Avid Media Composer 3.0 Mac – First Look

Posted on: June 16, 2008
21 comments so far (is that a lot?)

Many of us who have been cutting on the Mac version of Avid’s Media Composer have felt a bit neglected over the last few years, and to a certain extent, rightfully so. We sat and watched as Avid got the wind knocked out of it by Apple’s introduction of Final Cut Pro. Apple’s lower prices and integration with newer versions of the Mac OS came as a great step forward in the democratization of media and Apple ran a full court press on Avid’s dominance of the digital editing tools market. Avid struggled to find their way as the price of editing tools dropped, and the company that created and dominated modern digital editing found themselves having to play catch-up.

Today I write about the first manifestation of Avid’s “new thinking”, Media Composer 3.0. With a new team of top executives, lower prices and an emphasis on customer satisfaction, Avid is not only talking the talk, they are walking the walk. Media Composer version 3.0 delivers on the company’s promise to do business in a new way, and with the exception of a few minor hiccups (self-imposed as I quickly learned) my transition from 2.8 to 3.0 was not only painless, it was downright fun.

Ever the digital editing daredevil, I decided to do the upgrade right in the middle of locking a feature film. (Actual stunt editor. NOT recommended for sane users) The footage, which was originally captured to an Avid Unity on Adrenaline, had subsequently been transferred to a 1TB G-RAID and had been knocking around town on several different systems for almost a year. I backed up all my project data in the event of catastrophe. (I’m crazy, not stupid) I installed the upgrade, restarted the computer and….

Kernal Panic….Argh!

That’s right, the grey screen of death. I’m thinking, what a drag. Why do I always do this to myself?

I call Avid support and explain my situation. It’s here I have a chance to see some of Avid’s “new thinking” in action. Now get this, the person on the other end of the line actually empathizes with me! I’m stunned. In the old days I would have had to pledge my first born, or purchased a very expensive yearly support contract. Avid now offers what I believe is a fair price for per-incident support but better than that, on this call they were kind enough to comp me a 24 hour support ticket! I thanked them profusely and proceeded to contact TS. After a short wait I got someone on the line. The voice had a thick accent, but at least I could understand him. He seemed pretty stumped when I first describe the problem, but after a short discussion we figure out that it was… (trying to look innocent) something I did. How surprising.

In the upgrade “Read Me” (which, BTW, I did read) there are installation notes for Mac users that say to install only on a “clean” version of Leopard. This was a bit much for my little head. Did it mean clean as in “wipe and reformat” clean or clean as in “upgrade” clean? Michael Phillips, Solutions Manager, Content Production at Avid clarified this for me saying Mac users can uninstall Composer 2.8 from Tiger, upgrade to Leopard with no need to wipe and reformat the drive and install 3.0. My issue stemmed from immediately installing 2.8 on Leopard when I first bought it. Why you ask? Because, I didn’t read the “read me” file. (Ugh!) Confirmation once again that it pays to RTFM (read the fabulous manual). After walking me through uninstalling and then deleting some remnants of the previous version, I re-installed, rebooted, and voila, problem solved.

This is where it got fun. Media Composer 3.0 booted fast and clean. While doing so, it notified me that it needed to update my Mojo SDI firmware and proceeded to do so without a hitch. (I have been told that some users have had issues upgrading their original Mojo boxes, so check Avid’s knowledge base for the latest information). The software loaded, (cue angelic music from the beginning of “Simpson’s” episode) and immediately I could tell something was different. You might say, how can you just tell something like that? Well let me tell you, after 16 years of editing on this software, when something is different, you CAN feel it. Adrenaline on Mac didn’t feel robust to me. In fact if felt kind of frail and my experiences with it confirmed this. I crashed more often than Meridian, it was not as responsive and after cutting a feature in HD on Final Cut Pro, it was a drag to have to go back to using Tiger.

I start putting 3.0 through it’s paces and at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it is ROCKING. No latency, no glitchiness, (my word, Colbert) picture quality is noticeably and substantially better and the playhead  is slicing through multi-layer, real-time effects and title comps like “butta”. I’ve got reels with 20 audio tracks, 3-5 video tracks, I’m deleting, re-patching, copying and pasting, I make tons of cuts and changes and Media Composer doesn’t flinch once. I start getting a warm and fuzzy feeling and think, this is a beautiful thing. These guys have really done their homework.

Yes, Media Composer 3.0 is solid. Yes, it’s fast. Yes it works on Leopard which really gooses the (Mac) editor satisfaction meter (Mac heads rejoice!) but one feature I immediately found worth the price of the upgrade is the new real-time “Timecode Generator” effect. This feature gives you the ability to generate window burn with a variety of options. No more Horita boxes, no more rendering, this seemingly minor addition works perfectly, and will save editors and assistants countless hours and headaches when having to make outputs for collaborators on the post production team. 3.0 includes many other new enhancements and features but that’s beyond the scope of this “First Look”, and I will cover them in depth in future video segments.

It has taken the company some time but with it’s executive makeover, lower price structure and now the release of Media Composer 3.0, Avid seems to be regaining its footing. Filmmakers of every level will enjoy working with the application’s time and battle tested editing interface. The fact that it runs flawlessly on Apple’s latest operating system and hardware is the ice cream on top of the pie. From my first week of working with it, Media Composer 3.0 is a winner.

21 Responses to “Avid Media Composer 3.0 Mac – First Look”

  1. postman91602 Says:
    June 16th, 2008 at 4:06 pm

    I agree 100% ! We received 3 dx systems on 8core Mac’s and they running smooth. Avid did get it right this time. I still think Avid gave away the farm with it’s new pricing.

    Keep up the good work Avid…..

  2. What Says:
    June 16th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

    Gave away the farm? Avid still does not get it! The DX hardware needs to work with other applications. Why would anyone spend 7500 on a box that only works with avid? You can spen 1/4 that mount for superior tech from Aja or black magic or even Motu.
    Plus the new version is buggy and won’t work with their older firewire based hardware! Their lame excuse is to blame Apple. “they changed the way firewire works”Yet somewhow Aja and Motu have no problems. Avid constantly tries to circumvent the official way Apple implements hardware which is why it is always behind the 8 ball on that platform.

  3. Studio Daily Blog » A first review of Avid Media Composer 3.0 Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 6:09 am

    [...] the NAB show floor. Media Composer 3.0 arrived for download and shipping boxed versions last week. Larry Jordan over at HDFilmtools.com has one of the first reviews out on the internet. In short, he likes it. He especially liked the support he got when there were [...]

  4. Raed Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 9:02 am

    Gave away the farm? Is this product 2x as good as final cut studio? Does this offer the functionality of the Adobe Suite? Avid is acting like they have a premium product that far and away exceeds the capabilities of their competition. They don’t! Competitive yes, superior no! Put another way, why would you pay twice as much for this product? The answer is legacy! Which is the wrong way do business. Customers should buy the next license because they want to as apposed to having to. Until they deliver more charging for more seems like hubris.

  5. avidity Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 11:56 am

    Avid cut their price in half, which leads one to think that it was 100% over-priced. Now that it still costs twice as much as FCS 2, Avid leads one to believe that it is still 50% overpriced. And for what? What MORE is being offered than FCS 2 at half the price of an AVID? This needs no New Thinking to figure out.

  6. no thinking Says:
    June 17th, 2008 at 10:05 pm

    I’ve been testing 3.0 the last few days after previously using 2.8. It does seem more stable but I’m still alarmed that I’m going to need to spend $20k on a Nitris DX box in order to support balanced audio and HD-SDI.

  7. Cutter Says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 3:04 pm

    The Nitris DX is $14.5, and that includes a copy of Media Composer. So you’re looking at $12.5 without the software. Trade in your Mojo SDI or Adrenaline or Meridien and the price drops more.

    Avid’s Nitris DX is more expensive than other 3rd party solutions for FCP, but it offers more hardware acceleration, which means more realtime performance. The less rendering you have to do the more work you can do faster, so you can bill for more work and pay off the price premium faster.

    If that doesn’t fit your workflow, go with a system that does. For some people, paying more not to watch a render bar is worth it. If your business doesn’t require/support that, don’t buy it.

    Otherwise, why all the hate in the comments here? It’s software, not religion. Use what works.

  8. Mike Says:
    June 18th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

    Nitris DX is 15K, including Media Composer software. It’s $12.5 without software, and if you have Adrenaline or Meridien you want to trade in you can get it for less. The 20K is a turnkey system, I believe–CPU, Software, Hardware.

    M.

  9. Chris M. Gordon Says:
    June 19th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

    Will Avid MC 3.0 work with Adrenalin hardware?

  10. hdfilmtools Says:
    June 19th, 2008 at 6:19 pm

    Click on the graphic and you will find the information from Avid’s website regarding Adrenaline compatibility with MC 3.0 and OS X 10.5. It’s under “Important Notes” about 4 paragraphs from the top.

  11. Terry Kelley, A.C.E. Says:
    June 19th, 2008 at 11:14 pm

    When is AVID going to join the rest of the world and start using the same QuickTime codec as everyone else? Just that problem, of importing and exporting video between After Effects, Motion, Final Cut Pro and other programs, is enough to prevent me from ever using the AVID. I was working on a show where we had to rip DVDs and cut them into the show, and it took HOURS to import the shots, hours that I can’t afford.

  12. Dylan Reeve Says:
    June 23rd, 2008 at 5:07 pm

    Terry, what Quicktime codec would that be? One of the many Apple codecs that are only available to Final Cut Pro users? Try using ProRes on a non Final Cut Pro system – and it doesn’t even exist for Windows. Avid’s DNxHD is even a ratified SMPTE standard.

    Avid’s Quicktime codecs are available as a free download from their website and can be supported on any Quicktime capable application. Avid only supports their native codecs for reasons of media management and performance, but in the majority of professional editing environments that presents no problem.

    While there may be a wait for import of non-supported formats in Avid, that delay is only once and at the safer end of production. In FCP the same codecs would likely require extensive rendering to be able to play out – putting the delays at the deadline-end of the job. Plus minor changes to timelines or changes of output format will require entirely new renders. Once a clip is in an Avid codec it will stay that way and does require any further rendering for output.

  13. Avid Blog for Media Composer 3.0 On Leopard « Key Code Media Online Community Says:
    July 3rd, 2008 at 11:02 am

    [...] The following portion of this blog came from HDFilmtools.com. This Avid Blog is on the MediaComposer C 3.0 on Leopard release. For the full blog, check out http://hdfilmtools.com/?p=49. [...]

  14. chris pendre Says:
    July 10th, 2008 at 6:22 am

    Thanks for the report,

    id like to ask if you could see any improvement in Audio editing/handling? For me its one of the big differencies between AVID and FCP. Its just a simple thing, but so useful:
    -in FCP the sound during scrubbing or fastforwarding in clip or timeline renders much better so i can quickly find certain lines or slates
    -in FCP i can change the Volume, Pan and even position of audio clips DURING PLAY, i get used to avids behaviour in this but more fluent is audioediting in FCP!
    -in both, FCP and Avid the visual Rendering of Waveforms seems to me slower than in any Audioapplications, especially when zooming or scrolling – would be helpful if Avid could improve that too (the speed of visualisation)

    what is your impression about that in MC 3.0?

    Thank you,
    chris

  15. hdfilmtools Says:
    July 14th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    Hi Chris,

    While I agree with your observations regarding working with audio in FCP vs. Avid, I think you need to take into consideration that they are two very different animals.

    Many people cutting on the Avid will hand their tracks off to a sound crew to conform in ProTools, while most FCP users will need to make the tools in Final Cut Pro/Studio work for their needs. I think both companies have designed their products to try to most appropriately address their market segments. Most editors understand this. Unfortunately, cost has become the deciding factor in choosing post production tools, not functionality.

  16. chris pendre Says:
    July 14th, 2008 at 1:01 pm

    mmmh, maybe i got you wrong because of my poor english, sorry – so you think avid has good reason to stay like it is in that functionality? Or what do you want to say? Yes, i know they’re historically comming from different market segments, but what does that count on the market today? Is that a reason for Avid or an obstacle not to redesign some basic functionalities like the little “i can edit sound parameters while it’s playing”, not to improve something? I do not see any longer this sharp separation into Highlevel(“Pro”) and Lowlevel(“Consumer”) Market (between Avid and FCP!) – you also know there is a growing diffusion between the two markets.

    BTW: would that not be an stupid self limitation from avid to say “our adressed customers mainly hand their sound over to people with pro tools, so we don’t care about any improvements in that area” yes, its good to have the option to hand over to a dedicatet application but is that always happens? shurely you may right in the way avid delimit the Mediacomposers Sound Capabilities it is maybe protecting their own protools line. But hardly any Editor now would step into the sophisticated world of Protools because of its better tools for sound and scarcely any soundeditor would abdicate Protools because there would be an Avid MC which has SOME good to superb Sound Editing Features? I think that kind of fossilisation of Avids sound handling is sad to me because it boosts my acceptance of FCP.

    And BTW: the (easenes of) workflow between MC and Protools is poor. At least improvable. Sharing Projects? Tracking Changes? Why not merge Avid and Protools into one Package? There is so much potential to improve this!

    So soundediting im MC3.0 is as usual :(

    I was just looking for any improvements to the drawbacks of my favorite editing application…

    Thank you for answering

    -Film Editing is not only about Pictures-

  17. hdfilmtools Says:
    July 14th, 2008 at 7:09 pm

    Chris,

    I agree with many (almost all) of your points, and I have no idea what motivates Avid any more than you do. All I’m saying is that there are different tools for different jobs. I like doing some things more in Media Composer than FCP, and for other tasks the opposite is true.

    Finally, I think if you examined both software packages under a magnifying glass you would see they both have their strengths and weaknesses.

    Keep cutting! :-)
    LJ

  18. Avid Media Composer 3.0 Mac - First Look | Creation Engine Blog Says:
    July 15th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

    [...] Link via HDFilmtools.com I start putting 3.0 through it’s paces and at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, it is ROCKING. No latency, no glitchiness, (my word, Colbert) picture quality is noticeably and substantially better and the playhead is slicing through multi-layer, real-time effects and title comps like “butta”. I’ve got reels with 20 audio tracks, 3-5 video tracks, I’m deleting, re-patching, copying and pasting, I make tons of cuts and changes and Media Composer doesn’t flinch once. I start getting a warm and fuzzy feeling and think, this is a beautiful thing. These guys have really done their homework. [...]

  19. chris pendre Says:
    July 18th, 2008 at 3:04 am

    you’re right.

  20. James Says:
    February 25th, 2009 at 12:44 pm

    I’ve been working on Avids since the old OS7 based composers back when they were almost the game in town. Three reasons Avid still has a lock on most major production in film and TV, one, superior media management. I work on a Talk show that uses unity and has been around for 7 years, the media organization is a constant headache and with FCP, it would be a nightmare. Secondly, most editors that have been around and that are a known quantity, are skilled in Avid. And third, every time someone asks me or someone I know, to cut for them, if it’s an FCP job, they want to pay us half of what we make on an Avid gig much like when I was a cameraman when folks wanted to pay me less to shoot DV vs Beta or film.

    Someday Avid may be pushed off the top of the heap but if you want a decent NY or LA gig, learn and excel in Avid just like if and when FCP or another system takes over, I will do the same.

    Oh and as far as integrated packages go, they’re great for small shop or home use but major productions have graphics departments with highly skilled graphic artists so that I can do what I do best… cut.

  21. Billy Says:
    January 12th, 2010 at 8:34 pm

    I have a nonprofit that is producing a film that has been edited on Avid. We have one more pass to make before we lock picture. Since it will not take much time and we’d rather not buy another Avid license, we want to make the final pass on the Avid Media Compoiser free download, then bring it to another machine to do the final output.

    Please bear with me as I am not an editor–My questions: Do any problems arise when you finish working on your project file, save it to your external drives using the free Avid Media Composer download then run the project file through another Avid setup licensed to someone else to make the final tweaks and output? Are there any Avid water marks? Will Avid disallow you from putting your completed project from their free software onto another Avid setup for the final output?

    Many thanks, Billy

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