Save Hours Now—ScriptSync and PhraseFind Are Here
By Jim Bask
By Matt Feury
Every editor has been there. You’re staring at a growing mountain of drives and cards and devices containing dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of hours of footage. You know the story you want to tell. But finding the best takes or that perfect clip of dialog to complete your narrative can suck up hours of time daily. Hours you’d rather be spending creatively focusing on your story.
Back in 2006, Avid partnered with a company called Nexidia to bring Nexidia’s phonetic dialog indexing and search technology to Avid’s editing systems. First with ScriptSync, which automated the process of syncing every dialog line in a script or transcript with its equivalent media files. Then later with PhraseFind, which made it possible to simply type a word or phrase and quickly find every clip where that word or phrase is spoken.
With this technology, Media Composer editors gained significant speed and ease throughout the creative editorial process. Unfortunately, we experienced a partnership setback a few years ago and had to remove ScriptSync and PhraseFind from Media Composer. This wasn’t easy for us—and we know it especially wasn’t easy for you. Thankfully, that’s all about to change because they’re back!
Meet the new and improved ScriptSync and PhraseFind
As we mentioned late last year, we acquired the exclusive rights to Nexidia’s phonetic dialog search technology and would be bringing ScriptSync and PhraseFind back. Well, I’m thrilled to tell you that both are available now. And they’re better than ever! All you need is Media Composer 8.8 and you’re ready to rock (check out our special upgrade offer below).
ScriptSync
With the new Media Composer | ScriptSync Option, you can quickly sync every source clip to its associated dialog line in your script or transcript in seconds. This makes it super easy to compare all performances in the context of your story, so you can choose the best take. And it offers several new features and enhancements, including…
• Sync clips faster with the more powerful phonetic indexing engine
• Easily undo and redo tasks
• View clips in their native frame format, including 4×3 and 16×9
• Get more color choices for richer organization and script markup
• Work in multiple languages, with all available languages included
• Edit, find, and replace script text
ScriptSync is available now as a new purchase, upgrade, or bundled with PhraseFind—see all of your options here.
PhraseFind
With the new Media Composer | PhraseFind Option, you can quickly find all relevant clips by typing a word or phrase of dialog. That means you can spend less time searching for the right media and more time focusing on what matters most—your story. It also offers several new features and enhancements, including…
• Get faster search results with the more powerful phonetic indexing engine
• Save time and money with the ability to catalog volumes of dialog-driven media
• Get more accurate results with support for shorter phoneme phrases
• Gain better indexing of unclear audio and support for more dialects and accents
• Work in multiple languages, with all available languages included
PhraseFind is available now as a new purchase, upgrade, or bundled with ScriptSync—see all of your options here.
Got an older version of Media Composer?
Both ScriptSync and PhraseFind require Media Composer 8.8 to operate. If you have an active Annual Upgrade and Support Plan for Media Composer—or a Media Composer subscription—you can download the latest update at no charge right now (you’ll find the latest installer in your Avid Account).
If you have Media Composer 3 or later, Symphony 3 or later, or NewsCutter 7 or later, we’re giving you a limited-time only chance to upgrade your software to Media Composer 8.8 for just $399. This not only enables you to update your tools and editorial skills, you get an Annual Upgrade and Support Plan too, which provides access to all future Media Composer releases and support for one year, renewable annually for just $299/year.
Get more details about this special offer—or invest in your success and upgrade now through March 31, 2017.
So, how excited are you to have ScriptSync and PhraseFind back? And how will these tools help you? Share your story in the comments.