and have constructed many composite layers, you will find it beneficial to lock layers in order to preserve the integrity of an effect. This will ensure that as you are working, those individual objects will not mistakingly get nudged out of sync, disturbing the effect that you have created.

Locking Layers in Motion

1 Shift click to make multiple selections for the layers you wish to lock in the Project pane.

2 Go to Object > Lock or press Control L.

You will see a red bounding box appear around the selected objects in the designated layers you have locked.