Alex Alexzander - Alex has worked with non-linear editing software since 1996, and specifically with Avid for the last 3 years. He is an active member of the AvidCommunity Forums and co-founder of two Avid user groups, based in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He has published many how-to articles, primarily on the Creative Cow. He shares his experiences with the new Avid Studio Toolkit 5.6.

• Avid Studio Toolkit 5.6
• Avid Xpress and Mojo POWERPACK with Studio Toolkit
• Avid DVD by Sonic Blu-ray
• Avid FX
• Avid 3D

Jake GiossiJake Giossi - Is one of the moderators in the Avid Xpress Pro and Avid Studio user forums. He has self-taught himself the skills and knowledge of video editing and production. In this article, Jake provides us with a summary of each part of the new Avid Studio Toolkit 5.6.

• Avid Studio Toolkit 5.6
• Avid Xpress and Mojo POWERPACK with Studio Toolkit
• Avid DVD by Sonic Blu-ray
• Avid FX
• Avid 3D

What's new in Avid Studio Toolkit

Avid DVD by Sonic

• Import HD assets/author HD titles
• Transcode assets to MPEG-2 HD
• Create widescreen and HD menus
• Burn to BD25 Blu-ray Discs

Avid FX

Image Processing

• 16 bit color support through AVX2

Updated UI

• UI look and feel matches Avid editor buttons and colors
• New composer window with integrated keyframe track makes it possible to perform many functions without accessing the composition timeline
• Sticky windows option for easy layouts
• Project settings and modeless options palette
• Tab-based multi-composition timeline window
• Improved project window with media tab
• Configurable shortcut buttons in timeline

Paint Engine

• Clone brush
• Pressure-sensitive tablet support
• Image based brushes with multiple layers supported
• New spray, roller brush styles
• Conversion to spline strokes

Subtitles

• Import EBU format subtitle files
• Export flat movie with alpha channel
• Import back to Avid for real-time playback

Vector Spline tools

• Raster–to-vector conversion lets you scale, extrude and apply vector processing to any bitmap file
• Motion path filter

Optical Flow tools

• Motion key filter automatically removes moving objects from a scene
• Optical stabilizer to eliminate shake and jitter in handheld shots

New filters

• Color Match effect ensures accurate color and luma match from clip to clip
• Halftone filter simulates offset printing
• Median filter simulates paint styles
• Extruded Image Shatter filter adds more 3D to this shatter effect
• 4-point motion tracker added to most filters
• Turbulence is used to distort an image based on a built-in noise map function
• Noise map 2 generates more interesting noise than the original noise map
• Color choker is used to blur and overdrive color channels

Productivity

• Consolidate Project feature
• Improved render queue

Avid 3D

• Lights, Camera, Action menus for simplified access to key controls
• Path menu for easily animating objects on a 3D spline path
• Highly animatable camera view with camera keyframe button, and camera type with locked camera interest (ensures camera is always looking at a given object)
• Control sets for titling, DVE, Deform and 3D Library, combining all elements for each workflow in a single place
• Quicksets for titles, making it easy to choose pre-built styles
• Floating materials editor for easy access to textures and lighting
• New keyframe editor with dope sheet control, simplifying creation and editing of multi-parameter animations
• New jump start tutorials help you get started with pre-built scenes and tutorials
• HDV frame format support
• Softimage XSI 5 compatibility

Avid FX offers an incredible range of graphic creation and animation features—all integrated inside the Avid editing timeline. You'll work faster, with more flexibility and fewer headaches, when you work with Avid FX.

Intuitive compositing, vector graphic, and animation tools
Whether you’re new to compositing or a seasoned pro, Avid FX makes it easy to apply advanced compositing, graphics, and animation effects.

• Professional compositing tools: Combine multiple composites in a single layer for exceptional efficiency and control. Professional features include multiple blend modes; motion tracking; animated 2D and 3D charts; EPS file import and animation; and true 3D DVE with complete control over Z-space, including intersecting layers with cast shadows
• Advanced paint tools: Add effects, clone material, clean up unwanted objects, rotoscope, and more, with pressure-sensitive paint tools

• Motion tracking: The tracking and stabilization tools in Avid FX are among the industry’s most advanced. Apply multiple trackers to any scene. Track in reverse; use any individual color channel as your source; and work with sub-pixel accuracy. Nearly all of the filters in Avid FX have motion tracking built right in, to automatically animate mattes and masks that apply effects to specific areas
• Complete control of EPS vector graphics: Work with client logos and graphics and Adobe Illustrator files and layers. Adjust the thickness and color of lines, add and delete control points, add stroke and fill, and even extrude as a true 3D object
• Turn raster graphics into vector graphics. Raster-to-vector conversion lets you use bitmap source files to perform “vector” operations such as extrusion
• Vector drawing and paint: Create graphics from scratch with precise vector drawing and paint tools, or start with elements included with Avid FX
• Persuasive 2D and 3D charts: Import spreadsheet data or enter data yourself. Charts are automatically generated and automatically updated as the data changes. Animate, extrude, and apply texture maps, bump maps, and reflection maps, or choose from over 100 customizable chart templates
• Add texture to your graphics or DVD backgrounds, from computer-generated textures, to wood grain to reptilian skin. Use sophisticated animated gradients as graphic elements, transitions, and displacement maps

Work fast with thousands of customizable elements
Use these elements right out of the box. Or use them as starting points to create your own unique visual effects

Avid FX Library Browser: Choose from animated previews of over 1,500 customizable titles, transitions, filters, and charts. Save your own effects and frequently used title animations to the library

Customizable spline shapes: Auto-scale graphic backdrops for titles, DVD elements, and masks. Extrude shapes for 3D animations and customize them with bump maps, including stone, brick, and steel plate; materials, including gold, aluminum, and glass; and customizable extrusion and bevel profiles

Easy-to-use 2D and 3D titling tools
Choose from hundreds of preset title animations, type your text, and add animation. Lots more easily customized styles are just one more click away from that.

• Make 2D and 3D text that really moves: Animate individual letters with control over opacity, scale, position, tumble, spin, rotation, jitter, hue, and more
• Give your type a new direction: Place 2D or 3D text along a path, then animate the position and shape of the path in 3D space
• Go from mild to wild. Create elegant, hand-drawn looks with vector paint—or add cutting-edge excitement with jitter and randomization tools. Native vector support ensures razor-sharp text at any scale, even HD and IMAX
• Get the attention you deserve: Create eye-catching text styles with multiple strokes and fill, real cast shadows, and keyframe-level control

High-powered 2D and 3D effects and filters
Save time and money with the industry's most complete 2D and 3D effects compositing environment.

Look better faster: Advanced features like the Optical Flow filter, motion tracking with corner pinning, and 2D layers in 3D space give you fast, precise control over the look of the image, while selective color correction and masking and matte tools let you apply an effect to only part of your scene

Add a new dimension to your work: Everything in Avid FX, including video, can be a 3D object, complete with textures and reflections. 2D and 3D objects can intersect and interact with full control over multiple cameras and lights

Advanced 2D motion graphics: Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator file support lets you bring 2D graphics to life with animation curves; randomization functions; and more. Exclusive features include upstream and downstream masks for every layer and the ability to combine compositing modes in a single layer

More filters, more fun: Avid FX gives you all the filters you expect, plus advanced filters typically limited to expensive add-on packages: wire removal; moving object removal; drop-out repair; film restoration; grain matching; Z-blur; and Optical Flow.

Avid 3D features the same 3D creation and animation tools used in groundbreaking feature films, bestselling games, and music videos—streamlined for video editors:

Model-based 3D animation
Avid 3D makes it easy to get started with hundreds of professional models from the renowned Digimation library. Simply choose a model and customize it with a huge selection of drag-and-drop textures, materials, lights, cameras, and shaders.

• A direct link to the full Digimation online library offers exclusive content for Avid 3D customers as well as custom-built models
• Avid 3D supports the most popular model formats, so you can choose from a growing selection of free models available online

Titles with a 3D twist
Avid 3D includes a library of customizable title animations, such as volumetric lights moving behind text; simply enter your text, and you're done. Or use automatic tools and real-time previews to create compelling, unique animations in just a few clicks.

• Bend, bulge, warp, and twist your text it in all three dimensions
• Animate 3D ripples and waves with a single click
• Fly cameras around or through your text
• Add a wide variety of special effects, textures, and materials

Easy animation tools
Avid 3D simplifies the process of animating an object along a path. Simply draw a path or drag one of several customizable paths into your scene. Select an object to apply to the path, and motion is automatically applied.

• Save time with automatic keyframing: simply change properties like position and scale as you move down the timeline
• Create a title where the letters animate individually by animating one letter—the rest will automatically follow
• 3D"rigs" allow multiple elements to be controlled at once: direct the position of multiple lights; make 3D text orbit a globe; create true 3D DVE effects; and more

Fast, easy file exchange
Tight integration between Avid 3D and Avid editing systems uses industry-standard AAF (Advanced Authoring Format) to make it easy to work with video and 3D animation files.

• Finished animations from Avid 3D automatically appear in your Avid editing bin
• Video automatically appears in the Incoming from Avid Editors folder in Avid 3D, ready to be dropped into your 3D scene, or directly onto a 3D object
• Video with animated alpha channels can be composited in real time with multiple layers of underlying video
• Real-time camera output from Avid 3D can be displayed on your broadcast monitor through Avid Mojo or Avid Adrenaline hardware

Based on technology from Sonic Solutions, the world's leading supplier of professional DVD authoring technology, Avid DVD is the perfect balance of speed, flexibility, and power.

Author titles for standard-definition DVD output and next-generation Blu-ray Discs. Tight integration with Avid editing, effects, and animation applications lets you create video, special effects, audio, music, titles, and graphics for your DVD without missing a beat.

Now playing: end-to-end HD productivity
Independent professionals now have an inexpensive HD distribution format: Blu-ray Discs. Capture and edit in HD with your Avid editor, then use Avid DVD by Sonic to author and distribute high-definition Blu-ray Discs. Be the first to take advantage of this revolutionary technology to offer your clients end-to-end HD services.

Comprehensive SD and HD authoring
Avid DVD by Sonic supports SD and HD authoring, including NTSC, PAL, 1080i and 720p menus and SD and HD MPEG-2 video assets. Avid DVD by Sonic makes authoring in HD is as easy as in SD, with the same interface and menus, same built-in simulation, and same built-in burning controls. A large selection of templates makes it easy to create great-looking DVDs right from the start.

Blu-ray Disc support
Blu-ray is a new type of optical disc that can support much higher storage capacities and data rates than today's DVDs, making it possible to play back pristine-quality HD material on inexpensive consumer players. Avid DVD by Sonic supports full HD authoring and direct burning to Blu-ray Disc without any additional software (requires a Blu-ray disc burner, not included).

Advanced SD DVD output controls
In addition to streamlined SD DVD authoring, Avid DVD by Sonic also provides professional SD DVD output tools, including region coding, encryption, and other advanced DVD format controls.

Tight integration with Avid editors
Avid editing applications offer more ways to create and manage metadata than any competing application. One example is MetaSync, a powerful technology that turns an abstract concept like "metadata" into a timeline track you can see and manipulate, just like video, audio, or timecode. MetaSync is much more than a point in time - it's designed to cover a span of time. MetaSync can be used to create chapter points and pick thumbnail frames, right in the editing timeline, and then burn discs right from the editor with One-Step command for SD projects.