Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/710451
REVIEW www.postmagazine.com 54 POST JULY 2016 or a company that's been facing turbulent times, both financially and competitively, Avid sure is con- stantly updating its venerable flagship editing program (with 19 releases since May 2014). With the constant compari- son between NLEs, some will see many of these changes as Avid still trying to play catch-up, while others will appreciate the new implementations. Media Composer 8.5.2 has been out for several months and you can bet that by the time this review hits print, a newer version will probably be available. This version is a significant upgrade in some features, and still wanting in oth- ers. The rhyme and reason of how Media Composer is evolving (or not), is a topic of debate in some editing circles and a complete mystery to others. The editing wars are still going strong between the three As, and Media Composer's future is dependent on whether it can stay relevant and facile in the face of ongoing innovation by its competitors. Version 8.5.2 is at least addressing some of its weaknesses, but I can't say whether it's enough to overcome the marauding horde. (I hope so, it's my bread and but- ter — I use it every day.) A quick overview shows attention to HDR color spaces and custom resolu- tions up to 8K, new timeline features, new media linking options, 64 tracks of audio (!), a new video frame cache to speed up response time and sluggish playback, allowing adjustable RAM size, as well as the ability to ramp up video memory for more fluid playback. This is making a huge difference in stuttery playback. Well done! Keyboard junkies will delight in a num- ber of enhancements to quickly find ef- fects and settings just by typing the first letter of the effect or setting you want. There was also a lot of housekeeping done to put commands and selections in a more logical order called Menu Simplification (although this editor would question that title). Also, Waveform Grouping brings the world of Premiere and FCPX to the native MC world — sort of. Everything from the Effect Palette to the Audio Mixer has had big and little additions. New enhancements to the bin interface now allow greater flexibility and user friendliness. I'll go through most of the changes in a moment, but probably the biggest change you'll see is in the user interface with timeline trimming and top-to-bot- tom menu simplification. HIGH VISIBILITY TIMELINE EDITING This is probably the most apparent change to the program. Now, when dragging in segment or trim mode, the moving clip becomes transparent, allowing you to see whatever is un- derneath, including effect icons and waveforms (which will stay on during dragging operations, allowing for pre- cise alignment). Gone are the outlines we used to see, unless you want to turn them back on. Clip boundaries also light up. Dragging in splice mode will visually show you how other clips are affected. There are also handy one- frame tick marks that now appear when trimming for precision. Be aware that dupe colors will turn off during these operations. Another great feature is an end-of-clip indicator that pops up red on your clip when you've reached the end of your media. In all, it's useful, looks pretty cool and helps brings MC into this century. Another welcome addition (and also long overdue) is the ability to add new tracks (audio and video) simply by dragging clips up or down. TRIMMING WITH SYNC LOCKS ON If you're like me, you edit with sync locks 'on,' which has made some trim- ming operations difficult to visualize their effect on the timeline (with MC beeping at you to let you know when you can't do what you want). Now, this new improvement allows you to see visually in the timeline how your trim is affecting everything else. It's a concep- tual jump but one that I'm warming up to as I see how easy it is. MENU SIMPLIFICATION We editors spent a lot of years remem- bering where stuff was located in MC. Well, prepare to readjust: everywhere you look there are changes. Avid has really rethought placement of items, organizing them into more logical categories, such as input items which now include everything from EDL ingest, AMA linking, ingest via tape or file. To give some idea how much has changed in the menu structure, four full pages (85 items) under "What's New" are dedicated to listing where things were and where they are now. That's a lot of change, but I picked up on the logic pretty fast. It makes sense, but prepare to gripe. GROUP BY AUDIO WAVEFORM I'm sorry, but this long-awaited implementation goes timidly where others have gone before. I'm assuming that this is just a first iteration of this feature, especially in light of PluralEyes dropping further Avid support. There's no ability to select or change tracks or adjust variables, it works in the foreground and, (like my nemesis, autosave), locks you out of Composer while it's working. But, all in all it has worked fairly well. Here's hoping Avid continues developing this major and welcome tool. AVID MEDIA COMPOSER 8.5.2 WELL OVER 20 IMPROVEMENTS AND ENHANCEMENTS BY JONATHAN MOSER EDITOR OUTNUMBERED HIT + RUN CREATIVE HOBOKEN, NJ WWW.HITRUNCREATIVE.COM FLASHCUTTER@YAHOO.COM F Media Composer users will find dozens of new features relating to editing, audio and interface options.