Farewell Avid Xpress Pro - Hello Media Composer

[Richard Alvarez]

Looks like they finally made the right decision. Avid is dropping AvidXpressPro, and merging it with Media Composer - at a competitive price with FCP.

Looks like the 'upgrade' to Media Composer for those of us with AXP will be about five hundred dollars - much cheaper than the old 'upgrade' path.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...d837679fe95bb6

[David Parks]

Excellent. Thanks Richard.

http://www.avid.com/company/releases...king_avid.html

They finally listened to Mr. Alvarez!!!!!!!!! For the record Richard has been saying Avid should drop Xpress for a while.

I'll certainly make the move. FINALLY.

David

[Richard Alvarez]

Yes, yes... they finally took my advice seriously. In fact, any day now the check for my services should arrive in the mail.

I'm really stoked about this. Media Composer is the way to go. I'm only worried my old system won't run it. Sigh, a five hundred dollar upgrade, but another three grand for a new system. Well, it's a good excuse to go with that MacBook Pro I've been wanting. Since AVID ships with copies for MAC and PC, It's the next purchase. I need a good high end editing laptop.

[Gary Bettan]

We agree. Avid has been working on this a while. I think it was gong to be the big February announcement. New management wanted to call a time out and make sure the plan was solid. It is.

We haven't been able to update our website yet, but I have changed the prices in the cart. If you click through on the upgrade, it will be at $495.

We hopeto have new deals on bundles with MojoSDI as well. My goal is to get all new Avid pricing updated within next 24 hours.

I posted more details on this and other Avid programs int he industry news section.

GO AVID!

Gary
http://www.videoguys.com/avid.html

[Richard Alvarez]

Looks good Gary. I've got to take a look at my system specs, but I'll likely be upgrading today or tomorrow.

WooHooo!

To be clear, what's included in the upgrade? Media discs? Manuals?

[Gary Bettan]

Rich,

The $495 upgrade includes full manuals and dics. It also includes the 3rd party software - Boris Continuum, Sorenson, and Sonic DVD authoring.

It's the same exact software and upgrade we had in stock last week, only dramatically more affordable!

http://www.videoguys.com/mcfamily.html

Gary

[Richard Alvarez]

HOLY MOLEY! Thats a STEAL!

I'm on it like a chicken on a junebug.

[David Parks]

My NASA client just got Avid Xpress early last week. Now I hope I can talk them into the upgrade as well. Spectramatte alone is well worth it. I think it is hands down one of the best keyers out there. Never had one problem.

Richard, I've noticed that Media Composer (at TVP post house) runs super fast, and it is on an old G5 Mac. I noticed especially that imports tended to run faster. The good thing is that the code is really tight on MC and you shouldn't have to get a super beefy machine to run it. In fact, I bet it would run great on an iMac with a G-raid FW 800 if you're editing HDV.

Of course, if you've got the money, it would scream on a OCtoMac.

BTW Richard, I was able to take a project from my Xpress Pro on my HP notebook with eSATA card and Seagate 300 and consolidate flawlessly to my clients' new Xpress 5.8 MAc setup and 1 TB G-raid. Now we're talking about 200GB's of media. I then installed Xpress on a new HP that they purchased and I was able to move back and forth between Mac and PC w/o a hitch. All i had to do was move the dongle and the project file.

Cheers.

[Gary Bettan]

word of caution: MC Soft will not yet run on Leopard or Vista.

Avid's working on it and I know they will have it as soon as they can. For today it's Tiger or XP only.

Gary

[Richard Alvarez]

Gary

Its a done deal, you have my money. The additional 5% off was a sweet deal to.

I am REALLY stoked. The thrid party apps alone make it a terrific deal, it's like a free upgrade to MC for me!

I'm running XP, and I'm not in any hurry to move to Vista... so all is good at this point.

Richard

[Richard Alvarez]

Just for a lark, I went back to the AVID forum and found my post from OCTOBER FIRST 2006- SEVENTEEN MONTHS AGO.

Am I a prophet or what?

____________________________

As someone who re-entered the video world after a fifteen year abscence back in '01, I shopped around the NLE market. FCP was definately out, as I had no interest in Macs, and all my other software was PC. I wanted to be able to edit FILM, dammit, and learn skills that would translate UP to the broadcast/film market. BUT money was tight.

Avid XpressDV was my choice, but WITH THE POWER PACK. Seems like I paid $2300 or so for the deal.

Fast forward over many 'upgrades' and I have shelled out an additional five hundred or so dollars... and I still have Avid XPress Pro. Yeah, it chapped me royaly to see the 'bonus pack' included after I shelled out extra bucks for it. Meanwhile, I watched the Indy market and the 'boutique' houses all go with FCP.

Recently, I went to a User Group meeting here in San Francisco. There were probably twenty five to thirty users there. AND THEY WERE GIVING AWAY A FREE COPY OF MEDIA COMPOSER as incentive. I know that's why I went.

MOST in attendance were all over forty. Lots had broadcast experience. There were almost no 'young, hip, indy' types in the audience.

I've got to tell you, it looked like a room full of dinosaurs. Yeah, I'm fifty one... so add me in. But I've been 'burned' by upgrades, paying more, and seeing others get more for their money when they buy in for the first time. I can understand Avid's dillemma of protecting the high end who've already spent a bundle.

They announced... FINALLY and probably too late, a great effort to get back into the media schools by offereing composer for educational institutions for 250 dollars a copy.

They even made a half hearted effort, by offering great deals like the recent 'upgrade' to MC for 2500.

Sorry Avid. These are half measures. You are shovelling against the tide.

Here's my sincere take on what needs to be done.

One product.

Period.

Scalable with hardware.

Period.

So this means everyone owns a copy of "Media Composer" software. ( I really DON'T think you should rename it.)

What's the big fear? The big fear is that you will piss off people who are already bought in. How to avoid that?

I don't know the actual profit margins involved, so I'll just have to toss around numbers. But I know that if Avid is willing to let copies go to institutions at 250, and special promotions at 2500 for FULL COPIES of MC WITH BORIS -

It. Can. Be. Done.

Here's what I think. You offer a 'consolidation' deal. Everyone WITH XpressPro gets it 'upgraded' or 'unlocked' or whatever it takes to get Media Composer for... oh, I'd go for five hundred dollars. That's double your price for your institutional copies.

Oh, but what about all those people who just spent five grand on THEIR copy of Media Composer???

Simple. All they have to do is provide proof they've bought it at full retail price, and they can BUY A SINGLE ADDITIONAL COPY OF SOFTWARE ONLY for Five hundred bucks. THis is a ONE TIME ONLY OFFER>SO all the stations and boutique shops who had the Extra scratch to get MC in the first place, can now be placated by owning TWO copies.

So for an additional $500 dollars, those with Express Pro get their copy upgraded to MC. And those with MC get a SECOND COPY for $500.

And the final result? Everyone on the same page. Everyone with the ability to scale by purchasing faster computers, Mojo, Adrenaline, Decklink, Aja, whatever...

Just. Like. Final Cut Pro.

And everyone is editing on the FULL INDUSTRY STANDARD NLE - Unlike FCP (at least for the moment.)

Do it.

Trust me.

[Jim Forrest]

I have AvidXpress Pro Hd 5.2. I went to Vista and found out too late that Avid will not run on Vista. So I have not loaded 5.2.

How could I upgrade if Avid 5.2 is not on my computer?

Jim

[Richard Alvarez]

Jim,

Are you saying you have Vista loaded as your OS? If so, then you wont be able to run AXP or MC. You will have to rollback to XP in order to load either program.

Alternately, you could simply wait for support for VISTA with MC. But there's no telling how long that will take. If you need to be editing now, then roll back your OS (or dual boot) to XP, and load AXP or MC.

[Jim Forrest]

Originally Posted by Richard Alvarez

Jim,

Are you saying you have Vista loaded as your OS? If so, then you wont be able to run AXP or MC. You will have to rollback to XP in order to load either program.

Alternately, you could simply wait for support for VISTA with MC. But there's no telling how long that will take. If you need to be editing now, then roll back your OS (or dual boot) to XP, and load AXP or MC.

Yeah I was afraid of that,Vista is my OS now. I may have to dual boot. Right now I am using Edius 4.5 and for some reason it runs fine on Vista even thought it is made for WinXP.
If I wait for support for Vista I still will not have Avid 5.2 on my system so how to I show I am eligible for MC upgrade?

[Gary Bettan]

Avid uses a dongle. When you upgrade to MC your dongle gets blasted from X Pro to MC Soft. That's what makes the upgrade work.

You install the MC Software fresh on any machine. If you don't have an MC dongle, it don't run.

Interesting tidbit.:You can install MC on as many machine as you want, PC and or Mac. You can only run it on one machine at a time, but you can move the dongle to any machine you want.

Gary