Customer Reviews

Avid Xpress Pro for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a Godsend for editors who need to be up and running quickly. I struggled for months with Avid's documentation - trying to piece together an efficient way to use the program. Monohan's book cuts to the chase. For instance, he begins his audio section by saying, "The key to understanding Xpress Pro's audio tools is to forget what they're named and focus on what they do....their functions boil down to: monitoring your audio, adjusting audio levels, adjusting audio pan values and applying and manipulating audio effects." He then explains each tool in plain English. The sections on video effects and color correction were more helpful to me than Avid's educational series books on these same topics.

The style of the book is very intuitive. The book explains where to find loads of commands not represented in the menu system - like turning on audio sample plot - and gives you loads of tips, tricks and shortcuts. There are also Pro Advice and Strategy side bars to guide you in preparing your project for high end finishing. While Avid's manuals are thorough, not knowing exactly how to phrase these capabilities made it difficult for this reader to find the same information in the thousands of pages of documentation. Highly recommend this book.

I always expect a lot from the Quickstart books (I have probably a half dozen), but this one is exceptional. Any question I could dream up is in there and easy to find. It is so much easier to understand than the manuals or even the Avid Educational Series books. I've been an Avid user for about a year, and it didn't take me long just scanning the book to find stuff I didn't know and shortcuts to take.

There's a lot under the hood with Avid software. Even experienced editors can learn new tricks with this book. With over 600 pages, it contains many, many useful and practical tips. This book is an excellent resource.

This book is the one to get on Avid Xpress Pro. Being a new user of Xpress, I found myself confused and lost, and often getting a head ache just trying to find a command. James Monohan's book really provides great explanations in bite-size chunks. It is the perfect pain reliever when I get frustrated from the software. Thanks James for such a complete guide!!! Best of all this book has an awesome index.

The book has an uncanny way of having the exact answer to my current Avid question or problem. The explanations are well written, along with a step-by-step process on how-to do it. I don't turn on my Avid without the book!!

I'm pretty familiar with most other editors on the market, but let's face it, Xpress Pro ain't like most other editors. When a consulting project required some advanced Avid knowledge, I picked up this book and found it a lifesaver.

What differentiates the visual quickstarts from other books is the sheer accessability of the answers. If you're looking for a tutorial based book, this isn't it. However, if you're looking for quick hits of information when needed, you'll find this book invaluable.

I am a beginner with Avid and was daunted by all the different and options available to me. Monohan's book was just what I needed. I am currently giong through the book from A to Z, which gives me an overview of all the options and work-methods the program has. Even though I allready had set up my workspace, this book gave me some interesting tips. Even though I had allready developed a workflow for my previous projects, I learned some new options by reading this book.

Interestingly, serving as a guide from a to Z is not where Monohan excells. It should be used as an index to all the available options from this program. Want to know how to find those audio-peaklevels? How to get rid of that nested alpha-channel? Or you want to remember that trick in lassoing to trim mode? Use the index or the table of contents and you'll find what you're looking for in no time.

Great value for its price!

Great book for beginners and experienced Avid users alike.
Incredibly well structered, very easy to understand, lots of tips and tricks. From setting up your system to using advanced keyframes, this book is a great resource on Avid Xpress!

Bottom line - great how-to book. I am NOT in any way, shape, or form, a computer geek. Technology is not my friend, and nothing about machinery is inuitive to me. I am also a no-nonsence kinda guy. In this particular case, I want to edit, not spend my time READING about how to edit. So this book is GREAT! (Wouldn't know if it's the best 'cause I'm completely dependent on doing what it says to do so I have no way to compare it to other resources.) The layout is straightforward - topics are categorized and independant from each other. Like a cookbook. Simply go to the instructions on how to do a particular thing, and there you go! The book uses paragraph format in the beginning of each topic/chapter to explain the "why's" of the upcoming topic; like a comprehensive overview. (What's the purpose and point of doing "_____".) Then when it comes to the "how-tos", each subtopic/activity converts to bullet-points. (Click A, then do B, then press C.) The book also includes side notes and hints along with illustrations of what you should be seeing on the screen at that particular stage. Wonderful! Efficient!

This book is based on Avid Express Pro as of 2004 and will serve you well as a reference text. It is well-indexed and has useful cross-references in the text.