Premiumbeat.com by Ashley Kennedy

Avid Media Composer 6—as well as Symphony 6 and  Newscutter 10—were officially released to the public today.  This follows Avid’s announcement several weeks ago, detailing the software’s new features.

Over the past few months, I’ve had the opportunity to beta test Avid Media Composer 6.  Now that the software has officially been released, I’m excited to begin sharing tutorials on the newest Media Composer 6 features with the PremiumBeat community.

In the meantime, I interviewed Angus Mackay, Avid Segment Marketing Manager of Professional Video, who had some great things to say about the new release.

AK:  How has the reaction been to Media Composer 6 from your beta community and from other users who have been using it prior to the launch?  What have been the most exciting reported updates in feature and functionality?

AM: “The reaction from beta customers has been great.  The new stereoscopic tools in particular have been praised for how thorough they are and how well integrated into Media Composer, and of course users have been thrilled to have Media Composer working with I/O cards from AJA, Blackmagic, Bluefish444, Matrox, and MOTU.  And the ability to encode to Pro Res has received lots of positive comments, too.”

AK:  Besides the extended cross grade pricing promotion, in what ways is Avid trying to cater to Final Cut Pro converts?

AM:  ”We offer a great cross grade price, training resources specifically for FCP users, dedicated user forums moderated by FCP and Media Composer experts, and Media Composer itself is compatible with existing hardware setups and Pro Res footage.  Projects can be easily moved from FCP to Media Composer with utilities from Boris FX and Automatic Duck.”read more...