Splice Now

With NAB starting this weekend, Avid has announced Media Composer Version 5. You can get a quick rundown on some of the new features, here and here. Without doubt, this is Avid’s biggest upgrade in years and includes many fundamental changes to the editing model, along with a host of new features.

The short list includes:

• AMA support for Quicktime, for native Red R3d material and Canon DSLR media — meaning that you can play and edit these files without importing them.
• Super low cost HD client monitoring via the Matrox MXO2 Mini (about $450).
• Direct manipulation of clips and transitions in the timeline. Click a transition to get into Trim Mode, click a clip to get into Segment Mode. Click the top of a clip for red segment mode, click the bottom for yellow segment mode.
• Linked selection — select video and the associated audio is selected at the same time.
• Stereo audio tracks and clips — a stereo pair can be treated as one object with one set of keyframes.
• Support for real-time Audiosuite plugins.
• The ability to mix and match clips with different aspect ratios in the same timeline. Tell the MC how you want each clip presented via a bin column (pillar/lettter box, stretch, etc.)
• A “paging” timeline — when you play off the right edge of the timeline, it jumps forward, so you are always seeing the blue cursor. (This alone is a reason to upgrade.)
• Dupe detection now works across all video tracks.
• The ability to import AVCHD video.
• Support for RGB colorspace in HD.

Not too shabby for one release.

And, in a separate announcement, Avid reported a deal to buy Euphonix, maker of advanced mixing consoles. The press release is here. Key sentence: “Avid plans to further develop an open standard protocol that greatly expands the ecosystem of compatibility between the Euphonix control surfaces and a wide range of Avid and third-party audio and video applications, including Media Composer and Pro Tools.”