Avid Xpress DV Review

By Mark Shapiro 

There are a wide assortment of video editing programs that are used by professionals. These include titles like Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas Video and Avid Xpress DV.

 All of these programs are in the $400 and up price range and have a steep learning curve to truly understand them and use the programs to their fullest capability.

 The big advantage of moving to an Avid solution, versus a program like Premiere or Final Cut, is for those who want to make it in Hollywood. If you want to be successful editing professional broadcast video and film, you need to become knowledgeable of the appropriate tools. According to Avid, over 90% of prime time TV programming and over 85% of Hollywood feature films are edited using Avid editing solutions. Impressive.

 The Xpress DV program is a lighter and easier to use version of the professional Avid program but still carries an impressive load of features and capabilities. With a recent price drop of $200, from $695 to $495, it now enters the realm of the high level video enthusiast and prosumer who wants to create professional looking video on a realistic budget.

to get it for just $445

 According to Avid, “Express DV software is designed specially for DV editors who are looking for professional strength editing tools and require a low cost way to enter the Avid family of professional nonlinear editing and finishing systems.”

 If $495 is too much for you, you might want to get started by downloading and using Avid Free DV and trying out the Avid interface and GUI. Avid Free DV runs on both Macintosh and Windows platforms, provide sup to two streams of real time effects, and provides many of the basic video and audio editing capabilities need to create good videos. Avid Free DV is a good taste of what Avid video editing is all about.

 The Avid Xpress DV program itself is a very impressive package. In addition to the Avid Express DV editing software, you also get Boris Graffiti – a professional titling application, Sorenson Squeeze for compressing for video files, and SonicDVDit for authoring video DVD projects. The package also comes with a tutorial as well as a very thick 700 page plus manual.

 Depending on your budget for peripherals, you can use various customized video keyboards and shuttle controls with Xpress DV, as well as set it up to display on two or more computer or video monitors at a single time. You can have your editing controls appear on one monitor, your source video on another, and the program video on a third.  Xpress is geared to the professional and therefore includes keyboard shortcuts as well as drop down menus for all the important features and capabilities.

 What do you need to use Avid Xpress DV?

 Avid Xpress DV runs on both Mac and Windows machines and uses a USB dongle to handle registration between the various machines you install it on. Avid lets you install Xpress DV on various machines but you can only use it on one machine at a time. This is great for those who work on video projects both at home and at the office.

 Avid Xpress requires a powerful computer running up to date operating systems. For Windows, this means a minimum of a 933 MHz PIII or P4 running Windows XP Professional. You also need lots of memory and hard drive space. At minimum, you’ll need 512 MB even though Avid says it will work with just 256 MB.

 For Macs, you need to be running OS X10.3 or better, 667 MHz G4 or G5 or better, and at least 256 MB of RAM. Of course, for any machine you will need Firewire (1394 connectors), DVD burner, sound cards, etc,, etc.

 Avid Xpress DV Overview

 Xpress DV enables you to import and output video in a wide variety of formats and file types. You can capture from native DV, or by using an analog to digital capture care, capture and edit 8mm and VHS video. When you are done with your editing, you can output your final productions as streaming video files in a variety of formats including Windows Media, RealVideo, QuickTime, Flash and MPEG formats. You can burn the final production back to tape or save it as an avi file for computer playback. You can also use the bundled DVDit program to author and create dynamic and professional looking DVDs.

 As you would expect, the editing program is where Xpress shines. You get eight layers of video and audio, over 100 fully customizable real time effects and transitions, 32 levels of undo, outstanding color correction tools, and an incredible array of audio editing and correction tools. And because Xpress DV is a “professional” tool you also get full EDL (edit decision list) support as well as interoperability with the industry AAF and OMF files formats. Xpress can be customized to your personal editing and workbench preferences and works well with pro video editing hardware peripherals like editing keyboards and shuttle controls. This means you can use the mouse and icons for editing, or rely on professional “J-K-L’ keys and numeric keyboard commands.

 To help get precise edits, you get audio scrubbing where you can hear the audio as you move the video player. You can work in both NTSC and PAL, at various frame rates. You can create your work using PAL and then output to NTSC or vice-versa.

 If you are familiar with Xpress, there are some new upgrades associated with version 4 in addition to the $200 price drop. Xpress 4 now offers two new additions to the Color Correction toolset – One Step Auto Correct and NaturalMatch. One Step AutoCorrect can automatically correct contrast, color casts and balance and black and white levels across a single clip as well as across an entire sequence with just  single click. Each clip gets individually analyzed and corrected. ColorMatch provides true color to color matching of your frames.

 For audio, Express DV offers 24 bit audio support, audio mix, audio punch in, equalization, automated gain controls, stereo Vu meters and DigiDesign AudioSuite. Users can provide narration and voice-overs live over the video.

So how does it work?

 The Avid editing architecture is geared to video professionals and looks a lot different than typical editing windows offered by most high end editing products like Final Cut pro and Premiere. If you have never used Avid, you will definitely need to watch the bundled tutorial CD and read the manual.

 When you first open up the program, you get a relatively barren editing wind to start with. The first step is to create a new project by using the new project window. You also might want to visit the settings box to set up the Avid editing environment for your particular style and equipment.  By the way, Avid makes it easy to get info as you progress. In addition to the standard help menus, you can access menu short cuts and access specific help tips for the active button or application.

 The Avid work space uses a variety of components – this includes bins for storing your raw video, graphic and audio source materials, a setting window, a player window and of course, a timeline window for editing your production together. Along the top are various menus controls for bin and file management, as well as for accessing the various video and audio tools, as well as the six application toolsets.; video & audio capture, color correction, clip trim windows, effects editing, audio editing and the basic editing mode.

 Capturing video from a DV camcorder requires a couple steps. You need to configure the capture settings for your camcorder. The tutorial and manual walk you through this process.  Once you have the camcorder connected to your computer via a Firewire, 1394 or iLink cable, you can get the video and audio into the program by going to the capture application located on the tool set menu.

 There are a lot of capture options that need to be set including what kind of camera or deck you are capturing form, where you want captured files to be stored, what channels need to be captured (video and audio), capture quality, etc. Once activated, you can capture to one of the bins or directly to the timeline. The tutorial walks you through the capture set-up options or you can use contextual help. You can capture by simply clicking the record button on and off, you can capture scenes marking the start and ending spots on your tape,  or you can enter time codes.

 As you capture your clips, they are placed into your bins, ready for editing. You can create specific bins for video, audio, graphics, etc., or you can keep them all in one big bin. By using what they call “SuperBin”, you can have a variety of bins available within a single bin. Once your source materials are in the bin, you can view, trim and name them to make it easier to create your actual edited productions.

 By the way, if you are working on a smaller or uncomplicated project, you can set Avid Xpress to capture directly to the timeline. By using the import command, you can also add other video clips, animations, graphics and audio files to the bin as well. Once again, there are a lot of options available in the settings section to enable you to control how you bring in and use external materials.

 Editing

Once your source audio, video and still image clips are in the bin, you can begin editing. Even before moving video to the timeline, by using the frame or script view modes, you can change the order of the clips within the bin to create a rough storyboard of your production. This is very cool.

 You start by using the source record toolset. In addition to the bins, you will now have a timeline across the bottom of the screen, as well as two monitors on top – one for editing your source materials and one for editing and viewing your recorded sequence. In Avid speak, the two monitors across the top are part of the “Composer” window.

 By the way, depending on your computer and video card set-up, you can have these windows spread out across two or three different computer or video monitors. When doing a lot of editing, the bigger your viewing area, the better.

 The Source Monitor allows you to easily trim your video clips with frame accuracy. Avid lets you load the clips in a variety of ways – you can select them, you can click on them or you can drag and drop them. You have lots of choices. You can even load a bunch of clips into the Source Monitor and toggle among them by clicking on the clip name in the drop down menu.

You can play the video at various speeds by moving the bar at the bottom of the source screen, by using the VCR buttons, or by using keyboard shortcuts. Like many high-end programs, hitting the space bar plays and pauses the playback. You can also customize and re-map your keyboard to give specific keys additional functions. To set up in and out points for each clip, you can either use keyboard shortcuts,  the Mark In and Mark Out buttons on the screen, or you can input the specific time code locations. If you need to reset the in and out locations, simply press ALT for windows or Option for Macs, and then move the mark to the new location.

 You can either edit using the edited clip or you can create a sub-clip that is composed of just the selected material. Using sub clips can be a great way to speed up your overall editing process.

 As you load up your edited clips on the program timeline by using the V key on the keyboard or Splice button on the player window, it also creates a sequence entry in your bin. This makes it a bit easier to keep track of and edit multiple sequences.

 You then go through your selected clips, doing a rough trim and then dropping them onto the timeline. At any time you can review your sequence by hitting play in the Record monitor on the right. You can always insert new clips between existing clips on the timeline or use the Undo functions to remove a clip.

 If you used frame or script view modes to create a storyboard assembly of clips within the bin, you can select them all and move them all as one unit to the timeline.

 Once you have completed a rough assembly on the timeline, you then begin to do your fine-tuning. This can include 3 point edits, replacing and re-writing clips, J and L edits, and all the other types of editing capabilities that are required to create a professional looking production. Yu can use trim roller mode to fine-tune your clips on the timeline. The single roller functions changes the length of the clip, while the dual roller mode just changes the transition between two adjacent clips – adding a frame on one side for every frame you remove form the other side. You can add to the beginning or ending of a previously trimmed clip as long as there is additional video from when you first captured the clip.

 By using the Quick Transition button in the timeline, you can pick and add transitions. Just select the effect and drop in on the appropriate clip in the timeline. As you would expect, you can adjust the intensity, direction, length and other parameters of each and every transition. By using A/B editing modes, you can also add layers and picture in picture by adding video to a second video track and then use the Blend command from the Effects category list.

 You can control the details and parameters of each and every effect, transition, audio clips, etc. You can also do very sophisticated color correction, and audio equalization and mixing. Of course, you can add pro looking titles by using the Title toolset. In addition to selecting fonts, sizes, color, etc., you can also dial in whatever level of transparency in order to have the effect superimposed over live video.

 Finally, when the sequence is finished and you have saved it, you can output the production in a diverse range of formats, quality and resolution levels, and file types.

 Working with Avid Xpress DV is different than with most other video editing programs on the market. As it was originally designed by and for pro editors, you don’t get the typical computer graphic interface that most of the other editing solutions utilize. However, with practice and study, the Avid system begins to make a lot of sense.

 Yes, in general, Avid Xpress DV delivers the same kind of final quality, effects, transitions, etc., that you get with similarly priced products from Apple, Adobe, Canopus, Pinnacle, Sony and others, but none provide the interface that is in common use with most Hollywood professionals. That is a primary reason to go with Avid instead. If you are looking for a career in Hollywood film and television, you have to master the Avid process. If you just need to produce great looking video, Avid Xpress is still a great solution but it may not be as easy to master as some of the more “computer” oriented programs.

to get Avid Xpress DV

 copyright 2005 Mark Shapiro