Avid Media Composer 8.6

Yesterday came out the news of a new version for the Media Composer editing system, which renews its ingest method and comes with many improvements for audio work.

As we said, one of the major new features is that ingest is done through the Source Browser, which allows you to import or link files from a single window. In addition, thanks to this tool it is possible to preview the media before taking it to a project.

Version 8.6 adds native support for Panasonic’s AVC-LongG codec, allowing you to link and consolidate this file type. For this, it is necessary to install the latest Panasonic Plugin. The codecs and formats included are:

• AVC Long-GOP G12
• AVC Long-GOP G25
• AVC Long-GOP G50
• 720p/50
• 720p/59.94
• 1080i/50
• 1080i/59.94

There are now more ways to make selections in the Timeline, e.g. based on the color of the clips, finding all clips that are offline, or using the blue playback bar as a reference to mark all clips to the left or right of it. These extended selection possibilities can be combined with another new feature, which allows you to generate a sequence based on the Timeline selection.

As for the export options, a check box called “Enable Mask Margins” has been added to be able to “burn” the margins on the image. The same can be done in the AMA File Export tool.

New audio features

For audio, a new feature called Audio Ducking has been created, which allows you to quickly generate an audio mix and automatically reduce the volume of one or more tracks.

Also regarding sound, now when an audio track is renamed in the Track Selector Panel, this name together with the Track ID appears in the Audio Mixer tool.

Other new features for sound work include:

• Stack sound effects(AudioSuite) to manipulate them individually or as a track segment.

• Group audio tracks

• Default Pan: keeps the channel configuration even if the sequence is moved to another workstation that has different settings for “Default Pan“.

• SMPTE channel order: previously they were only in Pro Tools order, but now it is possible to select one and the other, SMPTE being the default.

More general news

• Enabled Mac OS v10.11.5 operating system

• Improved RED plugin performance (v1.16.5)

• The Timecode Generator allows you to add comments to the clip to appear during playback.

• Updates for Artist DNxIO: subtitle capture, DNxHR HQX and 444 capture.

Here is a link with all the news detailed in greater detail.