Scott Simmons from the Edit Blog at the Prod Video Coalition has a must have article on Media Composer 6. It is a must read for some of it’s gotchas on ProRES.
While it can fast import ProRES footage like it can with DNxHD footage, it cannot then Consolidate ProRES footage, which means copying without recompressing, it can still only do that with Avid compressed footage. You have to Transcode ProRES footage, so it adds another layer of compression into the mix.
Walter Biscardi from Biscardi Creative, has a great article on beta testing AVID Media Composer 6 over at Creative Cow.
It is most interesting because he was a die hard Final Cut Pro user, who only used AVID when it first came out, but now seems totally sold on AVID. And says it is more rock solid with an AJA Kona 3 than Final Cut Pro ever was, and way better with it than Adobe Premiere is.
Way to go AVID! I just think they should permanently make the upgrade from FCP $1000 instead o $1500, but any which way they are going to slaughter the market, I just hope Adobe is up to making enough competition to keep the innovative, just like Apple did for them.
AVID has announced the fully 64 Bit Media Composer 6, and if you buy or upgrade to Version 5.5 from October 15th you get a free upgrade to 6 when it comes out.
They also announced a software only version of Symphony.
The most exciting thing is being able to use AJA, Black Magic and Matrox I/O cards, no more need for expensive AVID hardware. And AVID has made the program completely 64 bit without losing features (yea screw you Apple). And it has a new interface which has added tabs to bins (taken from FCP 7, which FCP X does not use), but still looks familiar, if darker.
Full ProRES support on a Mac (read only on PC) including being able to just wrap them in an MXF for full AVID support, without re-rendering. Nice!
This is exciting as all hell!
The prices are as follows:
Media Composer 6.0 starts at $2499 with upgrades starting at $299. NewsCutter 10 starts at $2499 with upgrades starting at $499. Symphony 6.0 starts at $5,999 with upgrades starting at $499. Nitris DX starts at $5,499 USD.
I honestly thought with them moving to Adobe that the old plug ins were gone for good, but it seems not as Automatic Duck has released all their old plug ins for FREE!
I already owned Pro Import AE 5.0, which allows you to import either Final Cut Pro 7 or AVID Media Composer sequences into After Effects. You use Free XML exporter for FCP and it works almost perfectly. A must have.
Pro Export FCP 5.0 is for FCP X and is to allow OMF export.
Pro Export FCP 4.0 lets you export either OMF or AAF from FCP to AVID, and I previously owned this.
And their is Pro Import FCP 2.0 which allows you to import an AVID sequence into Final Cut Pro.
And they are all FREE. So download them now. Sure they will not be updated again, but free is a huge price drop!
Biscardi Creative has an interesting article on workarounds to use Adobe Premiere Pro and AVID Media Composer with Davinci Resolve which is currently made to work with Final Cut Pro 7.
It looks like there is no easy solution right now, as Resolve reads Premiere’s XML, but not all of it’s media is compatible, and you need a $500 plug in to make it work with AVID. Otherwise you basically need to export a quicktime and use scene detection to make a grade (so no dissolves).
Not an ideal solution for sure.
Scott Simmons has posted an excellent article on some new and old useful features in Media Composer. I didn’t know about the Stereo for sure (much like Premiere Pro AVID can now have Stereo tracks and Stereo clips), and think these are well worth checking out.
Production Apprentice has an excellent article on moving back from Final Cut Pro 7 to AVID Media Composer. He likes the move and really gets back into using trim mode, which is barely used on FCP 7, though still likes some things about FCP 7.
I feel about the same, I still like certain things about FCP 7 better, but now that it is EOL, it is time to really to get back into Media Composer, though I am also really enjoy Premiere Pro quite a bit.
Splice Now, have a great tip on Copying a clip to source monitor, that can really speed your up in editing.
The shortcut, not visible in the menus, is Command-Option-C. Mark a region in the timeline and select tracks, or simply select a clip or clips. Then hit Command-Option-C. Your material instantly appears in the source monitor.
This video is well worth checking out, I knew what was coming, but still enjoyed it.
Rob Tinworth’s 10 years with FCP a retrospective at Filmmaker.com.
You can see them right on Apple’s front page for Final Cut Pro X. They Claim to show how superior FXPX is at Faster Editing, A New Way to Organize, Motion Graphics and File Based Workflows, but are obviously BS marketing speak from people who are not professional editors. Sure there are some cool new features, but they needed to be ad ons to the features and not replacements, because Apple’s way is not the better way, just a different way, that I do not believe is better.