{"id":314,"date":"2011-11-18T12:43:44","date_gmt":"2011-11-18T19:43:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/?p=314"},"modified":"2011-11-18T12:43:44","modified_gmt":"2011-11-18T19:43:44","slug":"avid-media-composer-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/2011\/11\/18\/avid-media-composer-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Avid Media Composer 6"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t posted much in the last few months, because there have not been many new developments that caught my eye or piqued my curiosity.\u00c2\u00a0 But this month we are seeing a number of releases that are relevant, and moving the industry forward.\u00c2\u00a0 The first one to actually become available to users is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avid.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Avid&#8217;s<\/a> release this morning.<\/p>\n<p>After announcing it last week, today Avid released the next version of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avid.com\/us\/products\/family\/media-composer?intcmp=AV-HP-S2\" target=\"_blank\">Media Composer<\/a>, and it is a major update.\u00c2\u00a0 The key thing that will affect all users is that the program will now be a natively <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/64-bit#32-bit_vs_64-bit\" target=\"_blank\">64bit<\/a> application.\u00c2\u00a0 This will exclude users who still have 32bit systems, but allow the software to use more RAM, and therefore effectively do larger projects, on 64bit systems, which are pretty prevalent at this point.\u00c2\u00a0 From what I can tell, re-coding an entire application for 64bit is also good for cleaning up the code for existing features, and streamline performance and threading.\u00c2\u00a0 Avid&#8217;s primary competition: Adobe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/products\/premiere.html\" target=\"_blank\">Premiere Pro<\/a>, saw a huge improvement in both performance and stability when the first <a href=\"http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/products\/premiere\/faq.html#64bit-support\" target=\"_blank\">64bit version (CS5)<\/a> was released.\u00c2\u00a0 This has led to a huge increase in that application&#8217;s popularity, especially for larger projects.\u00c2\u00a0 The level of competition presented by that change may be a key factor in why we are now seeing so many major changes from Avid.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nThe next most significant new feature, that will affect many users, especially new ones, is <a href=\"http:\/\/avid.custkb.com\/avid\/app\/selfservice\/search.jsp?DocId=422991\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Avid Open I\/O&#8221;<\/a> which is Avid&#8217;s new approach to integrating hardware with Media Composer.\u00c2\u00a0 Avid now supports hardware I\/O via products from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aja.com\/support\/avid\/index.php\" target=\"_blank\">AJA<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.blackmagic-design.com\/avid\" target=\"_blank\">Blackmagic<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.matrox.com\/video\/en\/solutions\/avid\/\" target=\"_blank\">Matrox<\/a> and others.\u00c2\u00a0 We have seen hints of this coming, with support for the Matrox <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bhphotovideo.com\/c\/product\/820945-REG\/Matrox_MXO2MINIMAX_T_MXO_2_MINI_MAX_w_LAPTOP.html\/BI\/6727\/KBID\/7302\" target=\"_blank\">MXO2-Mini <\/a>and AJA <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bhphotovideo.com\/c\/product\/618185-REG\/AJA_IO_EXPRESS_PCIE_Io_Express_Portable_Video.html\/BI\/6727\/KBID\/7302\" target=\"_blank\">ioExpress<\/a> in versions 5.0 and 5.5 respectively.\u00c2\u00a0 This change has two major benefits, it will allow most users access to professional hardware I\/O solutions without paying for Avid&#8217;s overpriced <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bhphotovideo.com\/c\/product\/568234-REG\/Avid_7010_20460_01_Media_Composer_v3_5_Editing.html\/BI\/6727\/KBID\/7302\" target=\"_self\">hardware<\/a>, and nearly as important, it will allow edit systems to run multiple applications on the same system and hardware.\u00c2\u00a0 Add this to advances in project compatibility and interchange, and users will be able move their editing projects between Avid and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tkqlhce.com\/click-4107801-10549458\" target=\"_top\">Premiere Pro<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ftjcfx.com\/image-4107801-10549458\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> (and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bhphotovideo.com\/c\/product\/639275-REG\/Apple_MB642Z_A_Final_Cut_Studio_3.html\/BI\/6727\/KBID\/7302\" target=\"_blank\">FCP<\/a> on the Mac side) on the same systems, using the same video output hardware.<\/p>\n<p>Avid also added a myriad of new features to enhance more advanced workflows, with better support for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stereoscopic\" target=\"_blank\">stereoscopic<\/a> content, more advanced <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Color_grading\" target=\"_blank\">color correction<\/a> tools, and <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Surround_sound\" target=\"_self\">surround sound <\/a>mixing options on the audio side.\u00c2\u00a0 They also have a 4:4:4\u00c2\u00a0RGB version of the popular <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avid.com\/US\/industries\/workflow\/DNxHD-Codec\" target=\"_blank\">DNxHD<\/a> codec, and natively support ProRes files.\u00c2\u00a0 Their <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avid.com\/US\/products\/Symphony\/\" target=\"_blank\">Symphony<\/a> finishing toolset no longer requires Nitris DX hardware, but I have yet to find the pricing structure for that option.\u00c2\u00a0 It looks to be a solid feature set, and I am looking forward to <a href=\"http:\/\/apps.avid.com\/media-composer-trial\/\" target=\"_blank\">trying it out<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I haven&#8217;t posted much in the last few months, because there have not been many new developments that caught my eye or piqued my curiosity.\u00c2\u00a0 But this month we are seeing a number of releases that are relevant, and moving the industry forward.\u00c2\u00a0 The first one to actually become available to users is Avid&#8217;s release [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[18,46,12,24,13,22,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hd4pc.com\/techblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}