AVID v6.0

What did I do this Christmas Holiday?  Well let's see… I went shopping, worked out a few extra times, but most importantly, I used the usual Chicago video production “Holiday down-time” to execute upgrades of computers and programs at the office.  And I was like Ralphy getting a red rider BB gun when it came to transforming of our AVID Symphony editing system from v5.3 to v6.0. 

Over the years, the AVID upgrade path has not always been as timely as I would like… but when the upgrade is finally released,  it’s always consistent, with each new version being a step up from the last.  I am glad we have stood by AVID, especially in light of the latest FCP upgrades that have been, for lack of a better word… questionable.

The first thing I want to say is how well AVID Symphony v6.0 loaded.  There were no issues at all uninstalling the old version and reinstalling the new – even the software dongle update went well. Calling AVID and getting the new license codes for Boris, AVID-DVD by Sonic, and AVID FX that came with this version was the hardest part of the AVID upgrade… and even that was painless.

Right from the start I could tell that this AVID upgrade was definitely worth the time and money spent.  AVID v6.0 is faster – I’m sure this speed increase was due in part to the AVID software upgrade…  upgrading  our new AVID computer hardware didn’t hurt.  We purchased an HP z800 Dual 6 core, running Windows 7/64 bit.  It’s a really nice machine and after using this computer for awhile, I have gotten used to it and really do like Windows 7!  So much so that I have installed it on several other machines here at the office.

The move to 64-bit processing for the AVID Symphony v6.0 editing system was way overdue.  Scrubbing the timeline works better… rendering is faster… everything about AVID v6.0 seemed to work quicker and smoother.  I no longer feel like the processor is trying to keep up with the editing.  We’ve been using AVID v6.0 only a short time so I will keep you updated on our progress.  Hopefully the "honeymoon" phase will last much longer than a Kardashian marriage.

The look of AVID v6.0 is more contemporary and definitely has a new feel to it, with a couple really cool things that I noticed right away:  Color – there is color identification available for clips and some of the buttons have color (first photo);  No more Superbins – they’ve been replaced with a way-better single bin that can be created and shows all bins as tabs (second photo).

AVID Symphony v6.0 also has updated capabilities with AMA… 3D editing… plus the ability to handle more codecs natively, including a DNxHD 4:4:4. There are, for instance, new transcode codec's available VC1, AVC-Intra, and XDCAM. 

I know there are many more new things to find and learn about but I have not gotten that far in my trials of the AVID v6.0 software.  Specifically, I am going to investigate if it really will read and write Apple Pro-Res files… we’ll see…  

As I work with more projects and spend more time with the v6.0 system, I'm sure I will have more thoughts and observations on this latest AVID upgrade to share… and you can be sure that I will keep you posted.