The Library
The Library is a cataloging and management tool for all the file-based resources – or assets – that you can draw on when authoring. Almost all of the materials of your movie – video footage, music and audio files, and many specialized resources such as transitions and effects – originate as assets in the Library. Many Library assets are supplied with Avid Studio, and are available for royalty-free use. These include professionally-designed titles, DVD menus, sound effects and more.
The Library uses watch-folders for keeping up automatically with the changing population of media files on your system. On the watch-folders page of the Avid Studio Settings, enter the names of your media directories, especially those that you update frequently. From now, the Library will scan those directories regularly for changes, and update itself accordingly.
Main view: When you click the Library tab, the Library takes over the main window. This ‘main view’ gives you spacious access to a number of cataloging and search tools, including those for categorizing assets by means of ratings and tags, and those for creating user-defined asset collections.
Compact view: The ‘compact view’ of the Library squeezes virtually the whole functionality of the main view into a panel embedded within certain other windows, such as the Movie Editor and the Disc Editor. The primary purpose of the compact view is to allow assets to be brought into a movie or disc project from the Library by drag-and-drop.
The main view of the Library consists of navigation controls for exploring the catalog structure (left) and a browser for examining and selecting assets (right).
Player: The tools available from within the Library include the Player, a viewer that works for all media types handled by the application. When used from the main view of the Library, the Player opens in a separate window. When the compact Library is used, an embedded version of the Player appears in the same window.
Previewing a Library video asset in the resizable Player window, with full transport controls including a shuttle wheel. You can keep working in the main window while the pop-up Player is open.
The next step, once you know your way around the Library and have made any changes needed to the default set-up, is to start creating a movie. There are two ways to go about this.
The usual way: If you want to exert detailed control over the way media assets are used in your production, you will usually start building your movie or disc project from scratch in one of the two project editors.
The easiest way: For ultra-quick results, the Library offers another way. Clicking the SmartSlide or SmartMovie tools at the bottom of the Library main view opens an extra tray of controls. With either of these you select some visual media assets to serve as the basis of the project, choose music for a soundtrack, and make a handful of other customizations. Then the software takes over, automatically generating a full-scale Avid Studio project containing the media and options requested. You can export the project immediately, or edit it further by hand as you choose.