First a caveat: at this stage of the beta some of the user interface details shown in the below screenshots are not what will be in the finished product. Individual controls may well be re-drawn, moved or redesigned entirely.
With that out of the way lets take a look at two of its new features; The Effects Manager and the Titler.
Effects Manager:
MediaStudio Pro 8.0 has its effect controls centralized into a single interface called the Effects Manager. In the Effects Manager there is a tree list of all the effects applied to a clip or its attached audio track.
These effects can all be shown at once and are stacked so their keyframes can be synched. The dividers between the 3 major sections of the Effects Manager can also be moved as you see fit.
Effects Manager also includes a new keyframer which can be zoomed in or out. This allows for frame accurate control of the keyframes. The below image is of the same timeline and keyframe as the image above, but it's been zoomed in for more accurate control of the effect. Each division is equal to one frame;
The Effects Manager can also be be expanded by doubleclicking its title bar, making all the controls easily accessible.
Once in the expanded state it can be sized as you see fit and the setting will be preserved for the next time you expand it. This also means that you can stretch out the keyframer to as wide as your desktop permits (image resized);
Doubleclick on its title bar in the expanded state and it will shrink back down to its original size and position in the user interface.
Titler:
First for the really good news: the new titler renders much, much faster than the one in MSPro 7.x. I'm certain it will be even faster by release as the code is still being optimized. Here's a look at the control panel;
You can check out the features by downloading the full sized image of its control panel here;
http://digitalvideo.8m.net/msp8titler.jpg
Key to the titler are the effects that can be applied to its titles;
Style:
Styles make the title characters more graphical and multi-colored.
Animation:
Text animations can be anything from a simple rolling or typewriter credit to lines or even single letters flying in and out from all directions.
Effects:
Effects animate individual characters in the title. They include effects ranging from fire to ice and much more.
Text can be directly entered into the preview window or loaded in from existing text files. Once in the preview the title can be further manipulated using simple edits or by using handles;
Also note that the Title Safe Margin and the background clip are drawn on the preview. The Title Safe Margin is used to determine where the image will be cut off on conventional TV displays. Outside this margin is a no-no when creating titles for display on these devices, which is why the pointer is dragging the right boundary back into the Title Safe limit on this image.
The Titler also has three distinct modes in which it can operate: Normal, Roll and Crawl. Note the icons for each in the left panel and the changes made in the effects panel;
Titler Normal Mode:
Titler Roll Mode:
Titler Crawl Mode:
That's it for now. More info in a few days or so....
