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Auto-Monitoring Feature in Avid Media Composer

Josh Short
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In this tutorial you’ll learn what auto-monitoring is, how to turn it on or off, and help you decide if you want to use it in Avid Media Composer.

Monitoring Tracks in Avid Media Composer

In Avid Media Composer, “monitoring” is deciding what tracks you are viewing. You set the monitor and you see everything on that track and below. For example, if you set the monitor to V3, you see everything on V3, V2, and V1.

This is the “Monitor” – What determines what tracks you are viewing in the Record Monitor

If the clip on V3 doesn’t take up the entire screen, like if it’s a logo in the corner, you’ll see the clip that you have on V1. If you change the monitor to V2, you’ll no longer see the logo you have on V3.

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What is Auto-Monitoring in Avid?

Avid Media Composer has a feature that will automatically change the track that is being monitored. This feature is called Auto-Monitoring. Which track is monitored will change when you deselect/select tracks or patch a track from the Source side to another track.

Let’s say the monitor is set to V4. Only track V1 is selected. You deselect V1 then select V2. The monitor will change to V2.

Here’s one more example. The monitor is set to V4. You load a clip into the Source Monitor. Then you find your in and out points. Then you decide you want to edit the clip onto V2. So you patch the V1 on the Source side up to V2. Then, yep, the monitor changes to V2.

The act of moving one clip’s track from the Source side to a different track on the Record side is called “patching”. After doing this with Auto-Monitoring turned on the Monitor will jump to V2 in this example.

Personally, I hate this feature. And you might too if you’re reading this. So here is how to turn it off.

Turn Off Auto-Monitoring in Avid Media Composer

First, right-click and empty area in the Timeline. In the menu that appears go to Timeline Settings.

Right-click an empty space in the Timeline then go to Timeline Settings…

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There are two tabs in the Timeline Settings box. Go to the Edit tab. There’s a box for Auto-Monitoring. Uncheck this box. Then click OK in the Timeline Settings box to save the settings.

Click the box next to Auto-Monitoring to turn the feature off.

Now Auto-Monitoring is turned off in Avid Media Composer. The monitor will only change when you deliberately click it to another track. Phew.

If you’ve read this tutorial and you still can’t figure it out, please leave a comment and I’ll do what I can to help troubleshoot it. But if you can now know what Auto-Monitoring is and can turn it off in Avid Media Composer, I hope you stick around and check out some of the other Avid Media Composer tutorials on my website or consider signing up to get notified about new blog posts and happenings around EVF.

– Josh

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