Avid Media Composer 6.5 review

Digital Arts UK by Michael Burns

The hardware liberation that started in Media Composer 6.0 is continued in the 6.5 update with a toggle for attached devices that releases them, so you can use software-only features without having to disconnect them. This is fine for Avid’s own hardware, but third-party drivers need to be updated to make use of the feature or it gives an error message.

There’s a tweak when you’re getting started that’s very welcome. Previously, when you connected any mounted drive, it was automatically scanned for AMA media and those clips were added to the current bin. In theory this is a good idea, saving time, but in practice it meant connecting a drive to access just one file was then delayed while everything else on the drive was scanned and imported, and which then needed to be cleaned out of the current bin afterwards. This has been fixed with an option in the AMA Settings to toggle the feature on or off.

New features include support for the AS-02 MXF mastering format, which can package different versions of the same clip sequence together without having to store the same assets again. There’s also support for the JPEG2000 codec, and you can use AMA to export content without transcoding. Currently, HDCAM SR has AMA writeback, but other AMA plug-in developers are expected to update and follow suit. read more...

Check out these items featured in this post and available now at Videoguys.com.
	Avid Media Composer 6.5 Crossgrade for Final Cut Editors $979.00			Avid Media Composer 6.5 Upgrade from Avid Media Composer, Xpress DV, Xpress Pro $588.00			Avid Media Composer 6.5 Upgrade from MC6 $489.00