Avid Tip: Choosing a custom image for Frame bin view
By default, Avid chooses the first frame of a clip for the Frame View in the bin. Often this is good enough but sometimes the first frame is black, or a slate of some sort, or otherwise just not helpful. Luckily, there’s a secret way to change which frame is used as the thumbnail — this method is also a way to preview footage without even loading it in the source monitor.
Here’s a bin with a clip, and since this clip was captured from a tape, the thumbnail is a worthless countdown slate. We’d prefer to see some of the footage in the thumbnail instead.
Default frame is a useless countdown
All you have to do is select the clip and push the L key like you’re playing the footage. And, that’s exactly what happens — the footage starts playing, sound included, and if you have an external monitor you’ll even see the footage on the screen. Just hit K to pause the playback, and that frame will be the new thumbnail.
New frame shows actual content
With this method it’s not possible to instantly jump far ahead in the clip, so if you had a very long clip it might take a long time to find just the frame you want. Thankfully, you can multi-tap the J and L keys to rewind and fast forward at higher speed, just like in the timeline.
This is a good tip.
You can also use the “M” “,” “.” and “/” (if you leave the default key settings) to step forward or back by 1 or 10 frames. (same buttons as if you were in trim mode)
What I would like is if these custom frames would stay between project closes and re-open.
Jeff
There is an addition to this tip, if you open the clip in the source monitor, mark an in point, then go back to the bin, click the clip once, and hit ‘Go to In’ by default this is the Q key. Now the frame seen in frame view is your in point.