Avid Media Composer 6 is announced and it’s moving into the future

the EDITBLOG on PVC by Scott Simmons

An updated interface, 64 bit and more 3rd party hardware support are among the highlights
Today was the day for the Avid webcast where they announced a new version of Media Composer. Version 6 will ship on November 15 and may be one of the most important releases of Media Composer since … well version 5.0. Version 5 ushered in the big change that is the Smart Tools and caused quite a ruckus amongst old timers. Version 6 will see an updated interface. That interface is a surface change but there’s a lot of under-the-hood changes as well. In fact, I think it could be said that Media Composer 6.0 is sort of like a reboot, or maybe a reset as I heard one person say. The last time we heard the term reboot when talking about an NLE was Final Cut Pro going to version X. Avid’s reboot is much more subtle. It’s the kind of reboot that is needed, mostly under-the-hood that builds a platform to move forward into the future without sacrificing the features we’ve come to use and rely on.

If you haven’t read all the coverage of the Media Composer 6 announcement then here’s some good links. Shane Ross has written a great review from working with his beta versions. Michael Kammes has answered a number of questions in his great post on the software. If you’d like to read the 172 page What’s New pdf from Avid then this pdf link is the place to go. And Avid has updated their own site with MC6 as well.

I haven’t used Media Composer 6 as of yet nor have I seen a live, detailed demo. I’ve only seen smaller demos and had a number of detailed conversations with a number of Avid folks about this release. It would seem obvious that an article about a new software version would begin by pointing out all the new features. But I’m going to begin by pointing out the opposite, a couple of things that are missing from Media Composer 6. This is mainly just a listing of some of the specs I found interesting. I hope to be pounding a copy of Media Composer 6 very soon to try it out for myself. read more...