Avid recently updated Media Composer to version 3.0.5 and added a feature that has long been asked for … by editors who use Final Cut Pro. Splice Here has a good explanation of the select left and right tools (with pictures) but basically it is a tool that easily selects all the media in a timeline to either the right or the left, depending on which tool you have chosen, and allows the editor to move all that media at once. It’s a very handy tool to have and a welcome addition. This is something that Final Cut Pro has had all along. But Avid adding this tool isn’t an admission that FCP is a better editing tool but rather an indication that the company is listening to their users and are building a better editing tool.

As an armchair observer it looks like Avid sucked up some pride and added something that Final Cut Pro had done first. But this is a really useful tool that will make it easier to edit even though it doesn’t really fit with the basic Avid editing philosophy of less timeline interaction with the mouse. It is a great example of putting users before pride. But I ask what is wrong with adding a function to your piece of software that a competitor invented? If it makes for a better editing tool then I don’t care who invented it. I wish that all three major non-linear editor software makers (the big 3 As, Avid, Apple and Adobe) would look across the three leading NLE apps, Media Composer, Final Cut Pro and Premiere Pro, and considering adding some of the best features of each. Media Composer’s markers/labels, FCP’s timeline tools, Premiere’s title tool … there’s certain things that always stand out when I am using an of the above mentioned applications. Usually the next day when I have moved back to another app I think “man, I sure with application x had application y’s feature.” It always happens. I’m not asking for an application to change its fundamental way of working as that’s what makes moving from one application to another on a regular basis such a joy, you can tailor a job to a paticular application depending on the requirements of the job. But it’s more the little things that one application can learn from the other. It would be great to see a scrolling timeline in FCP, like Avid. Just like it would be great to scale the Avid timeline during playback, like FCP. Kudos to Avid for adding that little piece of FCP goodness. Now let’s see some of that Avid goodness sprinkled back to FCP.