NAB Diary: Sunday Part 2: Avid
Charlie White and I ran over to the Hard Rock Casino to check out Avid’s Press Conference. I wrote on Friday that Avid would probably be showing off their latest HD stuff. They did that and more.
The new technology out of Avid is their DNA technology. Basically, DNA technology is a collection of hardware elements that you connect to your Avid system to give you real-time editing capabilities.[an error occurred while processing this directive]
We’ll start off with Mojo. This small portable unit has multiple I-O ports that then connect to your system (Mac or PC) via FireWire. If you want real-time editing of DV footage, and you like working with Avid Xpress Pro (formerly Xpress DV), then you will love working with Mojo. While we only got a quick glance at it, Mojo appears to be what every DV editor will be seeking. What’s more, the power behind Mojo allows you to have five streams of video running in real-time. What a cool product. The size makes it very portable (although I didn’t see if it ran on battery power), and because Avid Xpress Pro will run on a laptop, you have a real-time editing solution you can take out in the field. |
| The Mojo unit has plenty of I-O ports for connecting a variety of systems to your NLE. |
One of the applications that came to mind was using the Mojo/Xpress Pro set up for news editors in the field. You can acquire your footage, edit it on your laptop and then connect the outputs from Mojo directly to your system and your remote package live from the field. No more will you have to dump your DV back to tape in order to get playback.
So what is this about Xpress Pro? In addition to an improved Xpress DV interface, Xpress Pro includes additional applications from Boris, a sound editing package, the ability to work with 24p footage (from Panasonic’s 24p camera), as well as having an automatic color correction filter.
A new version of Xpress Pro will set you back $1695. If you want Mojo, which will double the processing power of your computer, you will need to fork over an additional $1695. At first I was a little disappointed that you had to pay again for Mojo, but when you think about it, $3300 for a real-time DV system that is fast fast fast, is not too bad. Final Cut Pro has been the new kid on the block for a while, and has won over a lot of friends on the playground, but I think Mojo is here to kick some butt and may be a serious contender for Apple’s business. But only time will tell.
Moving beyond DV footage, Avid also unveiled Adrenaline, their $24,995 that can do five streams of uncompressed SD footage in real-time, and Nitris, Avid’s HD real-time editing system. Nitris has the ability to run two streams of 10-bit high definition media and eight streams of 10-bit uncompressed SD media. To add an extra bang, the Nitris system allows you to mix media from a variety of Avid formats. This means if you have old AVR77 or AVBV omf files archived on a drive somewhere, you can bring those clips and have them run alongside DV25, DV50, and even 2K files without rendering and without jumps in the edits.
The drawback to this Nitris DS editor system is that for $78,995 you don’t get a computer system or storage. The Avid DS Nitris run for around $145,000. If you want the Avid MediArray ZX 2.88TB storage, which can hold 260 hours of compressed HD footage or 1500 hours of DV25 footage, you’ll have to fork over an additional $39,000.
For what it is worth, the Nitris system does an awful lot (including the ability to edit film), that other “cheaper” systems can do currently. Media 100 should be more than a little concerned with the Nitris line.
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| David Krall, President of Avid, talks to those in attendance about the future of Avid. |
After the Avid meeting Frank, Dean-o, and myself hit the town and partied it up. But that is a story for another time dear reader.
When not working deep in the labs of the DMN Central Division testing the latest and greatest software/hardware products Stephen Schleicher can be found at the local university teaching a few courses on video and web production. He can be reached at schleicher@mindspring.com. You can also visit him on the web at www.mindspring.com/~schleicher
Source: Digital Media Online, Inc.
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