Review: Avid Media Composer V.5.5.2 & AJA's IO Express

The day has finally come where someone like me — who is always trying to expand his editing skills — no longer has to purchase a used Avid Adrenaline and an old version of Media Composer to really learn the Avid Media Composer suite.

Avid, AJA and Matrox have come together to embrace Media Composer’s newly developed third-party hardware support. AJA’s involvement, announced at NAB, is the IO Express — a powerful input, output and monitoring solution.

Working as an independent editor when not at my day job, I built my own editing bay to continue learning the craft of editing. I often use my Canon T2i H.264 footage to edit and play with, but with an Adrenaline SD I haven’t been able to monitor my footage on my HD television. With the AJA IO Express I was able to monitor my footage as soon as I installed Media Composer 5.5.2. I use the AMA feature to quickly look at the footage without having to fully import it (I would suggest fully importing the footage to a nice DNX codec.).

UP AND RUNNING

The affordable AJA IO Express works seamlessly with Avid Media Composer 5.5 and above. For those who do not need the additional hardware acceleration that the Nitris/Symphony DX provide, the AJA IO Express comes to the rescue. It is connected via Express Card slot on a laptop or PCIe card for a workstation, and if you have both it could be a great field-to-edit solution. read more...