I saw a thread on here a couple days ago regarding the terrible quality of the Avid studio training DVDs, but it never mentioned whether the content was any good.  I'm looking at the Avid FX one in particular (I don't really care much about the 3D or DVD).  I am willing to excuse terrible quality (as long as I can see what's going on) if the content is helpful and will get me up to speed.  It's just that $200 for one DVD is quite a lot of money, and I don't want to just throw it away.

Or, better yet, if there are any other learning material for it that anyone else knows of.  Ideally I'd like a book, but I haven't found any (although I guess Boris Red is the same thing as Avid FX?...would a book on that help at all?)  I'm not particularly fond of the ALEX courses, although I don't remember even seeing any on Avid FX anyways.  I'm very proficient in After Effects, and would much rather use that, but working in an AE-like environment directly in Avid is very tempting.  I've poked around in it, and the UI just seems less intuitive and more convoluted than AE, but that could very well be just because I'm not used to it.

Anyway, long message short, is the $200 DVD worth it, or is there anything else someone can recommend on getting me up to speed on this potentially very time saving tool?

Thanks for any input you can give.

David

P.S.  If anyone is unsure of the DVD I'm talking about, I don't even think Avid sells it directly anymore, but you can find it here - http://www.academicsuperstore.com/market/marketdisp.html?PartNo=722211

Have you looked at: learn.avid.com yet?

Isn't learn.avid.com just the ALEX courses?  Oh, I did see their one hour Avid Studio Toolkit tutorial thing, but I was looking for something quite a bit more in depth, and something that focuses soley on Avid FX and not the other components of the toolkit.

EDIT:  I finally found out how to navigate their ALEX thing and look at course offerings, but I when I click on the Avid FX course offering, it seems like the little flash popup window that comes up is messed up.  It doesn't show the price, and it looks as though I should be able to click on something next to the words that shows the course outline (my cursor changes), but there's nothing there and nothing happens when I click...and the middle of the page is blank where it looks like it should be showing something.  I tried both Firefox and IE.  I think I'd still rather get a book or something I can hold on to and keep if at all possible...although I guess that might not be the case.

Do you have any idea what the course runs in price?  I can't imagine getting TOO in depth training for only 2 hours.  I could be wrong though.

They are and they need to seriously be re-written but there's a lot of good info there.

Hmm, I may have to look into it if the price is fairly decent.  Thanks for the info.

I'm still open to anyone else's suggestions too however.

Just out of curiosity, and not to limit this thread to those who have only seen the training DVDs...

How did everyone here who is using Avid FX learn the program in the first place.  I can't imagine EVERYONE is self taught, right?  I ask because of the seemingly severe lack of training material out there for it.

isn't Avid FX extremely similar to boris red?  could you do some Boris tutorials and glean what you neeed from that and translate it to avid FX?   ......just a thought.  Our editors are doing their best to slop their way through it now.  But now I'm loking into Boris tutorials.   Good luck!

SandmanX82:

and it looks as though I should be able to click on something next to the words that shows the course outline (my cursor changes), but there's nothing there and nothing happens when I click...and the middle of the page is blank where it looks like it should be showing something.  I tried both Firefox and IE.

The latest version of Flash player is needed perhaps

AndrewAction:

SandmanX82:

and it looks as though I should be able to click on something next to the words that shows the course outline (my cursor changes), but there's nothing there and nothing happens when I click...and the middle of the page is blank where it looks like it should be showing something.  I tried both Firefox and IE.

The latest version of Flash player is needed perhaps

I'm all up to date on that stuff, so I guess I'm just looking for something that's not there.  Thanks for the suggestion though.

I clicked on the "enroll" button and it brought up a screen about payment options.  When I choose any type of payment options, it brings up my e-mail to send to Avid.  I guess you have to make a request to them directly about it.  So I wrote them an e-mail letting them know I was interested and requesting price info...and never heard back from them.  That was 24 hours ago.  I know a day might not seem like a whole lot, but when they make you e-mail them directly (which I don't understand why), you think they'd be ready for it.  Oh well, I'm sure there's others out there that would be more than willing to take my money in exchange for training material.

caveman72771:

isn't Avid FX extremely similar to boris red?  could you do some Boris tutorials and glean what you neeed from that and translate it to avid FX?   ......just a thought.  Our editors are doing their best to slop their way through it now.  But now I'm loking into Boris tutorials.   Good luck!

Thanks.  Yea, Boris training I guess is the way to go.