Avid announces Avid Media Composer 7 at NAB 2013
PVC by Scott Simmons
It's the under the hood stuff that editors will be most excited about
The Avid press event of NAB2013 was on Sunday night of NAB was an interesting one. There’s a ton of new products being introduced including lots of Interplay updates and additions, a big updated for ProTools (that felt like the biggest ever after watching the video) and … Media Composer 7. They didn’t spend a lot of time on MC7 but rather played a video that flashed up several new features. It seemed a bit underwhelming at first but after talking with some Avid folks after the event I think there’s going to be a lot for editors to like in Avid Media Composer 7. I updated this post on Monday morning with a few corrections.
I don’t have any screenshots as many of these features are still being designed. And I may not get all the details exactly right (Avid folks feel free to comment below to correct me) as I was trying to take notes on my iPhone during these discussions. But here it goes …
Flex Frame Frame Flex
Avid Media Composer 7 will not be fully resolution independent, as in being able to create and work in a 4K or 5K product. What it will have is Frame Flex . The best was I heard it described was as “pan and zoom for video media.” You’ll still be working in 720 or 1080 but you’ll be able to have access to the full higher-than-HD resolution for reframing and, I’m guessing keyframes pan and zooming of the image.
I’m sure many will see this as a big fail since all the competitors can do full 2K+. I thought about it for quite a while and while “future proofing” by finishing at 4K is nice the reality is most people still don’t need to finish that way. And you sure don’t need to do your creative edit that way though Apple and Adobe would tell you different.
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