Avid Technology, headquartered in Tewksbury, Mass., has started shipping Media Composer Adrenaline, the first product based on the company’s new Digital Nonlinear Accelerators (Avid DNA). Avid DNA is a hybrid architecture that leverages the power of both host-based software capabilities and hardware-based acceleration. The technology—representing three years of research and development and a $50 million investment—was unveiled in April at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas. Adrenaline—competitively priced at $24,999—offers real-time, multi-stream, uncompressed standard-definition (SD) video editing and 10-bit high-definition (HD) media expandability.
With fewer commercial editors in attendance at this year’s NAB than in years past, Avid has scheduled local events in leading cities to give customers a look at the new technology. One of those sessions—sponsored by Avid and New York-based Virtual Media—was recently presented in New York for the local chapter of the Association of Independent Creative Editors (AICE).
Following the presentation, questions and concerns were raised about upgrading to the new architecture, as well as compatibility with Avid’s Meridien-based systems, which represent the cornerstone of many editorial shops that cut national commercials. SHOOT will report on editors’ feedback in next week’s issue. Meanwhile, SHOOT followed up with Avid to clarify some of the points made at the meeting, and to obtain additional details.
Media Composer Adrenaline—which runs on a Mac or NT platform and some qualified laptops—supports uncompressed SD video over a standard FireWire connection. The product offers a feature set including 24p Film Composer offline editing functionality, 24-bit audio capabilities, and Autocorrect—a real-time color correction tool that lassos a sequence, analyzes the pixels, and automatically corrects the sequence, including white balance and contrast.
The Media Composer Adrenaline system can operate in a collaborative workflow with Avid Unity MediaNetwork, but it must be the current Unity version 3.3; other versions would require an upgrade.
According to Avid, Adrenaline natively supports Avid Meridien (JFIF), ABVB (AVRs), DV25, DV50, IMX and uncompressed 601 media—all mixable in the same timeline. Adrenaline offers some new features not available in Avid’s Meridien-based architecture, while the Meridien system has some tools unavailable in Adrenaline. There is also a difference between Adrenaline on NT and the Mac: The NT-based version of Adrenaline offers the popular Marquee titling package, which is not available on the Mac. Adrenaline will offer the ability to scale with host processing power to support more than five real-time SD streams. Adrenaline will not offer universal offline and nine-stream multicam.
Regarding workflow between Meridien-based systems and Adrenaline, Avid offered in a statement: " ‘In general, projects, bins, sequences and media can flow seamlessly between Adrenaline and Meridien-based systems, whether users are collaborating on a project or using Symphony to finish a project started with Adrenaline. Adrenaline and Meridien-based systems are designed to share projects, bins, sequences and media. Of course, a system must support all media types and effects to fully play a project. For example, Symphony cannot play ABVB media; DV25, DV50 and IMX playback is only available via purchasable option. Adrenaline doesn’t support secondary color correction.
" ‘When moving project, bin or sequence files between systems, unsupported effects do not appear or appear as unknown effects," continued the statement. "For maximum compatibility, it is recommended that all systems be on the latest version. Older versions of software for Meridien based-systems deliver less compatibility with Adrenaline.
" ‘Footage digitized in Meridien (JFIF) or DV25 formats on Adrenaline is compatible with Meridien-based Media Composer and Symphony systems with the DV option, although DV25 24p with advanced pull down cadence will not play on a Symphony system.’ "
When asked about workflow between Adrenaline and ABVB systems, Avid reported: " ‘Media Composer Adrenaline is fully forward-compatible with projects originated on ABVB systems. Media Composer Adrenaline is designed to accept ABVB (AVR) system projects, bins, sequences and media. Avid does not support backward compatibility of Media Composer Adrenaline projects, bins, sequences or media to ABVB systems.
" ‘Media Composer Adrenaline digitizes and renders Meridien-compatible JFIF media and other formats. It doesn’t digitize or render ABVB (AVR) resolutions. When it renders an effect on ABVB media, the user selects the desired format including 1:1, Meridien-compatible JFIF, DV25, DV50 or IMX50. Once ABVB (AVR) media is placed on an Adrenaline system the effects either play in real-time where possible or are rendered to an available Media Composer Adrenaline resolution.’ "
Avid representatives reported that the company would not offer an upgrade path, although it would offer special pricing for customers that made recent Meridian purchases.
Nitris and Mojo
In additional to Adrenaline, Avid announced Nitris and Mojo, two developing systems also based on the DNA architecture. These products are scheduled to ship later this year. Nitris combines the DNA architecture with Avid DS version 7 software. In this case, DS and Nitris will likely have identical toolsets, according to product marketing manager Matt Allard. The system can be used for editing, conforming and finishing compressed and uncompressed 10-bit HD and SD formats. Avid claims it offers the media processing power of more than 30 of today’s Pentium 4 processors. Nitris is designed to offer real-time performance for multi-stream effects such as real-time dissolves, SMPTE wipes, DVEs, Symphony-style color correction, keys and downstream graphics.
Allard also reports that Nitris includes 2k file support. With Nitris, he says, the company intends to target the finishing and mastering space for HD and SD, and enter the 2k arena. Nitris is scheduled to go into beta this summer, and ship in the fall with prices starting at $78,995.
Avid Mojo, starting at $1,695 and scheduled to ship during Q3, is designed to offer real-time effects and simultaneous DV and analog output with Avid Xpress Pro and Avid NewsCutter XP software. Avid Mojo could connect to a notebook computer, or a qualified PC or Mac via a FireWire cable. It scales to support uncompressed SD video.
Avid says that no products currently being shipped will be discontinued as a result of the DNA announcement, and that two more versions on the Meridien architecture are already in development; plans call for them to offer new features and more workgroup support.
