Avid Media Composer 8.5

Avid‘s latest version, 8.5, has been available for a few days now, with a special focus on new workflows and interface improvements.

One of the most notable new features is the ability to select from multiple color spaces in the “New Project” window. HDR(High Dynamic Range) targeted color spaces have been added, including ACES, Dolby Vision, Sony S-Log3, BBC/NHK. Once the HDR color space is selected, transformations are handled automatically.

The menus and menu items have been reorganized in a more logical way, although for those of you who are regular Avid editors this may be a bit of a nuisance. A table specifying exactly where the modified menus are now located is included in the guide to the new version.

This update also adds a feature called “High-Visibility Timeline Editing“, which revamps the timeline (said by the company). It makes clips transparent when dragging them to the timeline, so you can easily align them based on the timeline layout or waveforms.

These are the rest of the highlights:

• Columns with customized headers in the bins.

• Creating a new track by dragging a clip above or below the existing structure.

• Possibility of trimming with the synchro locks active.

• Z Rotation slider in the FrameFlex tool, to straighten or rotate an image, with animations if necessary.

• Caching through “Interactive Video Frame Cache“, being able to include the effects applied to play the clips as many times as required.

• Capacity for 64 audio tracks in a single stream.

• Support for Windows 10 and OS X 10.11 (El Capitan).

Compatibility with Magic Bullet Looks

Red Giant has announced the compatibility of its Magic Bullet Looks 3 plug-in with Avid version 8.5, but only for some operating systems:

• Windows 7, 8 and 10

• Mac OS X 10.8, 10.9 and 10.10 (not on El Capitan)