In a closely watched move, Avid have announced the first of their long-anticipated changes after withdrawing from the show floor at NAB 2008. (Avid will have a significant presence in Los Vegas that week, just not on the show floor.)

Xpress Pro is discontinued

The fairly arbitrary distinction between Xpress Pro and Media Composer is no more. Xpress Pro users can upgrade to Media Composer for US$495 but new sales will be discontinued at the end of Q1 2008. This is no surprise as the two applications shared a common code base. Xpress Pro had feature limitations in order to allow it to be sold at a lower price than Media Composer.

Media Composer price drop to $2495

While half the former price of Media Composer (software only) Media Composer remains about twice as expensive as the Final Cut Studio package. Avid probably does not have to compete on price as there is value in the brand, and those who are looking for "an Avid" will pay the differential without complaining. More importantly, there are features in Media Composer, and Avid's approach to collaborative editing, that would make Media Composer the more economic choice across a project. Media Composer's Animatte, FluidMorph, and ScriptSync are features that would pay for themselves over one project. Although production companies like Bunim Murray have successfully operated large Xsan networks with Final Cut Pro, Media Composer on Avid Unity is likely to continue to rule for collaborative editing, at least until a generational shift in editors happens and the Final Cut Pro educated generation gets to senior positions.

Media Composer educational price drops to $295

Previously Avid educational pricing was only available to institutions buy Media Composer or Xpress Pro. That has changes so that individual students can buy a copy of Media Composer from their Campus bookstore for US$295. That is a move clearly aimed at re-establishing Avid in the mindset of up-and-coming editors. Perhaps students will have a chance to discover the value of those Avid-specific features with an affordable copy of their own.

Redesigned website for improved "support"

With the goal of making more support information available to more people and to be more easily found Avid have added user-ranking to identify answers that users have ranked as most helpful. Users can choose to receive email notifications when a customer support topic is updated. Avid have also beefed up their automated response system to match questions with the most relevant published content even when tech support is closed.

It was also made clear that these are "just the first" of a series of announcements. Missing to date is any news on hardware alternatives to Mojo and Adrenaline; revision to suport contract pricing or updates to Avid software, but these are expected in the "ongoing dialog" with customers in Avid's New Thinking.

Philip Hodgetts