Splice Now

Avid released Media Composer 7 today. The new version offers many AMA improvements and background processing functions (via a Java implementation), including long awaited background waveform generation and caching. A quick video showing off some of the new media management features is here.

New features include:

• Background audio waveforms.
• Background transcoding.
• Drag and drop AMA acquisition from the Finder.
• A new, unified, AMA link function that features automatic AMA plug-in selection.
• An output mask function that allows you to quickly add a letterbox over your sequence for viewing. (It’s not mentioned in the new feature list, but you’ll find it in the format tab of the project window. Turn it on and off by right-clicking the record monitor.)
• Cropping and resizing for media sizes above HD, something Avid calls FrameFlex, which can be added during ingest and then modified on a clip-by-clip basis in the timeline.
• Support for LUTs and CDLs.
• Alpha channel support for AMA Quicktimes, which means you can output titles and graphics from After Effects and use them without importing into MC.
• AMA media is now ‘managed’ which means that it’s more robust, and you’ll be able to access your AMA material via Avid’s Media Tool.
• A watch folder function, something Avid is calling Dynamic Media Folders, which lets you drag media to a folder and have it automatically copied or transcoded.

Avid’s list of new features is here. Note that if you plan to move bins back and forth between MC7 and previous versions, you must have the latest point release of MC 5.5, 6 or 6.5 (that is. 5.5.3.7, 6.04, 6.5.2.1 or 6.5.3). Otherwise, your 7.0 sequences won’t open in the older versions. See this tech note for details. MC downloads are here.