Avid Media Composer 5.0, one month later

Editblog on PVC by Scott Simmons

Okay, let’s get one thing out of the way first: the new Drap and Drop timeline in Avid Media Composer 5.0 isn’t a direct rip-off of Final Cut Pro’s timeline. Nor will an FCP editor sit down in front of MC5 and instantly be able to rip into the timeline via mousing in the same way they do with FCP. Nor will an Avid editor sit down in front of MC5 for the first time, turn on the new Smart Tool, and instantly have their editing world changed. Avid’s implementation of the open, Drag and Drop timeline is complex, well thought out and will take some time to master. Like most big change / feature implementations in Avid’s Media Composer product, it often takes some time for things to get added to the software but when it happens these features are usually feature rich and often leap-frog the competition.

I posted an article about some of the many interface changes in Media Composer 5.0 just after its release but I’ll recap them a bit here as these visual changes are important to convey a later story. If you’re overly familiar with all these new features then skip to page two of the article for a story and some commentary.

A Few of the Biggest Changes

The best thing about Avid Smart Tool and the drag and drop functionality that it adds to Media Composer is that it can be turned on and off. Want Media Composer to act pretty much like it always has? Turn the Smart Tool off. Want the timeline to behave more like Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premiere Pro or Avid’s own DS? Turn the entire Smart Tool on? Want to customize the timeline interaction where you can grab clips and move them around the timeline without entering Segment mode but not have the option of click and dragging to trim edits? You can do that too by customizing exactly what parts of the Smart Tool operate. It’s like one of the best features of a professional editing application: built fully customizable to suit the needs and desires of the editor. Plus all of those different features of the Smart Tool can be mapped to the keyboard as well so you don’t have to use the mouse to enable or disable the Smart Tool and it’s features. read more...