Review: Avid Media Composer 2.5

Version 2.5 of Avid Media Composer has new features based on Optical Flow technology, including TimeWarp, SteadyGlide, FluidFilm, and FluidMotion.

If you are looking for a large workgroup solution for a cable station, news department, or other high- volume operation, Avid is the industry standard and the hands-down winner for managing media and projects in shared-workflow environments. Things become a bit more complicated when it comes to indie filmmaking and low- to mid-budget production, where Apple Final Cut Pro (FCP) is a definite alternative.

At NAB 2006, Avid broke new ground by releasing its venerable Media Composer (MC) software in a full version that requires no additional hardware for its operation. We're here to look at Media Composer 2.5 as a software-only solution — even though many of the NLE's strengths lie in hardware-assisted versions such as Adrenaline with the DNxcel board.

So what does the $5,000 base Media Composer 2.5 product have that is not available in Avid's entry-level product, Avid Xpress Pro? Mainly, Xpress Pro is not designed for complete integration with the Adrenaline family of hardware-based solutions. Beyond that, it does not have the full complement of visual effects and compositing tools, and several other features are scaled down. Adrenaline-based Media Composer systems offer simultaneous output of HD and SD, and because that SD output is hardware-generated, the results are faster than those of Xpress Pro. And while Media Composer offers multiple streams of uncompressed 8- and 10-bit SD, Xpress Pro handles only one stream of uncompressed 8-bit SD.

If you do multi-camera editing, Media Composer offers nine streams of video while Xpress Pro does only four. Media Composer boasts more complete support for Sony's XDCAM and XDCAM HD, and it offers all Avid resolutions for capture, playback, rendering, and output. Despite those advantages, XpressPro is fairly robust. The bigger advantages of Media Composer are the new features — largely in the effects category — that the new software includes.

Avid Media Composer debuted in the days of black-box systems. The editors Avid tried to win over were accustomed to learning a unique set of commands for each piece of software they used. Conversely, Apple and Adobe aspired to extend interface usability across many related products. This is why “Command I” for import is the same across many graphics programs. There are many common commands on the Mac that make it easy to learn new software.

Avid comes from a different tradition. I trained on Avid almost 15 years ago, but I stopped using the software for many years. Media Composer is a great editing environment, but if you are used to a “common” interface, you will notice the difference. Avid also has many, many palettes. As I explain below, some of the workflow is very fast and direct, and at other times you wonder why you need so many palettes. You will be consulting the manual more often than you would in Adobe or Apple graphics software.

Before looking at new features, I should mention one feature common to all Avid products: mixed formats on the timeline. This eliminates having to transcode footage before using it in a project. Drop MiniDV, HD from the Sony HDW-F900, DVCPRO, and CGI-generated QuickTime files into the same timeline, and just start cutting. This is particularly useful to documentarians, because they frequently use stock footage in various formats in the same sequence. This feature, however, is not unlimited; for example, you cannot mix interlaced and progressive footage.

Based on Optical Flow technology, the new effects in Media Composer are TimeWarp, FluidFilm, and FluidMotion. Optical Flow performs an analysis of every pixel in the frame and compares the changes over time (several frames) to produce high-quality slo-mo effects and format conversion (such as interlace removal or addition). I have reviewed and used several competing plug-ins of this type from Boris FX, The Foundry, and Re:Vision Effects, and they all do the same thing, more or less. To give FluidFilm (a slo-mo effect) a whirl, I dragged a clip of 720p HD footage into the Project window. It converted the seven-second clip in a few seconds. Next, I dragged the clip onto the timeline. I then had to leave the editing environment and go into Effects Editing mode to apply TimeWarp. (All of Media Composer's effects are found on the Effects palette.) I selected TimeWarp and dragged it to the HD clip. Because TimeWarp is a motion effect, it placed a unique parallelogram-shaped effect icon on the clip. Other effect icons are small rectangles.

Consulting the manual, I found that I had to access the Motion Graphics palette by first opening the Fast Menu. To me this is a convoluted workflow. The good news is that once I applied FluidFilm to the TimeWarp (there are several types of TimeWarps), it rendered at about three seconds per frame and looked great. If that seems like slow rendering, it's not. Optical Flow is a complex calculation, and Avid's rendering speed is actually good compared to that of other similar effects I have used. When I stepped through the newly created slo-mo clip, each new frame was unique — as if I had actually shot overcranked footage.

SteadyGlide, an auto-stabilizer for shaky footage, is an example of Avid's smart implementation of one of the latest effects to hit the industry. This is a useful technology, but it only works by enlarging the frame, meaning you lose resolution. Within these limitations, Avid tracks the movement in the shot and stores the data. The user then applies specific parameters for the stabilizer. It took me several iterations to stabilize a handheld shot. Some auto-stabilizers require a completely new tracking pass whenever parameters are changed, which can take several minutes. Avid's approach is to apply the new stabilizing parameters to the stored tracking data, which is more or less instantaneous. The time savings is appreciated.

The world is not lacking for high-end chroma key tools. SpectraMatte is Avid's contribution to a crowded field of competing products, including Photron USA's Primatte, The Foundry's Keylight, and Ultimatte's AdvantEdge, among others. However, SpectraMatte is built into Avid Media Composer and is not a plug-in to a host compositing program. That means it shares a consistent look and feel with the rest of Avid's effects.

SpectraMatte is based around an intuitive spectrograph display modeled after a vectorscope. This allows the user, after a brief tutorial, to understand visually the consequences of changes made to the several slider parameters. In fact, the spectragraph is a good way to teach the science of keying. Similar to other MC filters, you call up the Filter Menu and drag/drop the SpectraMatte effect on a source clip in a video track. SpectraMatte is easy to use, but, like any keyer, it is only as good as your source material. Pulling a matte on badly shot green- or bluescreen is less about which high-end keyer you use, and more about knowing the tricks of matte cleanup (that, and having the time to do the work).

Here's a quick survey of some of the other major compositing tools in Media Composer: AniMatte is a bezier/linear-point, shape, and freehand keying tool that can be keyframed. Keyframes, of course, can be edited with bezier curves, with selectable interpolation methods.

There is no built-in motion blur, but you can manually apply more blur to a mask in one axis than another (horizontal or vertical), allowing you to fake the motion blur. Oddly, the maximum blur is restricted to 63 pixels, not a high value on an HD frame.

When you shorten a clip in the default “elastic” mode, keyframes in an effect parameter are automatically scaled to fit. Editors will like this more than compositors, although you have the option to turn this behavior off.

Media Composer has an eight-point tracker using new algorithms. I pulled out some old DVCPRO HD 24p footage of a windsurfer on the ocean and decided to track an effect to the top of the mast. One thing that takes a little getting used to is Media Composer's modal approach — you choose the mode from the top menu bar under Toolset. The options are Color Correction, Source/Record Editing, Effects Editing, Audio Editing, Capture, and Full-screen Playback. When you are in Effects Editing mode, you can't change edit points, and you can't edit effects when in the Source/Record Editing mode. So you have to jump around a bit. Fortunately, the tracking and effects workflow is simple. Effects such as Blurs, Matte Keys, Paint, and Titles offer direct access to the tracker. Boris FX provides the same built-in tracking, but Adobe After Effects requires you to track the background plate, apply an effect (often requiring a solid layer), and then apply the tracking data to the effects layer seperately.

In Avid, I created a red stroke in Paint and selected Tracking from the Paint palette. I tracked the mast in the 720p windsurfing footage and played back the effect in fullscreen mode. That was it — tracking an effect to a video clip is fast and direct with everything you need in one palette.

Avid owns Digidesign Pro Tools, the de facto standard audio application at most sound mixing and recording studios around the world. Media Composer has one new essential audio feature: 4-channel audio punch-in. This allows you to record sound in sync while the picture plays. Obviously, this is of enormous interest to documentary makers and anyone involved in personal cinema, where narration is common. It also requires a certain improvised approach. Music from a musical instrument with a USB interface can also be recorded live to picture.

Any discussion of Avid Media Composer has to include its color-correction tools and 3D capabilities. At this moment in the industry, all the top NLEs have powerful, integrated color-correction capabilities. Nowadays, 16-bit correction is standard (when applicable), and with masking and tracking thrown in, you basically have a DI suite. In fact, the color tools have long surpassed affordable color monitoring and calibration for anything except NTSC.

Avid also owns Softimage; Avid Digital Studio was the first comprehensive approach to placing a full range of content-creation tools in one app. Today's Media Composer family is heir to that approach, also including DVE as an effects option.

You can also purchase the Avid Studio Toolkit, which includes Avid 3D, a streamlined version of Softimage for editors. This is a $1,295 product that launches as a separate app, but it plays well with Media Composer. For beginner or intermediate editors, it makes bringing a video layer into standard 3D Cartesian space a one-button operation. Similarly, bringing back the layer (with a 3D movie ready to go with a matte) is a one-button export to Media Composer. This is the most direct 3D integration available in an NLE.

A discussion of Avid's compositing or audio integration with Pro Tools could fill a very long article. It makes my job easier to write that Avid has a tradition of getting things right.

Today, an editor or filmmaker has several options when choosing an NLE. The big question here is whether or not Media Composer (as a software-only solution) is the right NLE for boutiques, indie filmmakers, and anyone on a tight budget. First off, this is not 2001, when Final Cut Pro was very good but not without some issues. Today, FCP and MC are both going to allow you to finish your feature, web series, network series, and just about anything else in a highly evolved and sophisticated software environment.

So here's my point of view: If you are not expecting to operate an editing facility or put yourself on the market as a freelance editor, then Final Cut Pro is easier to learn and less expensive. To be fair, Media Composer has several compositing features (named above) that would be separate plug-in purchases for an FCP user. Some, but not all, of these features are included in Apple Motion, which is now being bundled in the Final Cut Studio — and you don't get socked with Media Composer's $5,000 price all at once. If you are expecting to have a career as an editor, then Avid Media Composer is the logical choice, because that's what is used in most large facilities, networks, and offline suites.

As for my own choice, if it means investing a few weeks to learn the interface, catching up on Avid means I can jump in on edits I'm producing at a facility. I'll still use Final Cut Pro, but I'll increase my options in the field with knowledge of both.