If you can resist letting your record button fly free then you are a stronger person than I. Then logging your video – setting ins and outs to create each subclip during video capture in Avid – becomes a very time consuming process. You’re basically reliving your time in the field.

But if you shoot in DV and transfer with FireWire, you can use Avid’s DV Scene Extraction feature. It automatically creates clips between each stroke of the record button. (Final Cut Pro’s equivalent is called DV Start Stop Detect).

In your bin widow, go to Settings, then Capture, then DV Options.

You’ll have the option of Adding Locators and/or Create Subclips. You want subclips for sure. Locators appear as little red dots on your master clips timeline, which is occasionally helpful.

Your subclips won’t have unique names, but if you’ve shot cleanly, you can view them as frames and organize them visually.

In FCP, the process is a little more complicated. See page 257 of the user manual (PDF).

In Avid’s user’s guide, you can find more info on page 74.