From Chris Bove at Avid:
https://community.avid.com/forums/t/209222.aspx
Chris Bové: Hi everyone. There's a change that is going to be happening soon that I'd like to discuss with you all. As of September 29, 2023, all Media Composer installers pre-dating Media Composer 2023.8 will no longer be available for download from our download center or as links in individual MyAvid products. We will be adding maintenance versions for version 2022.12.x and version 2021.12.x which will be made available in the download center soon. However, our ability to host versions that are no longer technically under support is going away. Now, please understand that the only thing we are changing here is our hosting of the installer files on our website. That's it. No licensing/activation changes are being made with this to either your perpetuals or subscriptions. No operational changes to your existing installed versions will happen. We're just changing the hosting of older installers in the Download Center. You are perfectly welcome to go to our download center any time before the end of September and download the installers yourself. (Link below.) I personally have been doing this for years - ever since Avid stopped shipping DVD installation disks. Keeping installers for older versions is a long-time workflow that many editors and assistants have been doing for obvious reasons. (One of those reasons for older versions is to make sure that when deciding to update to the latest version, to first use the older version's uninstaller that it came with.) Many of you will remember Avid doing this before - which is why you currently see the older versions only going back to MC 5.5. So, if you are running older versions, please go download the installer file(s) from the Download Center or from your MyAvid account's My Products tab. Keep them on a drive for as long as you'd like. You've got plenty of time to do so between now and September 29, 2023. Tell your friends. Tell your colleagues and facility managers. This way, if you or they ever need to re-install the Media Composer app, you can do so locally. Link to Download Center: https://my.avid.com/esd/Product/Information/7
Hi everyone. There's a change that is going to be happening soon that I'd like to discuss with you all.
As of September 29, 2023, all Media Composer installers pre-dating Media Composer 2023.8 will no longer be available for download from our download center or as links in individual MyAvid products. We will be adding maintenance versions for version 2022.12.x and version 2021.12.x which will be made available in the download center soon. However, our ability to host versions that are no longer technically under support is going away.
Now, please understand that the only thing we are changing here is our hosting of the installer files on our website. That's it. No licensing/activation changes are being made with this to either your perpetuals or subscriptions. No operational changes to your existing installed versions will happen. We're just changing the hosting of older installers in the Download Center. You are perfectly welcome to go to our download center any time before the end of September and download the installers yourself. (Link below.)
I personally have been doing this for years - ever since Avid stopped shipping DVD installation disks. Keeping installers for older versions is a long-time workflow that many editors and assistants have been doing for obvious reasons. (One of those reasons for older versions is to make sure that when deciding to update to the latest version, to first use the older version's uninstaller that it came with.) Many of you will remember Avid doing this before - which is why you currently see the older versions only going back to MC 5.5.
So, if you are running older versions, please go download the installer file(s) from the Download Center or from your MyAvid account's My Products tab. Keep them on a drive for as long as you'd like. You've got plenty of time to do so between now and September 29, 2023. Tell your friends. Tell your colleagues and facility managers. This way, if you or they ever need to re-install the Media Composer app, you can do so locally.
Link to Download Center: https://my.avid.com/esd/Product/Information/7
"There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who only consider the price are this man's lawful prey." - John Ruskin (1819-1900)
Carl Amoscato | Freelance Film & Video Editor | London, UK
So despite all the posts in the last day saying 2023.8 is buggy and a lengthy post about how the AI stuff is basically beta testing on their users, we will only have access to that version through official channels? What happens when someone downloads an older version and it's corrupt but they don't realise until they need to install it? What happens if the drive storing everything dies? What is the sense of removing access to these versions? Like what's the actual point?
Andi
There will be 3 specific versions available. 2021.12.102022.12.52023.8
That will cause so many problems for so many people. Seems like a terrible decision.
Ultimate 2022.12.1, Blackmagic Intensity Pro, WIN 11 on 7000Mbps M.2 SSD, Nvidia Quadro P4000, Asus Pro Art Z690 i9 12900k 5.0 GHz, 8TB M.2 SSD - its nippy!
So, let me understand this...
1) I have a problem with the latest version
2) I ring support (for which I've paid the yearly fee)
3) They tell me it's a bug with the version I have and to go back to version xxxx.xx
4) I say "fine, can you send me a copy?"
5) They say " Did you not download every version of Media Composer beforehand?"
6) I say " Well, no ... why would I do that?"
5) They say "Sorry, you'll have to go and find it yourself. Have a good day"
It would help to understand the Logic behind this...
Using MC 23.12. Win 22H2 Avid FX6.4, Vegas Pro 20/ DVD Architect 6pro, DVDit6.4proHD, CCE Basic, TmpGe Express4, TmpGe Authoring Works 4, DVDLab-Studio. Sony EX-1R, Canon XH-A1, GL2, GL1, Canon EOS 60D
From the FAQ...
Changing the technological foundation of these products to enhance their capabilities required us to remove the previous code for ScriptSync and PhraseFind from Media Composer.
Please note that as of September 29, 2023, all Media Composer builds pre-dating 2023.8 will no longer be available for download. The only versions available from Avid will be 2023.8, and the most recent long-term maintenance releases of 2022.12.5 and 2021.12.10.
Freelance Film Editor | Technical Expert @ Avid
[email protected]
My Equipment & System Specs
Unbelievable - please reconsider even if that means putting the legacy versions on a low-bandwidth archive server hosted by an arms-length 3rd party. As Avid continues to lose market share, decisions like this simply push people away. Very disappointed.
Steve
______________________
www.nelliedogstudios.com
Enuf with the pearl clutching, folks. Just go download the old versions and play around with outdated software..
Unbelieveable.....its as if the world itself were ending.....you have a month to download the software...go for it.
If YOU want to host the old versions on a server somewhere....pay for it and be a happy camper....let us know how many people actually need this old software.
Robert Martindale: Enuf with the pearl clutching, folks. Just go download the old versions and play around with outdated software.. Unbelieveable.....its as if the world itself were ending.....you have a month to download the software...go for it. If YOU want to host the old versions on a server somewhere....pay for it and be a happy camper....let us know how many people actually need this old software.
Of course, that's what I did (downloaded many versions) and I'm sure that will be good enough. I understand that this has to do with licensing the legacy technology for script sync and phrase find. As you point out, it's not a huge issue for most users as long as they have a heads up (many will only discover this issue when they try to download an older version after the end of September 2023, though).
"Pearl clutching"? Yeah - well, many folks are walking away from Avid - probably not for this reason alone, but it is a consistent tone that gives people pause. For example, as of 2023.8, support for FireWire has been discontinued. Did you know that under the hood that also means that support for import of M2T (HDV) material is also no longer supported? Another 'little' thing that will make a small segment of users lives a little more difficult. Straw... Camel.
And for a company that spends a lot of time touting how one of it's big strengths is their commitment to backwards compatibility, taking away every version of Media Composer that ever existed isn't really a good look.
Recently I needed to install an older version of Adobe Illustrator and After Effects on my machine - the hassle I had to go through to find installers that would work on my OS was immense. Literally getting grilled by their support staff about why I needed these versions after spending way too long messing about with their automated AI support assistant and finally receiving a download link. Waste of everyone's time. What would have been really useful would have been some kind of online archive of all past versions that I could just easily download... sound familiar?
Fair enough....M2T files can be flipped by Shutter Encoder into a file MC can see. Problem solved.
Firewire? Does anybody even know what that is anymore?
AVID had export to XDCAM for years and Premiere wanted $1000 US for the version of Premiere that would do that.
Times change and companies have to make decisions where their development and support money will go.
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