Farewell Avid Xpress Pro - Hello Media Composer

[Gary Bettan]

BTW - we've updated our Avid pages to reflect the "New Thinking" campaign and the new price promotion on MC Soft. We've also put together some killer bundles with the Mojo SDI hardware.

http://www.videoguys.com/avid.html

Gary

[Jim Forrest]

Originally Posted by Gary Bettan

Avid uses a dongle. When you upgrade to MC your dongle gets blasted from X Pro to MC Soft. That's what makes the upgrade work.

You install the MC Software fresh on any machine. If you don't have an MC dongle, it don't run.

Interesting tidbit.:You can install MC on as many machine as you want, PC and or Mac. You can only run it on one machine at a time, but you can move the dongle to any machine you want.

Gary

Ok...I do have the Avid 5.2 dongle. You are saying if I have the dongle in my USB port MC will recognize it and then install?

[Gary Bettan]

kind of. the upgrade is two parts.

Part 1 - Dongle updater. You have to run through a process that converts your X Pro dongle into an MC dongle

Part 2 - The MC Software. You install it. It will not run without an MC dongle.

Gary

[Jim Forrest]

Originally Posted by Gary Bettan

kind of. the upgrade is two parts.

Part 1 - Dongle updater. You have to run through a process that converts your X Pro dongle into an MC dongle

Part 2 - The MC Software. You install it. It will not run without an MC dongle.

Gary

Ok...thanks. That helps.

Jim

[Gary Bettan]

We've been getting lots of questions from X Pro owners on why they should upgrade for $495. This is from our new Avid page on our website:

Media Composer is more then just the world’s best video editor, it is an integrated post production solution! Here are some of our favorite integrated plug-ins and feature included with Media Composer:

- FluidFilm™ and FluidMotion™ - Create incredibly smooth slow-motion effects and “fit-to-fill" video using patented FluidMotion pixel morphing technology while you control speed and position using intuitive curve-based keyframing.

- 8-point Motion Tracker system for advanced tracking operations including offset tracks, applicable to most real-time and non-real-time effect operators

- Patented SteadyGlide™ technology to remove image shakiness while preserving desirable camera motion like pans and tilts.

- Real-time 16-bit SpectraMatte™ keying featuring SpectraGraph™ Viewer Chroma keying is a fundamental element in compositing and everybody needs it.

- AniMatte™ toolset for fast matte key creation within the editor

- Scratch Removal – remove unwanted imperfections in your footage

- Fully customizable TimeWarp effects

- Multicamera Editing with Multigroup capability for grouping multiple “banks" of camera angles. Multicam is available at any Avid resolution from single field to uncompressed.

- ScriptSync™ for incredibly fast matching of source clips to a text script or transcript.

- Blend Effects including Real-time 3D warp with 23 customizable parameters and Blur effect for deep defocus of images and keys with alphas

When you order Media Composer (full version $2495 or Upgrade $495) you also get these fantastic 3rd party software titles to make your post production workflow even stronger! Academic version ($295) does not include 3rd party software.

1) Boris Continuum Complete AVX – A powerful add-on package with more than 160 filters, including: Lens Flare, Glint, Match Grain, DeInterlace, Optical Flow, Motion Blur, Wire Remover, and Witness Protection effects.

2) SmartSound Sonic Fire Pro 4 with Mood Mapping. Create rich, multi-layered royalty free soundtracks for your productions. You also get 2 Strata Series Multi-track Libraries Core Foundations and Core Sessions.

3) Sorenson Squeeze Compression Suite 4.5 with Sorenson Video 3 Pro, Sorenson Spark Pro, Sorenson MPEG-4 Pro & Sorenson AVC Pro. Easily encode your videos into multiple formats while maintaining the highest possible video quality.

4) Sonic DVDit6 authoring software. Create standard definition DVDs with motion menus and interactive navigation. DVDit6 is Windows only.

VIDEOGUYS' TECH NOTE: Avid Media Composer is currently compatible with Windows XP Professional and Mac OSX (Tiger). We strongly recommend a Quadro FX graphics card FX1400/1500/1700 or higher. Windows Vista and Mac OSX Leopard are not supported but are in development.

Gary
http://www.videoguys.com/avid.html

[Richard Alvarez]

Its a terrific upgrade, and a fantastic price. Most of the third party apps are worth the price alone, if purchased independently.

Here's a question for you Gary, I might ask it on the Avid board too. I'm not 100% certain my current PC will run MC, I'm mostly worried about the graphics card as the processors and ram are fine. So I'm considering buying a Macbook Pro - which would run the MC copy just fine and dandy.

When I update the dongle to MC, will it still allow my version of AXP to run on my Desktop? In other words, once the dongle is updated to MC, can I run my copy of MC on a notebook with it, then shift the dongle back to my older PC and run the copy of AXP I have on it?

I'm guessing the answer is "NO" but hoping it might be "Answer Hazy, ask again later"

[Steve Benner]

Finally, took Avid long enough. Still horrible that Vista and Leopard aren't supported, but that should be coming soon. Avid also needs to support AVCHD and the 24 Frame HDV flavors that have been massively neglected for codec support.

Final Cut Studio still is my baby, but seing the $295 Academic Price, I may pick it up once Leopard is supported and once there is a workflow for AVCHD.

[Larry Price]

Originally Posted by Richard Alvarez

Its a terrific upgrade, and a fantastic price. Most of the third party apps are worth the price alone, if purchased independently.

Here's a question for you Gary, I might ask it on the Avid board too. I'm not 100% certain my current PC will run MC, I'm mostly worried about the graphics card as the processors and ram are fine. So I'm considering buying a Macbook Pro - which would run the MC copy just fine and dandy.

When I update the dongle to MC, will it still allow my version of AXP to run on my Desktop? In other words, once the dongle is updated to MC, can I run my copy of MC on a notebook with it, then shift the dongle back to my older PC and run the copy of AXP I have on it?

I'm guessing the answer is "NO" but hoping it might be "Answer Hazy, ask again later"

Richard,

I upgraded my Studio Complete to MC back in January (before the new pricing, unfortunately). When I updated my dongle for MC, it just added the product key for MC and left the key for AXP intact. The MC install also left AXP on the system. I've been able to launch both products with no problem, though not at the same time obviously. I can't think of any reason I'd want to use AXP over MC in my case, but it shows that you shouldn't have any problems having AXP on one machine and MC on another and moving the dongle back and forth. Hope that helps. I'm sure Gary can weigh in to amplify or clarify, if needed.

Aloha

[Richard Alvarez]

Excellent knews Larry, thanks! This will really help me decide whether I should go with the Macbook Pro, or just trade in my Workstation for a newer model. If it works both ways, I'll opt for the Macbook Pro. (Update the workstation later.)

yes, yes, i'm just trying to justify the macbook to the wife....


PS: Isn't there some sort of rebate/discount or such for recent MC purchase/upgrades? Check the Avid site.

[Larry Price]

Originally Posted by Richard Alvarez

PS: Isn't there some sort of rebate/discount or such for recent MC purchase/upgrades? Check the Avid site.

Yes there is: for customers who purchased after January 1, 2008. I purchased the upgrade in late December '07 and installed it in early January, so I'm out of luck. Oh well...

[Richard Alvarez]

OUCH, I feel for ya Larry. Sooner or later we all get hit by the upgrade/deadline vulture. For myself, I originally bought Avid Xpress 3.5 WITH the 'Power Pack'. Paid something like 2300 in order to get the ability to cut film with it. Five months later, they INCLUDED the power pack, PLUS more third party software at a lower price.

Yeah, its a bummer.

Really, I'm trained on MC, and I just couldn't justify the 5k price way back then. They 'lowered' the MC upgrade to apx 2300 (still too rich for me) THEN appx 1300 (Damn, still too rich) and finally 499 - which means I get the MC I wanted all along, for less than the original price for when I got in. - Total expenditures for all Avid installs and upgrades to date - 3OOO, and I'll be running MC. So I don't feel TOO bad. It's not like I haven't made money with AXP as it is.

But that sort of upgrade squeeze hits everybody at some point. Look at those people who bought Iphones early.

I'm not certain but my guess is that MC still does not have secondary color correction compare to FCP, correct?

[David Parks]

Chong,

No MC doesn't have secondary color correction. FCP doesn't have secondary color correction. Color does. So in FCP you have to export an entire sequence into Color, do your work, and then import back to FCP. Yo can't work shot to shot in your edit app or export singles into Color. I've worked through this process and I've found that you really need time to get into secondaries. 80% of the color correction you would ever require can be handled in primary color correction. For that extra 20% there are third party After Effects plugins like Color Finesse or Colorista (AVX and After Effects and FCP version).

Cheers.

[Christian Magnussen]

Finally Avid's trying to catch up with Apple's pricing, better late than never. And those of us that have been "stuck" with Xpress due to the steep price tag for MC may now join the club, at last. I've just been waiting for Avid to make this move.

The next move though, hopefully, I'll guess will be a bit harder, the hardware issue. Avid's hardware for both monitoring SD and HD properly still is way to expensive.

[Richard Alvarez]

I'm pretty sure they're working on their hardware lines. Part of the 'new thinking'. Time will tell.