In apparent response to Apple’s recent release of Final Cut Pro X, Avid hosted their “Committed To The Professional” event in the Steven J Ross Theater on the Warner Bros. lot, July 13.
After hors d’oeuvres and drinks, the Avid presentation started with a short promo. CEO, Gary Greenfield, reiterated the company’s commitment to professionals and solicited suggestions for improvements from the crowd. Avid technical marketing specialist Matt Feury interviewed editors Alan Edward Bell and Jonathan Alberts, who have worked with both Avid and FCP editing systems. They were brought up on stage for a practical discussion of the many problems they face in editorial, and how the recent Avid upgrade has solved them.
VP of creative professionals, Paul Foeckler, gave a sneak peak of many new features that are in the works for Avid, although he cautioned none were written in stone. These new features would put Avid on a par with the best features of the new FCP X, like 64-bit processing, a ProRes encode as well as decode, DNxHD 4:4:4 and support for 2K and 4K frame sizes. Foeckler also promised that Avid would be the leader in 3D workflows. Perhaps the most welcome announcement was about Avid’s new open architecture, which allows for third-party support. In fact, many third party companies – AJA, Matrox, Blackmagic, Bluefish and MOTU – were on hand in the lobby to explain further.
Foeckler received a huge round of applause when he announced, “What’s also part of our future is a new UI design and modernized interface. But what we are not going to do is more important. We are not going to sacrifice the powerful tools, the editing paradigm or the muscle memory that every editor relies on!”
Although student pricing is not new, Avid announced the lowered educational price of $295 would include four years of free upgrades. In addition, FCP users were offered a special price of $995 to purchase Avid software, available at www.Avid.com/FCPpromo through Sept. 30.
