Avid Media Composer: Power to the people
Showreel by Darren Mostyn 
Darren Mostyn takes a second look at Avid's software version of Media Composer, which brings its long-standing editing system to a much wider audience. In a previous article I managed to get a quick look at the new version of Avid Media Composer, now available as software-only. Since then, I have had a chance to explore the software in more detail and ingest a few different flavors of video to see what this much more affordable version of the mighty Media Composer made of it. Avid promised a fix to a major problem I had last issue. Installing Media Composer on version 10.4.7 of Apple’s Tiger OS was not possible; and sure enough, two weeks later they delivered a new version (2.5.3) that works on the latest Macs. This is downloadable from the Avid website and is not the version that ships in the box. I tested this latest release using a dual 2.7GHz G5 Mac with 2.5 GB RAM and a SATA raid, giving about 170MB/s read/write time. As Apple has more powerful machines on the market now, you can expect the results to be improved on faster machines, as being software-only the processing is all down to computer grunt and graphics cards, as opposed to hardware. The Mojo box, now capable of SDI, was not used on these tests, but would of course allow more in the way of real-time effects handling. Media Composer can handle DV, DVCPro, HDV as well as SD and HD clips, which I looked at the last issue. The following additional tests are performed using all the different resolutions available. But first, let’s remind ourselves what this release is all about and how it fits in with Avid’s existing NLE range. read more...
Darren Mostyn takes a second look at Avid's software version of Media Composer, which brings its long-standing editing system to a much wider audience. In a previous article I managed to get a quick look at the new version of Avid Media Composer, now available as software-only. Since then, I have had a chance to explore the software in more detail and ingest a few different flavors of video to see what this much more affordable version of the mighty Media Composer made of it. Avid promised a fix to a major problem I had last issue. Installing Media Composer on version 10.4.7 of Apple’s Tiger OS was not possible; and sure enough, two weeks later they delivered a new version (2.5.3) that works on the latest Macs. This is downloadable from the Avid website and is not the version that ships in the box. I tested this latest release using a dual 2.7GHz G5 Mac with 2.5 GB RAM and a SATA raid, giving about 170MB/s read/write time. As Apple has more powerful machines on the market now, you can expect the results to be improved on faster machines, as being software-only the processing is all down to computer grunt and graphics cards, as opposed to hardware. The Mojo box, now capable of SDI, was not used on these tests, but would of course allow more in the way of real-time effects handling. Media Composer can handle DV, DVCPro, HDV as well as SD and HD clips, which I looked at the last issue. The following additional tests are performed using all the different resolutions available. But first, let’s remind ourselves what this release is all about and how it fits in with Avid’s existing NLE range. read more...
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