Avid unleashed Media Composer 5 today. They offer a 30-day trial version on their website.

Direct download link for Avid Media Composer 5 Trial Mac http://www.avid.com/support/downloads/files/mc5trial/mac50

Direct download link for Avid Media Composer 5 Startup Project Mac http://www.avid.com/support/downloads/files/mc5trial/mac50sample

You'll need Snow Leopard to run it on a Mac.

Looking forward to testdrive this.

Windows version...

http://www.avid.com/support/downloads/files/mc5trial/win50

Startup Project...
http://www.avid.com/US/support/downloads/files/mc5trial/win50sample

Instructions for installing the Startup Project/Media...
http://www.avid.com/static/resources/documents/support_services/downloads/SampleMediaInstall.pdf

I had a quick trial of this last night. Prior to the release I was very much looking forward to the use of linked AMA files from the Canon 5D2. Of course in reality on my old dual Xeon, the playback is horrendously slow.

I know it's version 5.0, however I hope this get's sorted it would be great to start editing immediately on native files and then transcode them locally later.

I also imported some old Sony mt2s files to see how they would go. All 5 channels imported, however playback was way out of sync.

In conclusion, a very promising release, let's hope 5.01 and onwards improves some of these areas.

With regards

Jeff

I'm afraid you won't be very satisfied with the performance of an old dual Xeon system at this point in time...especially with AMA files. Time for an upgrade...myself included.

See the Supported Hardware and OS requirements...

Avid Knowledge Base (http://avid.custkb.com/avid/app/selfservice/search.jsp?DocId=366951)

Yes Jeff, I am not sure what you expected. I've seen MC5 running on a fairly modern laptop and bringing in 5D2 files with full realtime playback. But I'd bet your computer is WELL out of spec most likely in CPU as well as GPU. And maybe RAM as well.

Yeah - I'm looking at an entire SYSTEM WIDE bump to get up to speed. Not like I'm not overdue anyway - my PC is four years old, blazing fast dual Xeon's back in the day.

Still sorting out if I want to go MAC or stay PC - but I'm going to need to spend a CHUNK of change, before I can step up.

Ah yes.... "progress is painful"

Yeah - I'm looking at an entire SYSTEM WIDE bump to get up to speed. Not like I'm not overdue anyway - my PC is four years old, blazing fast dual Xeon's back in the day.

Still sorting out if I want to go MAC or stay PC - but I'm going to need to spend a CHUNK of change, before I can step up.

Ah yes.... "progress is painful"

You'll get more for your money with the PC, but both platforms have advantages. Really depends on your needs. The nice thing about Avid is, it really doesn't matter so much what the underlying platform is. I do think with the NVidia CUDA technology, that the PC has an advantage because these cards seem to work better in PCs. I'm also not real thrilled with the BluRay stance of Apple.

The two platforms are very very close these days, and it really is just personal preference.

Well the only reason I'm considering Mac, is to run FCP on it as well - as occasionally - less and less actually - I have a need to use it.

Yeah, I'll probably go PC - for my workstation.