Avid Media Composer 6

MacVideo by Duncan Evans

The top program for pro video editing has benefited from a wide-ranging makeover, says Duncan Evans

With Apple almost throwing the baby out with the bathwater in Final Cut Pro X, it’s down to Avid to steady the video-editing ship with a solid update to its venerable Media Composer.

The first big change is that Avid has gone down the 64-bit route and for Mac users it means that Lion is a requirement. The advantage of 64-bit, besides the processing boost, is the ability to access much more memory, which is vital for complex sequences that use a lot of effects.

Third-party bonanza

However, it’s the support for external hardware that has seen the most dramatic changes. Once upon a time, only Avid hardware would perform input/output operations with Composer. Then third-party monitoring was added.

Now Avid has implemented a third-party hardware SDK that allows companies like Matrox, Motu, Bluefish444, AJA and Blackmagic Design to develop Composer plug-ins to support their devices. These can be configured inside Composer and controlled through the third-party interface. read more...