News
Avid Media Composer 7
Apr
Avid unveiled the next version of its nonlinear editing system at NAB: Media Composer 7.
The main objective of this upgrade is to accelerate and simplify high-resolution workflows and extend your production to anywhere in the world in real time thanks to Interplay Sphere.
These are the new features:
FrameFlex
This tool may not be particularly exciting for those who were expecting 2K support in Media Composer, but it is the solution for working with these files or even higher resolutions.
FrameFlex allows ingesting material in 2K, 4K and 5K with color space conversion and HD delivery. Although still working in 720 or 1080, this tool is basically a “pan and zoom” that eliminates transcoding time to resize files and maintains full framing.
General improvements in working with AMA
Now media linked through Avid Media Access (AMA) will benefit from the full set of tools previously reserved for Avid-generated MXFs, even appearing in Media Tool.
In addition to this great advantage, other qualities have been added that will improve the entire AMA workflow:
- These clips will have their own color on the timeline for easier identification.
- They can be dragged from a folder on the computer and, by pressing the Option key, Media Composer 7 will link them to AMA, instead of doing an import.
- It will also be possible to transcode a sequence and convert only the clips linked by AMA and relink only using this type of media.
Dynamic Media Folders
These new folders simplify all AMA media management tasks such as copying, transcoding and consolidating. Imagine the media management you can perform in your Avid MediaFiles folder but with any other folder you have designated as a Dynamic Media Folder.
Each of them can be assigned certain rules, so that when you drag files into them a process is started. For example, if we have a lot of H.264 files we can apply a rule so that they are transcoded to DNxHD 36 and DNxHD175.
Best of all, this process is done in the background, so we can continue working on our project.
Interplay Sphere for Mac
It requires Media Composer Interplay editing, and provides connectivity with Avid Interplay, allowing its users to edit, synchronize and share projects and media anywhere in the world via the Internet.
Enhanced audio features
The two big new features for audio are “Master Audio Fader” and “Clip Gain”. The former allows you to control the overall volume, not just per track, and to insert plugins for compression, equalization and metering. With Clip Gain it is now possible to adjust the gain of a specific clip, without having to add an audio keyframe.
The audio waveforms have also been redesigned to be much faster.
New supports
As always with a new update there are new supports. In Media Composer 7 the following have been added:
- Support for AS-11 has added the ability to place markers on a sequence CT track, which can now have extended durations.
- Support for use and creation of LUTs.
Avid Media Composer 7 is scheduled for June 2013 and will offer two types of configurations:
- Media Composer, which provides the full set of editing tools as well as support for ISIS workgroups. It will be priced at $999.
- Media Composer Interplay Edition which includes all the features of Media Composer plus the ability to connect to Avid Interplay. It will be priced at $1,499
Upgrades from version 6.5 will cost $299 and from earlier versions $399. If you purchase version 6.5 now, the upgrade will be at no additional cost when version 7 is available.
In addition to these two configurations it is also possible to add Symphony ‘s existing advanced color correction tools to the standard version of Media Composer. The additional cost is $1,499 ($2,500 total).
