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An Avid User
A big difference between an Avid system used for offline editing and a DV system is that there is no reason to finish a DV program in an online suite. Unlike some M-JPEG-based editing hardware, a DV system does not generate compression artifacts or loss of quality. The result is that the video leaving a DV editing system is as good as the video coming into the system. Once all effects and titles have been rendered, the program is played back from the timeline, out through the 1394 connector and onto a DV tape. Avid EDL Manager is included with Xpress DV, should you wish to generate EDLs.

At press time, the list of supported DV equipment in the printed documentation was restricted to MiniDV products. I visited Avid's Web site to view the latest list but, again, it was restricted to MiniDV. It took a few minutes to find the proper area of the Web site because of the somewhat erroneous directions included in the printed documentation.

The learning curve with Avid Xpress DV is not very steep. After working through the tutorial, I began an editing session using some recently shot footage. I followed the printed directions in the Getting Started Guide and was working at a comfortable pace in a short time.

Avid editors will feel right at home with the look and feel of the system, but there are no real-time effects. Titles and transitions must be rendered in order to be viewed at full speed because there is no hardware acceleration, nor are there dual codecs in play with the Xpress DV system.

The Avid editing interface consists of a bin where the project's media is kept; the Timeline where the program is edited; a Composition Window where the result of the edit can be viewed; a source window where the original clip is played; and a Trim Window for fine-tuning edits.

I assembled my project by viewing the source tapes and capturing the video segments I wanted as I went along. Xpress DV does have a batch-capture feature, though I chose not to use it for this project. Documentation from Avid states that certain DV cameras do not provide accurate time-code support, however, the Sony camera that I was using was precise. Avid claims to have improved its sync-to-time-code feature with this version. I placed the clips on the timeline and began trimming and rearranging them as I built my project.

Tight Assets
The overall feel of the Xpress DV is tight and responsive. Menus can be opened and closed quickly, as can tool palettes. Cuts-only playback is performed in real time, but titles, transitions and effects must be rendered before they can be viewed in the Composer Window.

Because the system does not have real-time playback capabilities I relied on the Render at Position feature to render transitions and effects. The render speed was fast on the Pentium III 930 MHz processor; however, speaking as a producer who's used to real-time editing, it did seem to take a while to get through the project.

Render in Position used all available processor overhead and did not allow me to continue working during the rendering process. Background rendering is a feature that is available on other NT-based systems and I did miss it here.

Avid Xpress offers basic audio plug-ins including Gain, EQ and a mixer window. The effects can be applied while the audio is looping, but there is a noticeable delay as the effects are applied by the application. They are accurate, and I found no surprises during the mix-down.

Audio fade levels are accomplished by using key frames on a rubberband control on the audio tracks or by using the mixer window. Titling is done in a Title Window at the point in the timeline where the play head is paused. When the Title Window is opened the default setting is used to show the video from the timeline in the background. The Title tool is well integrated but a little basic.

Avid Xpress contains the same keyboard editing shortcuts found in Media Composer. I find the more you use a particular editing system, the faster you are when using keyboard shortcuts. Pushing a cursor around the screen is time-consuming compared to hitting a keystroke or two.

When I finished the project, I re-rendered all of the effects and played the project back out to tape. The end result was as I expected, although I wish the render time had been faster.

Pricing for the Avid Xpress DV on IBM's IntelliStation M Pro bundle starts at $6,400. The package gives DV users a good alternative to a professional-level native DV editing system, albeit one with some performance limitations. Too many DV systems are not up to the task of professional editing. True, the Avid system is not a dual-stream, real-time editor but it is a very stable, user-friendly and mature platform.

For more information, visit the Avid Technology web site, avid.com or the IBM web site at pc.ibm.com/intellistation

Matt Payne is the founder of Payne Media, a Seattle company that creates graphics, animation and special effects for print, multimedia, corporate video and broadcast television.

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