Well, things are going better. Getting into the groove of Avid. Still would like to have that feature that moves all the clips to the right here at work (Avid 3.0.5 update), but that isn’t to be. So I will have to live with it at home.

Speaking of my home system…that is a Dual 2.0Ghz G5, and it is sporting ONE monitor…not two. One Apple 23″ Cinema Display. So that makes editing in that small space a bit of a challenge. But, there is a way to make it work…and this way harkens to how I do things in FCP too. There is a feature called SUPERBINS that allows you to make one bin to rule them all. Hee. This is one window that really holds all of the open bins…this is a great feature for those of us with one monitor. The tutorial on how to get this function to work can be found on the Moviola site, right here.

Now that I have that tip on how to see the waveforms on my source files, editing music has gotten a lot easier.

And I will be going to the Avid forums and just start reading through posts. And when I have questions, or frustrations like I suffered on days 1 and 2, I will post them to get the answers. Instead of bitching about them and grumbling and yearning for my FCP system. I am all over the FCP forums, so adding the Avid ones won’t be too hard. I always perused the Avid forum on the Cow…good to just lurk and learn.

Uneventful day. Went home early, installed the Avid 3.0.5 update on the home machine (making sure to uninstall the Avid software first, THEN install the new version…really nice that Avid has an uninstaller. (Apple? FCP Uninstaller? QT Uninstaller? Please?) Then I installed all the other components, like Boris FX (gotta learn how to use that), Sorenson Squeeze and some AVX plugins. Opened the Avid software, mapped the MOVE FROM HERE button to my keyboard so that I can move the clips off to the right to make room for changes. Ahhh…too bad I can’t have this on the WORK machine. This is a great option! Huge beyond belief. Now I can get more into my FCP cutting style…well, not completely. But closer.

Might not need to go into work tomorrow…so there might not be an AVID-DAY 4. I will take that time to play with the Avid at home (when I don’t work, I work)…so there might be a DAY 4. I need another monitor though. Learning that I really like having two 20″ monitors on the system, instead of two 24″. Because my desk is smaller. The monitors aren’t so far away. I might invest in two Dell 20″ monitors ($200 each), and then use the MXO to send the video signal to the Apple Cinema Display…the MXO works with Avid as well…although not giving broadcast quality. Works as a play out device. I have the Matrox DualHead2Go so I can split one DVI port to two monitors, thus leaving the second one for the MXO. We’ll see. At least get ONE Dell so that I have two monitors. One is so…limiting.