The Avid Handbook: Avid Symphony, Avid Media Composer, and Avid Xpress

I don't usually give 5 stars but this was a very good book. It was extremely well organized. I have been edited on Avid for 4 years now, and this had some very cool new tricks to try. I will say that the edition I read (third edition) was a bit out dated. It is tough for print literature to keep up with the rapid changes in technology.

This is an always useful, comprehensive, interestingly opinionated and well-written guide to Avid's industry-dominant editing products. Steve Bayes was a venerated Avid editing instructor and is now one of the people closest to Media Composer/MCX/Symphony's design and their future within the company. Bayes gives insider-quality instruction on the applications themselves as well as good rule-of-thumb advice about the editing process. If you buy one Avid book as an editor make it this one. Note: I have seen this book prove surprising helpful for long-time Avid editors.

Fanstastic book for a learning AVID user who understands the basics involved in how to make the machine work, but is ready to broaden thier understanding of what it is capable of. Easy to look up or index specific issues, and also up to date.

My first job coming out of art school was working on an Avid system. After realizing that Avid's manuals left much to be desired I searched the net for a book about a non linear editing workflow with the Avid and I found it. Steve's book taught me how to be an Avid editor. I hope he writes more books on the subject but I'd like to see more broadcast technical books from him for those of us who need to fill in those odd gaps when you come into the broadcast field from the creative side of things and not the engineering side of it.

This is not a typical reference. Reading through this enjoyable book has given me valuable techniques I just couldn't learn from reading the Avid manuals. It helped me organize my thinking, unlearn bad habits, and get a glimpse into Avid features that I wouldn't otherwise know exist. One can read it at various levels, from an intro to non-linear editing to an advanced Avid tutorial. It's the kind of book that I think I'll read over and over as my technique improves, and each time I'll gain deeper understanding.