Editors

Avid Ups Ante

Avid’s new Media Composer 5.0 (MC5) is the second point-zero release from Avid in less than a year, and the third major release in less than 18-months.  The new version of the flagship shipped in early June.

This rapid release schedule speaks to a serious reorganisation of priorities at Avid after years of stiff competition from Apple’s Final Cut Pro, especially in television production.

Avid has pedigree and seniority in the editing world because of it’s history in the market, but has, in the past, appeared to adapt to new technologies and formats at a lumbering pace. While Media Composer has remained the predominant editing software in Hollywood and large-scale network shows many other sectors have embraced Final Cut Pro.

Version 5.0 of Media Composer, version 5.0 of Symphony and version 9.0 of News Cutter are something of a culmination in a series of changes in design and functionality over the last few releases. MC5’s major changes are in the way the software deals with file-based media, its editing tools and hardware support.

AMA (Avid Media Access)A major difference between Avid and Final Cut Pro has always been how the applications deal with media files. Traditionally Avid essentially forced everything into a structure that the software was comfortable with – which meant non-conforming files had to go through a time-consuming import and transcode process before becoming usable. In Final Cut Pro most video files are simply linked from wherever they are in the computer’s file system, making them available to edit within seconds.

Avid’s approach has delivers stability and reliability and creates a very solid platform for media management, making it far less likely that links for video clips are lost. Also, once media has been transcoded realtime performance is very good. Apple’s approach is popular for it’s relative simplicity and immediacy, but often requires more rendering for output or playback as formats may not be consistent, and media management can become difficult without careful planning.

AMA represented a radical change to Avid’s approach by allowing direct linked access to native non-Avid media files. It was introduced in version 3.5 as a method for working with P2 and XDCAM media files, allowing a no-import immedate access workflow for those formats. Although Avid already had strong support for P2 and XDCAM, AMA completely changed how those files were handled. AMA is a plug-in system, allowing camera manufacturers to create drivers to support new formats, meaning newly released formats can be supported immediately.

In MC5 the AMA concept is taken to the next level by extending support to Quicktime and RED media. It is now possible to edit from any Quicktime-supported file immediately with no import delay. And a step beyond that is the support of RED RAW media (.R3D files) – rather than be reliant on RED’s Quicktime-based proxy files. Avid’s RED implementation provides direct support within the application for the native RAW media including full metadata and “first light” processing.

System performance is largely dependant of computer power and the complexity of various formats, but in most cases real-time editing is possible with RED media as well as most Quicktime formats including high-bitrate H.264 from DSLR cameras. This is in contrast to Final Cut Pro’s preferred approach to RED and H.264 media which now involves the Log and Transfer tool transcoding footage to Apple’s ProRes format.

Timeline Interaction ChangesThere have been a few editing tool ideas that Avid has borrowed from other applications in the last few versions including the popular “Select Clips to Right” from Final Cut Pro, but in MC5 some fundamentals are being changed.

Avid has always been a ‘modal’ system – if you wanted to pick up and drag a clip in the timeline you needed to enter the ‘Segment Mode’, and if you wanted to trim an edit then you needed to be in ‘Trim Mode’. Meanwhile on Final Cut Pro there are a variety of mouse tools that offer direct interaction with the timeline.

MC5’s ‘Smart Tool’ is Avid’s reponse to demand for direct timeline interaction. It provides the option to have a contextual cursor in the timeline. With the mouse over the centre of a clip the user can select and drag it around the timeline, while the cursor becomes a trim tool when positioned near an edit point.

The new tool is a fairly elegant solution that goes some way toward satisfying the demand for more drag-and-drop methods, yet for existing Avid editors it retains the ability to work in a familiar way.

Hardware SupportCompared to other options expensive hardware has become a serious problem for potential Avid purchasers. Final Cut Pro provides support for a fairly wide range of very affordable third-party I/O hardware while Avid has remained locked into their own hardware has appeared increasingly over-priced and under-featured when compared to products from the likes of AJA and Blackmagic.

Media Composer 5, for the first time, supports third-party hardware – the Matrox MXO2 Mini, a low-cost I/O breakout box which provides standard analogue and HDMI video input and output. Initially limited to output only it provides an affordable monitoring option, espeically for editors working exclusively with file-based media. It also represents significant change in approach as well as Avid’s acceptance of the demand third-party solutions.

In May Avid executives were quoted in a Studio Daily article talking about a software development kit (SDK) for third-party hardware manufacturers, tempting speculation about full I/O support for the popular AJA and Blackmagic hardware cards in the near future. While no plans or timeframes have been announced Avid have made it clear at NAB that support for the MXO was only the beginning.

Game ChangerIt seems every new product release these days is hailed as a “game changer” and MC5 is no exception. Native support for Quicktime and RED is certainly a substantial change to Avid’s game.

With the 5.0 release Avid Media Composer now offers probably the most direct and fastest edit workflow for all professional file-based camera formats, and it sets a very strong precedent for pro-active development going forward.

The latest release of Media Composer 5, introducing features that seem largely calculated to appeal to existing Final Cut Pro users, comes at an interesting time.

Apple’s previous release of Final Cut Pro 7 was panned by many editors as “more like Final Cut Pro 6.5” and recent rumours that Apple was going to “prosumerise” FCP spread like wildfire online despite denials from Apple and even Steve Jobs. With a new FCP release not likely for at least another six-months and Avid actively courting Final Cut editors it will be very interesting to see what impact the release of MC5 will have on the editing landscape.

A fully function 30-day trial of Media Composer 5 for Mac OS X or Windows is available from Avid dealers.