Avid Tips: Two Ways to Press Play & Duplicate Media Warnings by John Axelrad
Editor's Tip: Two Ways to Press Play	The magic of the Avid keyboard is its customizability. In addition to the "three button player" J-K-L keys, an editor can have even greater control over the media with a simple reconfiguration of the space bar function. The default use of the space bar is to stop playback, but it can be customized to resume sound speed playback as well. Before programming the space bar to function this way, notice that there are two "play" keys on the default keyboard: one on the tilde key (~) and one on the "L" key of the three-button player. The functions of these keys, however, are very different. When pressed repeatedly, the "L" key will play the media faster and faster, whereas the "~" key just toggles between start and stop at sound speed. Your thumb can be awarded this start and stop privilege by assigning the play function of the "~" key to the space bar. To do this, change your project window from "bins" to the "settings" mode. Double click on the keyboard settings. Then command-drag the "~" key (upper-left of the keyboard) to the space bar. You will see the functions of those keys swap: the play icon will move to the space bar and the stop icon will move: to the tilde key. Now you can close the keyboard settings window, change the project window back to 'bins," and continue editing.
Assistant's Tip: Duplicate Media Warning	Beware of bogus warnings about duplicate media files! This bug, very prevalent in 5.x versions, can occur when deleting and redigitizing media. When this procedure is done, sometimes the media file databases do not initially recognize that the original media had been deleted, and a false warning comes up after redigitizing that you have duplicate media on-line. This conundrum is particularly common with MediaShare when you try to update the other systems by ejecting and remounting the affected partition or drive. When you get a duplicate media warning, and you know you didn't recently do anything to duplicate media, do not panic and hit the delete button - or you will. erase what you just redigitized! You simply need to "remind" the computer of your media replacement by ejecting and remounting the affected partition one more time. If you still get a duplicate media warning, delete the media file database on the Finder level, or use MSScanner to efficiently. delete all databases at once. Comfort yourself by realizing that you have not lapsed into senility, but that your computer sometimes will.
John Alexrad is an Assistant Editor Reprinted from The Motion Picture Editors Guild Newsletter Vol. 17, No. 5 - Nov/Dec 1996   Guild Home | Newsletter Home | Top of Page   Copyright © 1996, All Rights Reserved by The Motion Picture Editors Guild, IATSE Local 776