Kicking the tires on Avid Media Composer 6.5

the Editblog on PVC by Scott Simmons

The 6.5 update is only evolutionary and it’s not free but some of the new features and fixes are things we’ve been looking for.

At IBC last week Avid dropped an new, updated version of Media Composer onto the Avid editing world. I think it surprised me a bit but only because I wasn’t looking for it. It was IBC after all and that’s as good a place as any to update an NLE. We didn’t get a big Media Composer update from Avid at NAB this year and this 6.5 update probably means we won’t see version 7 at NAB 2013, especially considering the $500 upgrade price (coming from version 6 that is). But then again the last few years have seen a lot of Media Composer updates so you never know. I kicked the tires on Media Composer 6.5 a little bit this last week.

Feature wise there’s some usable, new stuff in version 6.5. While there’s really nothing ground breaking as far as new features go there’s quite a few things here that are definitely worth noting for the working editor.

It’s often the little things

Automatically Link to AMA Volumes can be turned off

There’s now a setting to stop Avid Media Composer from automatically loading a bin full of compatible AMA linked media when a new drive is mounted. That may be worth $500 in and of itself (though we should have had that option from the start).

The automatic loading of AMA media can be a great timesaver in the right situation but for my workflow it nearly always got in the way. And that most often came with either plugging in a USB thumb drive or mounting a network volume that has .mov files on the top layer of the directory. Suddenly my current bin would populate with tons of Quicktimes that I most certainly did not want. That then meant time wasted waiting for the auto-mounting to finish and then removing the clips from the bin. This could be particularly embarrassing when a client was sitting near and they might see their competitor’s clips load into the bin. read more...

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	Avid Media Composer 6.5 Crossgrade for Final Cut Editors $1,469.00			Avid Media Composer 6.5 Boxed Upgrade from MC6 $489.00			Avid Media Composer 6.5 Upgrade from Avid Media Composer, Xpress DV, Xpress Pro $588.00