Contents Welcome to Avid DS Nitris... The Avid DS Nitris Family . 2 This bulletin provides summaries of all new features in this release. Some of these features have video Documentation . 2 presentations to give you visual overviews of the tools. This bulletin also contains late-breaking notes Customer Support . 3 on the product and gives helpful workarounds where necessary. Training . 3 Avid DS Nitris Discussion Group . 3 Are you a new user? New Features . 4 The Getting Started guide gives you quick steps to constructing and outputting a production using the basic tools in Avid DS Nitris. This way you’ll begin to understand the general concepts and workflows. Backward Compatibility . 4 Audio . 4 These “quick starts” are also available directly from the Avid DS Nitris Help menu. Capture and Output . 4 Are you an Avid DS Pro? Compositing and Effects. 6 Conform and Interoperability . 7 If so, you’ll be able to learn about the new features in this product from these feature presentations. Desktop . 8 Click a link below to run the corresponding movie: Editing . 10 Hardware. 11 For Setup & Installation videos—see “Training” on page 3. Media Management . 12 Match Color Tool Animation Button Painting and 2D Titling . 13 Processing . 15 Reconnect Viewer Button Capturing Transform Trees Recapturing Additional Notes . 16 Position Bar Menu Output Tool Avid DS Nitris Installation . 16 3D DVE . 16 Effects Layout Media Tool Capture and Output . 16 Grouping Objects Tape Library Compositing and Effects. 17 Conform . 18 Importing Subtitles Custom Sift Desktop . 18 Selecting Effects Toolbar Menu Commands DMS Broker. 18 Painting and Titling . 18 User Default Value (UDV) Button UDV Button and Animation\ Copyrights & Disclaimer. 19 2 • Avid DS Nitris v7.01 Release Notes The Avid DS Nitris Family Avid DS RP Avid DS Remote Processing (RP) allows editors and digital artists to The Avid DS Nitris family consists of the following products: continue production while computationally intensive tasks are Avid DS Nitris automatically broken up and dispatched to multiple Avid DS RP systems for processing in the background. Avid DS Nitris provides tools for completing HD and SD projects of any kind with Media Composer-style editing, Symphony-based color Avid DS Nitris DNA correction, paint, graphics, character generation, advanced 3D With the Avid DS Nitris DNA you get accelerated performance of the compositing, special effects, image treatment, and project Avid DS Nitris tools and effects processing. management. In addition, this system provides high-quality, multistream, 10-bit Avid DS Nitris Editor standard-definition (SD) and high-definition (HD) video. For more information, see “Avid Nitris Digital Non-Linear Accelerator (DNA)” Avid DS Nitris Editor offers the same resolution flexibility as Avid on page 11. DS Nitris. It includes the following professional editorial tools: • basic compositing with keying and DVE • Symphony-style color correction Documentation • image effects The Avid DS Nitris package includes a comprehensive set of learning • basic paint and graphics tools materials. • titling, and Start with the Setup Guide to assemble your workstation and connect • audio manipulation tools. it to other equipment at your site. The Avid DS Nitris Editor includes the 10-bit, real-time effects Use the Installation and Administration Guide to install and performance of the Avid Nitris Digital Non-Linear Accelerator license any of the components. You should also refer to it for tips on (DNA) and a rich set of finishing tools. the daily maintenance of your system. You can even follow the Avid It does not include: DS Setup and Installation Instructional program on the Drivers CD. For more information, see “Training” on page 3. • 3D DVE or 3D titling with true Z-depth • Expanding or manipulating graphics containers to build If you’re new to Avid DS Nitris, work through the Getting Started composites Guide to learn how to use Avid DS Nitris for the most common post- production tasks. • Creating, expanding, or modifying effects tree • A dedicated graphics layout Use the other guides for details on all the functions available in Avid DS Nitris: • Tracking • Capture and Output Guide • Editing Guide • Compositing and Graphics Guide Avid DS Nitris v7.01 Release Notes • 3 All these guides are available in Adobe® PDF format in the Online To play the program: Library. They can be accessed under the Help menu in 1. Insert the Drivers CD into your CD-ROM drive. Avid DS Nitris. 2. Select Avid Nitris DNA - HP xw8000 from the main menu. Shortcuts are available under the Help menu in Avid DS Nitris. Print out the Shortcuts card and you’ll always have these editing tips 3. Then click the Avid DS Setup and Installation presentation handy. URL on the bottom left menu. Comments? System Requirements We’d appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have about The program plays on all Windows computers, however, you may this book or any other piece of our documentation. Just send them to: experience some delays when playing the program on older [email protected]. computers. Customer Support Avid DS Nitris Discussion Group For the latest information on Avid DS Nitris, please consult the You can join the worldwide network of Avid DS Nitris users Customer Support website: www.softimage.com/avidds. exchanging ideas and techniques by e-mail. To subscribe, send an e- mail to [email protected] with the following text in the body of your message: subscribe ds. Training At Avid DS Nitris Authorized Training Centers (ATCs) around the world, you can further your Avid DS Nitris education by attending the Avid DS Nitris Setup and Installation Instructional Program multi-day courses that teach you about the interface and workflow The Avid DS Nitris Drivers CD includes an Avid DS Nitris Setup and while producing short projects. For details, visit http://avid.com/ Installation instructional Flash program. This program includes an training. hour of video demonstrations and interactive content to present the new hardware and software components of the system, their assembly and installation. 4 • Avid DS Nitris v7.01 Release Notes New Features New Features Audio Timewarp Effect The default audio Timewarp effect now contains options for adjusting The following sections outline the new features in this release. the pitch shift—see “Timewarp (audio) Property Editor” in the Help. The audio Timewarp effect, Timezone from Merging Technologies, is available—see “Timewarp (audio timezone) Property Editor” in the Backward Compatibility Help. Avid DS Nitris v7 introduces a new media format for different quality bit depths. Due to this modification, previous versions of Avid|DS Capture and Output projects must be archived to tape and deleted from the system. After upgrading to Avid DS Nitris v7, the projects and media must be New Views and Workflows for Capture and Output restored and all sequences must be opened then saved to complete the conversion to v7. This version of Avid DS Nitris replaces the Media Input/Output • Once you save or archive a project in v7 or later, it cannot be layout with a collection of tools: opened using earlier versions of Avid|DS. If you think you will • Deck Configuration view need to access a project again in an earlier version, make sure • Capture Tool you archive the project in that version before using v7. • Capture Settings (introduced in version 6.0) • Caches are not preserved when restoring a project archived with a • Recapture from Avid Explorer previous version of Avid|DS. • Recapture from Timeline • Preferences from Avid|DS v6.x, such as layout, keyboard shortcuts, and toolbars, can be imported to v7. Preferences from • Output Tool versions earlier than v6.0 cannot. These tools provide you with an easier, more flexible workflow. Now • You cannot run multiple instances or different versions of you can capture material from tape while you are in your Editing Avid|DS on the same machine. layout—just open up the Capture Tool and capture the new footage. You no longer have to switch between layouts. Similarly, recapturing from the timeline or Avid Explorer is more efficient. Audio Deck Configuration View Creating Audio Cache for Audio Effects The Deck Configuration view lets you configure the external device You can now process a clip-based audio effect to reduce memory you are going to use for capture or output. You can select the usage—see “Processing Clip-based Audio Effects” in Chapter 10 of manufacturer and model of your device, where it is connected to your the Editing Guide. system, and other settings that affect both capture and output. You can save any configuration as a preset, so that you can easily switch from one device to another. For more information, see “Configuring the External Device” in Chapter 1 of the Capture and Output Guide. New Features Avid DS Nitris v7.01 Release Notes • 5 Capture Tool Shortcuts for Capturing and Output The Capture Tool lets you capture footage from an external device. Press: After you have created a deck preset, you can configure and control • F8 to open the Capture Tool all inputs from this single view. • Shift + F8 to open the Output Tool The Capture Tool includes a panel in which you can select and • Ctrl+F8 to open the Capture Settings view calibrate the video input. If you have an Avid Nitris DNA • Alt+F8 to open the Deck Configuration view workstation, you can select composite, component, or S-video input (in addition to the standard SDI). For these analog inputs, you can Capturing from File by Dragging to a Bin adjust the video input signal—see “Specifying Video Input Settings” in Chapter 1 of the Capture and Output Guide. You can now capture media from file by right-clicking the source file and dragging it to the bin where you want to create the master clip.