Hi everyone! As we kick off NAB 2010, the new consolidated website is one of the first big indicators of the "one Avid" transformation. In addition to this visible change in the way we market our products, we're also reorganizing the way we work internally to allow us to make our audio and video products work better together. In fact, for the first time, we're forming a dedicated engineering team with members from both the Pro Tools and Media Composer groups. The charter of this team will be to improve interoperability between the two products, and create new workflows to optimize the way you work.
Meeting with customers is one of my favorite parts of this job, especially when I can translate your requests into tangible products and features. Many of you have shared with us that you'd like the interchange of files between Pro Tools and Media Composer to be easier and faster, so we've been hard at work on that. We recently announced Pro Tools support for the Avid QuickTime DNxHD codec. This allows Media Composer editors using DNxHD material to export a QuickTime much faster (vs. converting to another codec), and also offers amazing picture quality and performance in Pro Tools. You can find more info about the codec here. Also, be on the lookout for performance improvements to the way Pro Tools deals with MXF files, and also optimizations for importing/exporting AAF sequences on ISIS.
Video Satellite is another exciting way that Pro Tools and Media Composer work together. We announced support for Mac Video Satellite back in September, and we're pleased to announce that the upcoming Symphony 5.0 adds support for Video Satellite with Symphony Nitris DX. Adding support for more configurations, and parity across operating systems, is another one of our top goals.
Lastly, many of you have reiterated to us how important it is to you that our products are 100% reliable, day in and day out. To that end, we’ve committed to putting out more frequent Pro Tools dot releases in order to get crucial fixes in your hands sooner. Pro Tools 8.0.3 included over 100 of your most requested fixes for things like field recorder workflows, Video Satellite, and Interplay. Expect another dot release very soon.
Enjoy NAB, and I hope to run into you on the show floor.
-Jordan