Toolbox

Avid announced a new version of Avid Media Composer that enables video editing professionals to work faster and more easily with the industry’s most proven video editing software. Available now, the latest enhancements—including support for high dynamic range (HDR) workflows—further deliver on Avid Everywhere by giving video professionals versatile and accessible tools for professional creative editorial.

With better-organized tools, working with Media Composer is now easier and more intuitive than ever. New features make editing simpler and more fun, while tools and interface elements are organized in a more logical order, enabling editors to work more efficiently and intuitively—whether they’re a Media Composer veteran or a Final Cut or Premiere Pro user.

Continuing the steady stream of new tools that enable video professionals to work with the latest media technologies, the new version of Media Composer enables video professionals to take on HDR projects. Along with Avid Resolution Independence and high-resolution workflows, Media Composer’s support for HDR workflows enables editors to overcome today’s—and tomorrow’s—technology challenges.

The new version of Media Composer also enables editors to work up to 64 audio tracks—250% more than previously available—and delivers more power under the hood, giving editors the performance they need to work faster and focus purely on their story.

The new version of Media Composer is now available to purchase from the Avid Store, and as a free download to current Media Composer customers with an active Upgrade & Support Plan or Subscription.

The new version of Media Composer enables video professionals to:

    --Edit faster with better-organized tools – Users can access key tools and features faster thanks to several updates to menus and drop downs that make accessing tools more intuitive, productive, and fun. This delivers even greater efficiency, enabling editors to focus more time on their creative storytelling.
   -- Work with up to 64 audio tracks – Users can create bigger, richer soundtracks with 250% more audio tracks than previously available.
    --Take on dynamic HDR projects – Media Composer now supports high dynamic range (HDR) workflows, enabling users to edit and grade projects using new color specs that display a greater dynamic range than standard video.
    --Get better visual feedback when editing – Users can edit with greater precision—and confidence—with new high-visibility feedback displayed as they edit in the timeline.
    --Straighten images quickly with FrameFlex rotation – Users can now quickly rotate images a little or a lot by rotating the framing box in FrameFlex.
    --Experience better performance – All played frames—and all effects applied to those clips—are now cached in RAM. This allows for a smoother, stutter-free performance when scrubbing or playing back a complex sequence multiple times.
    --Experience better performance in full screen playback mode
    --Easily sync Broadcast Wave audio files with video clips with subframe accuracy
   -- Add one or more custom columns to a bin easily through a contextual menu
   --Copy and paste frame numbers in bin columns
    --Find and filter effects faster and easier with the updated Effects palette
    --Rename, edit, and delete custom project presets with the Preset Manager
    --Use Media Composer on OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) and Windows 10 computers
    --Group master clips using audio waveform analysis
   -- Start a frame count at “1” instead of “0” (zero) for timecode burn-in segments
    --Resize and configure the Audio Mixer for your project at hand
    --Preserve field recorder metadata across multiple audio tracks when importing/linking

RED Digital Cinema and Avid announced that Avid DNxHR™ and Avid DNxHD® recording formats will be coming to RED’s DSMC2™ line of professional cameras: WEAPON, SCARLET-W and RED RAVEN. This addition brings yet another powerful and intuitive workflow option to professionals shooting on this latest generation of RED cameras.

Avid DNxHR and Avid DNxHD are known for their ability to reduce storage and bandwidth requirements, and Avid DNxHD has been accepted by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers as the foundation format for the VC-3 standard. Additionally, these formats offer seamless direct-to-edit experiences for professionals looking to keep the highest image quality possible, while leveraging the investments they’ve made in Avid in-house production systems.

“We give shooters yet another extremely popular format option by getting Avid natively part of our camera workflow,” said Jarred Land, president of RED Digital Cinema. “With the ability to shoot REDCODE RAW simultaneously alongside Avid DNxHR and Avid DNxHD, they are getting the best of two worlds from both the acquisition and post perspectives. This collaboration between RED and Avid is going to be music to the ears for a lot of the industry.”

“For years, people have been shooting on RED and then editing within Avid software solutions,” said Louis Hernandez, Jr, CEO of Avid Technology. “Now, with Avid codecs being an in-camera tool within RED’s cameras, it ensures that the mutual customers of both RED and Avid have a much more seamless integration for their projects. And that is something we are all very excited about here at Avid.”

The Avid DNxHR and Avid DNxHD formats will be added to the already simultaneous recording capability that RED’s DSMC2 cameras currently offer via REDCODE RAW® and Apple ProRes formats. Avid DNxHR and Avid DNxHD will be made available via a free firmware upgrade in mid-2016.

Apple could soon face one of its biggest challenges to date: Peak iPhone.

Most analysts believe Apple surpassed its own record by selling more than 74.5 million units of its flagship product in the final three months of 2015. But there are signs that iPhone sales in the first three months of 2016 will - for the first time ever - show an abrupt decline from the same period a year earlier.

That could mark a pivotal moment for the Silicon Valley giant. Apple is the world's biggest company, in terms of stock value, thanks to the iPhone's surging popularity around the world. In business terms, Apple makes most of its money from iPhone sales.

But concerns about slowing growth have sent the stock into a months-long slump, fueling debate about what kind of company Apple will be in the future.

The iPhone contributed nearly two-thirds of Apple's $234 billion in revenue last year. None of the other new products Apple has launched in recent years have emerged as blockbusters. That's led some critics to suggest Apple has lost its innovative touch, while others say it's evolving to depend on a broader base of related tech products and services.

One thing is clear, said analyst Angelo Zino at S&P Capital IQ: "Last year was an unprecedented year for Apple and the iPhone.... You'll never see that type of growth from the iPhone again."

When CEO Tim Cook reports Tuesday on Apple's sales for the last three months of 2015, investors will be watching closely for any hints about how Apple's signature smartphone is faring in the current quarter. Sales usually fall somewhat after the holiday shopping season. But analysts say it appears Apple has cut production orders from key suppliers in recent weeks, suggesting it's lowered its own forecasts.

Apple hasn't commented on iPhone sales since last fall, when Cook struck an upbeat tone. In part, Zino and other experts say, the company is suffering from its own success. Apple sold 61 million iPhones in the March quarter of 2015, or 40 percent more than it did a year earlier. To match that growth rate, Apple would need to sell more than 85 million in the current period. Instead, analysts are expecting around 55 million.

An estimated 500 million people own iPhones now, which means Apple can rely on a significant number to upgrade each year. But some have put off buying a new model because they didn't see a strong reason to upgrade.

Despite some new features, "people are feeling like there hasn't been anything that's really new" in the latest iPhone models, known as the 6S and 6S Plus, which came out last fall, said market researcher John Feland of Argus Insights.

Apple will likely make significant changes in the next major iPhone release, expected in September, which could fuel another surge in sales. Some tech blogs have reported a new model might even be coming this spring.

The company went through a similar cycle a few years ago, when iPhone sales growth slowed to 7 percent in the final months of 2013. The next year, Apple introduced new models with significantly bigger screens. That sent sales skyrocketing, especially in Asia, where consumers had previously flocked to buy big-screen phones from rival Samsung.

But there may no more equally dramatic changes left to jump-start sales like that again. "Apple really pulled the big lever they had left un-pulled, up to then," said tech analyst Jan Dawson of Jackdaw Research. "That was sort of a one-off event."

While iPhone sales may be slowing, Apple has launched other products and services tied to the iPhone - from the Apple Watch to the digital payments service known as Apple Pay, the subscription-based Apple Music and "smart home" software that lets users control their lights and appliances with Siri, the voice-enabled digital assistant on the iPhone and iPad. These are designed to make the iPhone itself more useful, while producing a steady stream of new revenue.

None of those new products have sold like the iPhone itself, however. Sales of the iPad have been declining for two years.

"Apple still has a lot of value, a lot of cash flow, so it's not to say the company is in trouble. But it's difficult to say that it's on the cutting edge," said Murillo Campello, a finance professor at Cornell University who follows Apple closely.

Others say it's premature to count Apple among former tech giants, like Hewlett-Packard, that have struggled for relevance as their pace of growth and innovation declined.

Apple is working on a wide range of future products, from streaming video to virtual reality and even self-driving cars, said FBR Capital Markets' analyst Daniel Ives in a recent note to clients.

"Apple's often surprised us with what they end up doing," added Dawson.

Jeff Mullen, a sound designer and mixer based in Washington, D.C., has adopted NUGEN Audio’s new Halo Upmix tool for automated upmixing of stereo audio to 5.1/7.1 surround. As founder and owner of Sonichead, a full-service audio post facility specializing in television productions, Mullen uses Halo Upmix to produce both a high-quality 5.1 upmix as well as a stereo mix for a wide range of projects.

Mullen has more than a decade of professional audio experience, with a specialty in long-form and short-form video content as well as commercials, promos, 5.1 surround, and stereo. In 2015, he was on the team that produced the Daytime Emmy-winning 2014 preview campaign for PBS. The ability to create an upmix to 5.1 surround from stereo components is a standard requirement for many Sonichead projects, and Mullen is typically under a very tight timeframe to produce the upmix. He had tried other upmixing tools previously, but they tended to add unnatural reverb and delay to the original signal.

“Other upmixing tools would produce a 5.1 output that sounded very different from the original. I was spending too much time tweaking parameters to make the upmix sound natural and bring it up to my clients’ quality standards. NUGEN Audio has a stellar reputation for audio plugins that are technically advanced and produce very high-quality output, so when I heard early last year that they were releasing an upmixing product, I knew it would be something special,” Mullen said. “I have not been disappointed — Halo Upmix is a tremendous improvement over anything else on the market. With Halo, the phasey artefacts, strange reverbs, and delays are now gone and the mid-range is no longer over-hyped. In fact, the upmix sounds identical to the original stereo source material.”

As a beta user of Halo Upmix, Mullen has used the tool on stereo ambiences and backgrounds for a range of projects. The tool’s intuitive GUI not only gives Mullen an at-a-glance view of upmix parameters but also enables him to ensure that the downmix output precisely matches the source material. In addition, he relies on Halo Umpix’s time-saving automation for every parameter and its dialogue isolation feature, which offers the ability to keep vocals anchored in the center channel in a surround mix.

“Jeff is not only an Emmy winner, but a very highly respected audio professional whose music background informs every aspect of his work — with final mixes that closely mirror the original intent of the musicians and other content creators,” said Jon Schorah, creative director, NUGEN Audio. “As such, he was an ideal customer to participate in our beta program for Halo Upmix. After putting Halo Upmix through its paces, Jeff was able to demonstrate the tool’s power not only for the downmix compatibility needed for TV sound production, but also for delivering the creative malleability required by today’s audio engineers.”