The Editblog

It looks like Avid has hit its June target date to ship its new software and hardware products! Today Avid announced the availability of the new Media Composer version 3.0 software as well as the new hardware lines. It’s nice to see stuff shipping on time … that is shipping when a company said something was going to ship. Also worth noting is a post by Frank Capria over at the Source/Record blog that points out this new update to the software is more of a full featured suite that what has previously been offered from Avid with the inclusion of Avid FX. Used as either a plug-in or a stand alone application Avid FX “is the full version of Boris Red, available within Media Composer.” Boris Red is a very capable application that has had a devoted following over the years. I can’t wait to give it a try and Frank says that it’s fully documented within the help system so that should help people integrate it into their workflows.

Now, there is one question that I have … what is the upgrade cost to Media Composer 3.0 for current 2.8 users? I couldn’t find any specific mentions of a cost so I logged into the Avid Download Center and there is the 3.0 update there waiting to be downloaded. So it looks like this is a free update to current 2.8 users? Check out the update below. There’s a few specific things to note at the download center. The first is this warning:

WARNING

If you are using Avid Media Composer software with Avid Mojo, Avid Mojo SDI or Avid Adrenaline
on Mac OS X, you should not upgrade to version 3.0 at this time. There remains a bug related to
Mojo/Mojo SDI/Adrenaline capture on OS X 10.5. Customers will be notified when this issue is resolved.

So that means I will probably be waiting a bit. And here’s two other specific software notes for the new update, one of which is Leopard compatibility:

OS Compatibility

Avid Media Composer 3.0 adds support for Mac OS 10.5.3.

QuickTime Support

Avid has tested and approved the use of Apple QuickTime version 7.4.5 with
Avid Media Composer 3.0.

I would think they would want to broadcast the fact that this is a free update to current Media Composer 2.8 users if that is indeed correct. That’s always been one of the most difficult things about Avid updates and upgrades; instead of some type of built-in Check for Updates feature there is a quite convoluted process of poking around the site and signing into the support center to figure out where the new versions are and what is available. While Avid is certainly looking for new customers with this new line-up there are still a lot of current users out there who will want to update too. Why not make that as easy as possible?

UPDATE: There’s a thread over the Avid community forums about this very subject titled MC Upgrade price from 2.8 to 3. It looks like there might be an upgrade charge if you don’t have a current support contract. Here’s a post from Marianna, Avid customer support advocate:

News flash………

Any Media Composer Customer with adrenaline or software can buy 3.0 as a shiping kit for $495. No downloads. Let me dig u the part # and report back.

So now I am totally confused. Again … why is this so difficult to figure out? It seems like a normal and easy question, how much does it cost to upgrade from Avid Media Composer Software 2.8 to 3.0? We await the final and official answer.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 9th, 2008 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Avid editing, Editing, Mac software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.