Media Composer v.3.1 is ready to download

On the downlod page you can get the updated version of Avid, they have just released the following:
Media Composer v.3.1
Symphony V. 3.1
NewsCutter v. 7.1

You can go directly to the download page here: Download

Per

How to make Documentary

ForuDocs have made some great video tutorials on how to make a documentary, they go through the whole process, you can see the tutorials here

Per

Early Avid videos

Bill Warner which founded Avid, has published some videos from the early days.
You can see them here:

Per

Interview with Patrick MClean and Christel Jaekel

At IBC MacVideo made an interview with Patrick Mclean and Christel Jaekel about Media Composer and what seperates Avid from the other companies.
See the interview here:
Avid Interview

Per

RED and Avid

Avid has made a new area on their page for RED camera and Avid, so if you are one of the lucky ones to have access to this nice piece of toy then you should surf by that page.
RED and AVID

Per

Videos from IBC

Avid have made 5 videos from IBC, one from each of the 5 days.
You can see them here: http://community.avid.com/blogs/events/archive/tags/IBC/default.aspx


Per

Edit Panasonics AVC-Intra with Avid

Panasonic has announced that Avid now can import and edit native in AVC-Intra, For those who don't know what AVC-Intra is, it is an advanced compression technology that provides high quality 10-bit intra frame encoding utilizing the HI-10 and Hi-422 intra profiles of H-264 in 2 modes: AVC-Intra 100 and AVC-Intra-50, and it is used by the Panasonic AJ-HPX3000 and AJ-HPX2000 and other cameras.

It is possible with the following versions of Avid:

Media Composer Software v.3.0
Media Composer Mojo DX - v.3.0
Media Composer Nitris DX v.3.0
Symphony Nitris DX - v.3.0
News Cutter Software - v.7.0
News Cutter Mojo DX - v.7.0
News Cutter Nitris DX - v.7.0

More informations on Avid's page

Per

More than 2 GB ram in Avid

If you install Avid on a machine with more than 2 gb of ram, you need to run a small application that makes it possible to use up to 3 gb of ram.
When you have installed you software, you locate the small program in the utillities foldes, under the foleder where you installed Avid.In my windows machine it is
Program Files/Avid/Utilities/3GB
When you run the it starts by asking you to set the amount of Memory you need
For Adrenaline with Mojo it is 2700
Mojo DX, Nitris it is 2500
Symphony it is 2500.

You simply type the amount you need, and press Enter and thats it.

Avid DS 10

Ok, Avid is on tour to show te new proucts, and the next coming is the DS version 10, that is impressive faster and has a new way of working with the GPU on the video card (Nvidia FX3700)It is possible to do 2K material with secondary color corection in real time, and it works fast.
When/if you but the packages you get a 8 core HP8600 with 8GB DDR SDRAM And a AJA 2Ke Dual link I/O Card with K3 break out boxExtrenal storage of 8 or 16 Tb raid30" LCD monitor1 Avid DX RP (Remote Processing) licens1 Avid DS software only1 Avid Media Composer software only (Windows)
I'm looking forward to see it in action next month at the IBC in Amsterdam (I hope they bring one)
You can read more at Avid's homepage http://www.avid.com/products/DS/index.asp
Per

Avid storage calculator

If you want to know how mucg space you need for your next projetct, Avid has a cool tool on there homepage, wich can do the calculation for you.
It is easy to use.
http://www.avid.com/dnxhd/widget/storage_calc_widget.html

Per

New icons in the next media composer v.3

Next month Avid will launch there version 3 of the Media composer, Some of the changes there will be is the change of the little weight lifter icon, also called lift and extract-
You can read more in this blog from from Greg Staten:
http://community.avid.com/blogs/editors/archive/2008/05/14/new-in-version-3-0-ode-to-the-weightlifter-guy.aspx

Per

Need more space for editing

If you need more high performance storage, Avid has now announced two brand new storage solutions, they are called VideoRAID ST and VideoRAID SR.They are SATA- based and offer a maximum of flexibility, they are available in a 5 drive mini tower (called ST) and a 16 drive 3 unit rackmount (called SR)

You can read more on Avid's webside: http://www.avid.com/products/videoraid-st-sr/index.asp

Per

new update of the avid editors to version X.8.3

Today Avid released yet another update of the editor, so the line is now:

• Avid NewsCutter Adrenaline v6.8.3
• Avid NewsCutter XP v6.8.3
• Avid Media Composer v2.8.3
• Avid Xpress Pro v5.8.3
• Avid Symphony Nitris v1.8.3

There is still now support for Apples Leopard, it should come in version 3.0 in june (I hope)
Teh downloads are available in the avid download center.
For those without a account to the download center can go to:
http://www.avid.com/support/downloadcenter/accountRequest.asp

Per

Media Composer 2.8.1

For those who has a valid assurance contract with Avid, they can now download the media composer version 2.8.1, is seems that it fixes some issues with Avid Unity ISIS and Avid Interplay. There should not be any other difference between the veriosn 2.8 and 2.8.1 than that.
If you are one of the lucky ones, you can find it in the download center.

Per

More about the new productline

If you want to know more about the new products from Avid, I have collected some links:

Media composer software only
Media composer Mojo DX
Media Composer Nitris DX
Symphony Nitris DX
Newscutter
Newscutter Mojo DX
Newscutter Nitris DX

Avids presentation at NAB 2008

Avid is not at the NAB show this year, or to be correct, they are not in the same place where all the others are :-) sunday night they held a big presentation at the Hard Rock Hotel, where tehy were showing the new media composer v. 3.0 runnig on leopard, and vista.There wer a lot of employees from Avid all dressed in bright red shirts, so you could find them :-)The new versions will be shipping in June

The Avid Mojo DX, and more Pre Nab News from Avid

• More news on the "new thinking" from Avid, at a Pre NAB2008 held at the universal studios holywood, they told at selected group of people some new things, one that we already know is that the will stop selling Xpress Pro, so the software line will be Media ComposerSymphonyAvid DS
  But the new think at this metting was on the hardware side, they are going to launch a new mojo, so the hardware line is going to be:Mojo SDI Mojo DXNitirs DX
  Abot the Media composer, the new version will be able to run on Nitris DX or Mojo hardware, the new mojo DX comes with SD, HD SDI, HDMI and analog.
  The Symphony Nitris DX is for those who need to edit in 2K and 4K among other things, the Nitris can run up to 8 track real time in HD, with effects.It has HD SDI, SD SDI, HDMI analog composite and analog component.
  I'm sure there will be more news about this after Avid have had ther eNAB event on the coming sunday.

Avid to offer cheaper online courses

As part of the New thinking strategi, Avid has dropped the prices on some online courses, and will offer virtual online classrooms. you can read more about it here: http://www.avid.dk/company/press/generic_intl_press.asp?taxID=4189

Per

Avid to stop Express Pro, and lower the price on media composer

Avid is going to discontinue the express pro, and lower the price of media composer to 2495 $, existing express pro costumer can upgrade for $495.
Avid is still going to have the academic price at 295$.
The lowering of the price at around 50% makes the different in price between Fincal cut and Media composer smaller, and that makes Avid more competitive.
Avid is also going to work more on communication to te customer, since that's a big wish from many customer.

Per

How to remove Final Cut Studio

If you by accident have installed Final Cut Studio2 on your mac, there is a solution for that :-) I found a cool tool that does the job for you, it removes the following:

Final Cut Pro
Motion
Soundtrack Pro
Color
LiveType
Cinema Tools
Compressor
DVD Studio Pro
Batch Monitor
Qmaster

It does not remove Your projects, render files, captured footage, your plug ins.
You can find the FCS Remover here: http://www.digitalrebellion.com/fcs_remover.htm

And remember when you have done that, go get a cop of coffee and install Avid (if it's not allready on your maschine).

Have a nice day.

Per

Avid and Sony HVR-Z7E

I have been so lucky to have 5 minutes with the new sony HVR-Z7E camera, and what a beauty, As alwyas when it comes from SAony the buttons are placed where you need them. But the reason for trying the camera was to see if the format it is recording in, could easily be imported into avid.
So the first thing was to take te files from the CF card, and import into Avid.
I started up my Media composer version 2.8, and said Import, and found one of the .m2t files.
The clip gets converted, into DNxHD and the clip I played with was 30 seconds, and it took around 5 sec. on a standard maschine.
There was no problem with editing so it seems that the workflow is easy, I will try to borrow the camera for a longer time to test more.

Per

The format war on DVD is over

It seems that the war between HD-DVD and Bluray DVD is over, now that Thoshiba has send out a press release that they will not support the HD-DVD format anymore, and recently the big supermakert Wall mart announced that they are only going to sell Blu-Ray disc it seems decicde wich format we are going to use for the next generation DVD, well until they come up with something new.
The press release can be seen here: http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSL1643184420080216

Panasonic AG-HMC150 a new AVCHD cam

At a press show the 14 of february Panasonic released some information about a new camera, the AG-HMC150 wich I guess is going to compete with the newly popular Sony XDCAM EX.The new panasonic cam records onto SD cars, in the AVCHD format.This is the list of formats it is going to support: 1080/60i, 1080/50i, 1080/30p, 1080/25p, 1080/24p native; 720/60p, 720/50p, 720/30p, 720/25p, 720/24p native; and it is 50Hz/59.94Hz switchable.
THe camera has XLR input for your microphones, USB and HDMI (d-terminal) and more.
Another camera that is goin to come from pnasonic thi fall, is the shoulder-mount AG-HMC70 the price is going to be around 2,496$ this camera is also going to the HD in the AVCHD format
Panasonics say that this is not an replacement for the HVX-200, and they are also telleing that they are going to announce another thing this april, I guess around the NAB2008 :-) so it could be that they have a new HVX-200 type camera.

Apple not at NAB this year

For a long time there has been rumors about Apple not going to NAB 2008, and now it is official, Anuj Nayar, senior manager of PR at Apple said that they are participating in fever tradeshows because ther are better ways to reach the customer, and some month ago Avid also annouced that they would not be at this years NAB, so it seems that we wont see any major news inthe videoediting world this april.
Let's see what happens with the IBC in september i Amsterdam, if Apple is going to be there or not.

My channel on Youtube

Now I had the time to produce some small videos for my channel on YouTube, by now there are only 3, but there will come more in the future.
You can see howto use the Panasonic DVX-100 camera, and the Zoom H2 MP3 recorder.
To see my channel use the link www.youtube.com/permouritzen

Hope you can use it.

Per

New avid tutorial, advanced timeline editing

Today I made another tutorial, this time I am showing you how to move clips around in your timeline, sometimes I need to move a group of clips from te middle of my timeline to the end, and this tutorial show you how to do that.
Here is the direct link: http://mouritzen.biz/avid/eng/advanced-timeline.htm

How to make D-day in 4 days

This is one of those "must see" clip on YouTube, this is how to make an D-day movie, it is a group of guys who used 4 days to make this little 4 minute clip of what the can, and it is impreeing, and it is also great for showing how movies are made, the have 4 guys running on a beach, and with editing and using a lot of effects the make it look like there is a lot more, You should use teh 4 minutes and see it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRS9cpOMYv0

Avid rumors are that soon they will be launching new products

On the Avid forum I cam across a post that was telling amoung other tihngs, that two months before NAB they will launch some new products, and improve there customer support.
You can read the post here:
http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/permalink/301933/301933/ShowThread.aspx

How to edit AVCHD in AVID

I have been recording alot with my panasonic HDC-SD1 camera, but found out that it is not easy to get it into an editing program to edit it.
So I spend some time on the net (I do that often) and found a nice free software from panasonic that makes it possible to get my AVCHD format into Avid, and I wrote a little tutorial on how to do that it can be found here:
http://mouritzen.biz/oldavid/avid/eng/avchdtop2.htm

New version of Mediacomposer

The Avid released a update of Mediacomposer to version 2.8. I'm looking forward to test it, over the next couple of days. I will return with more when I have tested it, if it is more stabel.
I'm still looking forward to the update for MAC so it can be running on Leopard.
Here is the link to the download page for Mediacomposer:
http://www.avid.com/register/mcsoft_cpr_form.asp

Per

3 new Avid tutorials

Today I have written 3 new tutorials for Avid

1. How to add black shadows to your video, this is often used when you want something to be more in focus, here is and example:

and here is the direct link to the tutorial: http://www.mouritzen.biz/avid/eng/vignette.htm

2. is a tutorial that helps you is you loose your media files, it could be if your harddrive fails, then it is nice to know how to get your media back from tape and into our project.

Here is te direct link to that tutorial: http://www.mouritzen.biz/avid/eng/batch-capture.htm

3. the last tutorial is a advanced undo function wich, gives you teh possibility to undo your work more that teh 30 times Avid lets you do...there is a way to use te attic folder and go for example 3 hours back. here is te link: http://www.mouritzen.biz/avid/eng/attic_folder.htm

Hope it can be usefull for someone.

Per

Monopod from manfrotto

I have done some shopping, and one of the things I got was this very nice big monopod from manfrotto, the model is 561b and is can get around 2 meters high and is very solid, the hight is very goo because when filming inside af crowd I can get the kamera over the heads of people.
I use it with my Panasonic DVX-100 and a full size kamera Sony DSR-250, it works fine with both kameras.
As a new thing the monpod has 3 small legs to stand on, andit works very well, to stabilize the monpod, or to mak it lezz unstable :-)

Here is a link to manfrottos page about the tripod: http://www.manfrotto.com/Jahia/site/manfrotto/cache/off/pid/13785?livid=107117&idx=120

Per

Manfrotto modosteady 585

So the last couple ofdays I have been playing around with the funny little modosteady from manfrotto, it gives a better balance when you walk around with a small videocamera, although it takes a bit of time to adjust to the camera, and if you want to get it of the modosteady, it is not "click and run", you need to turn a small knop before you can take the camera off.

It can also be working as a kind of shoulder support, but this I did not find very usefull, when I used it for that it was going up and down while I was breathing, but that may not be a problem for others.

Then as a third otion it can be a small tripod for the table, this is very handy and works very well.

So when I look at the price (around 100 Usd) it is very helpfull and worth the money.

You can see it here:http://modo.manfrotto.com/

Manfrotto - Fig Rig

Finally it came, the Fir Rig from Manfrottoe, the mail man came with it today, and now it is time to play.
If you don't know what it is, it is a "thing" that looks like the stearing wheel from a car, and inside it you can mount your kamera.
It should be very good to stabilize camera movements when walking around, I also bought two remote controls, one for controlling te zoom and start/stop rec. and one remote for controlling focus.
I'm looking forward to put my Panasonic DVX-100 on and try it.

You canread more aabout it here: http://services.manfrotto.com/figrig/

Per

The first input

Finally, I got my Blog, it has taken some time the decide if It should get one, but now it is done, and I hope that I will get the time to write frequently in it.

Per Mouritzen
www.mouritzen.biz