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I’ve been working with the new Avid Media Composer 5 more lately and am slowly being introduced to certain obnoxious default settings as the situations arise.

Avid Media Composer Audio Settings

The most annoying I have found so far is that when digitizing in MC5, the audio tracks are defaulted all centered, instead of alternating left and right. Which essentially makes your load mono. It’s not an unfixable problem, but still it’s annoying to have to then go back into the mixer and adjust the channels for each track on EVERY clip. (Unless, of course you, want them all the be centered.  Then you’re in luck!)
Best just to open up the audio settings and change it on your user settings at the start.

As I notice them, I’ll post more about the default settings of Media Composer 5 that you may not realize are screwing with you!

I’ve decided to post some tips/tricks (Trips!) I’ve found to be really useful in working with Avid and as an Assistant Editor that will both remind me later down the road and hopefully help out someone desperately searching for answers late at night online.

Two Ways to Recover Your Original Source Clip Filenames:

If you’ve changed your clip names in Avid, and didn’t copy the column over into another column like “Take” or “Comments” for reference later, you may have already noticed the problems that arise from this seemingly innocent act.
For my current project, there are hundreds of archive clips that all need to retain their original archive clip ID in order to find the clip again and order masters from the archive companies. Having not always kept the original name somewhere in a column of the bin, I’m wondering “How the hell do I know what clip is what without having to open each up and visually reference based on the backed up media?”

1. Reveal File
Though you have changed the clip name in the bin, the MXF file Avid created on the import retains the original clip name in the first part of the MXF file name. Reveal File shows you the exact file on whichever hard drive you loaded it to.
Copy and paste just the obvious clip name part of the file (and not the other Avid generated numbers and letters) back into the Avid in a column like “Comment”, in order to export an EDL with that info in it.

But just so you know, the Avid does cut off the character count of your filename after what appears to be around 18 characters and then just ignores the rest.  So I would still cross reference it with the backed up media if your filenames are longer than that.

2. Use FilmScribe and show column “UNC Path”
If you backed up your media, and imported it from where you backed it up from, FilmScribe (another option above EDL in the output menu) will tell you the file path from the imported file, which ultimately ends with the filename.

ex.: G:\Loaded\GettyImages\8jd9fle9.jpg
Copy and paste that last part into the Avid somewhere useful. And/or just give the archive person the FilmScribe printout/file/link. (Though I’d recommend keeping that information that you’ve just worked on relocating somewhere in the bin as well)

If the original location from where the file was imported was changed or deleted or moved somewhere else, I’m not sure if it still retains that information. You could always use the reveal file method instead.

However, both methods are a pain in the ass, so now that you’ve learned it’s a bad idea to get rid of the original clip names all together, don’t do it again! I’m making a habit of putting that info into the “Take” column, which wasn’t being used in our project. Maybe make your own column called “Clip Name” so that there isn’t much of a chance someone accidentally changes the column’s info on you. Then make sure to remind everyone on the project who may load something without you knowing, to keep up the same protocol.