Media Composer 2020.9 - Launched today

Location at Launch:  The new Avid Link 2020.9 is available to customers MyAvid Master Accounts, through the Avid Link application itself and from the Download Center.  

Status of Support Plan:  The ability to launch this Media Composer 2020.9 software is dependent on the status of a customer’s Upgrade and Support Plan on the date this software version is released. Media Composer 2020.9 is released on September 30th, 2020.

Media Composer Notes: 
  

•  MCDEV-11537. If you intend to use full-frame stereoscopic with an Avid Artist DNxIQ, you may want to remain with Media Composer v2018.12.x until the issues with Stereoscopic support are resolved in a future version.
• (MCCET- 2541) When working with Avid Artist DNxIO or Avid Artist DNxIQ, you should disable the Line In recording input (BlackMagic Audio in the Windows OS). 
• Avid recommends that you do not install Desktop Video software version 10.10.1 on Media Composer versions prior to v2018.5.1
• Avid Artist DNxIO and Avid Artist DNxIQ: If you are using Avid Artist DNxIO, Avid Artist DNxIQ, or a BlackMagic Designs video device, please update to Desktop Video software version v11.0 or higher. If you are using Avid Artist DNxIV and Avid Artist DNxIP please update to AJA software v15.2 or later.
  

When installing the Sentinel Driver,  check your System Preferences and select “Security and Privacy.” You may need to choose to Allow the driver to be accessed.

• Media Composer now includes a dnxmov2mxf executable in the \Program Files\Avid\Avid Media Composer\SupportingFiles\Utilities folder. This executable allows you to manually convert MOV files with DNX essence with separately stored alpha to an MXF OP1a file with DNX essence and embedded alpha. The tool is available for Windows, osX, and Linux. To run on Windows, Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015 or Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 is required. Run the command from a command prompt on Windows or from terminal on macOS.DNXMOV2MXF usage is:dnxmov2mxf path_to_mov [path_to_mxf]

Changed in Media Composer v2020.9

For details on new features, see the What’s New v2020.9 document.

In addition to the new features:

• Avid has made improvements when displaying Russian in the Media Composer application.
• Track solo and mute indicators (the S and M icons in the Timeline) are exchanged with AAF. Both the sending and receiving Media Composers must be v2020.9 or later for these track attributes to come across.
  

What’s Fixed in 2020.9:  The following has been fixed.

• Bug Number: MCCET-3701. Partially restored media from Archive did not relink to high resolution if Dynamic Relink was set to Highest Quality.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3661. You could not apply negative vertical offset in Grid Settings.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3730. When pressing Enter a second time after logging into MediaCentral you were logged out instead of opening the selected project.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3719. In some instances, the area for resizing a window was smaller than in previous releases making it more difficult to select the window for resizing.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3680. Timecode Burn-in effect did not always show Clip Notes.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3658. When working in a Japanese locale, Audio Format characters were corrupted in the OP1a-MXF Mixdown dialog,
• Bug Number: MCCET-3739. Media Composer used “Take” name for a filename even if the option was disabled when linking wave groups.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3713. In some instances, exporting XDCAM MXF HD using the Nablet plug-in, using Marks and filler mid sequence, resulted in bad MXF files.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3715. It was difficult to see what was highlighted or selected when trying to rename a clip in a bin.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3717. Transparency did not display properly in MOV ProRes 4444 media.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3741. You might have received a “Target sample is entirely past EOF” error when scrubbing or trimming partially restored media.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3462. You received Exception errors when closing a bin on a Read-only drive. Limitations7
• Bug Number: MCCET-3799. With Direct Audio Channel selected, performing a Send to Playback with Dynamic Relink enabled created an audio mixdown.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3789. Performing a batch export of h.264 XDCAM source media intermittently exported as audio only .mov clips.
• Bug Number: MCCET-3758. Media Composer crashed after enabling “Live Link” option and overwriting Alpha TIFF files multiple times.
  

• Photoshop PSD files are not supported for AMA linking if QuickTime is not installed.
• Some fonts, by their design, are available only in Bold. On the Mac system, it can happen that    selecting a font does not produce any visual changes. Try selecting “Bold.”
• If you launch a project and receive an “Enable 3rd Party Emulation” warning, even if you select Enable in the warning dialog, you should also perform the following: Select File > Settings and click the Project tab. Click General Settings and select “Enable Bin Sharing on 3rd party storage emulating Avid NEXIS/ISIS.
  

• Bug Number: MCDEV-12964. For a faster performance of export audio/video sequences to .mov in 2020.4, please render the sequence prior to export, or disable the GPU fx (in the Render Settings - Current menu)
• Bug Number: MCDEV-12735. Maestro graphics do not appear correctly in the Timeline if your system uses the Radeon video card.
• Bug Number: DEFI-1808. (Media Composer | Distributed Processing) Two clips or sequences will always be created when performing a consolidate or transcode with Media Composer | Distributed Processing.
• Bug Number: MCDEV-11481. Promoting a title from the Title Tool application to Avid Titler+ cannot be performed if it includes a motion adapter.
  
• Bug Number: MCCET-11796. Larger than 10 bit DPX files might fail to link correctly.Workaround: Go to File > Settings and click the User tab. In the Link Settings, click the Link Options tab and make sure Alpha Channel is set to Ignore.
• Bug Number: MCDEV-11430. Media Tool ignores the “Current project” filtering option and lists media files that are not associated with the current project.
  
• Bug Number: MCDEV-11197. In some instances, the Interleave option might not appear in the Export As dialog box. If you are performing an Export using the Avid Media Processor, the Interleave option should appear when you choose Stereo, 5:1, or 7.1 Audio.Workaround: If it does not appear, briefly toggle back to the Mono setting, then toggle to Stereo Mix once again. Doing so should reveal the Interleave option.
• Bug Number: MCDEV-8641. (AMD Graphics). Systems with AMD graphics cards might display tearing when performing Full Screen playback.
• Bug Number: MCDEV-9269. (Media Composer | Cloud) After performing a remote download operation on a sequence containing AVC-I 100 remote media, the downloaded media appears as XAVC-I 100. Workaround: Download the entire master clips.
  

ReadMe:   The new ReadMe has been uploaded to the Knowledge Base Media Composer 2020 Documentation page at launch.

2020.9 seems a little more responsive than previous 2020.x versions. For example when I set a long render going, I often like to move the render status from one screen to the other so I can do other stuff on my primary screen. In older versions I'd have to hold the mouse button down for several seconds on the status window before it'd start moving, but on 2020.9 it picks up and moves immediately. Not a huge game-changer, but still cool to me.

In this version, for me, the Titler+ popup tool windows are appearing where I set them.

"Find and Replace" and profiles for "Bulk Edit" are great additions! Very happy about these. Will save me a lot of time.

Got a bizarre one with this version. Overall everything seems to work ok, but on two of our systems we've installed it on we're experiencing issues that not everything renders.
ie baselight and sapphire, or even an image resize.

You mark in/out goto render all, and avid tells you how many effects to render say 10, then you click ok, and it goes back to the timeline and doesnt render them.

EDIT

Playing around abit more. Using the render effect icon on the timeline tools, we get the error msg, PMM_MISMATCH_MEDIA_WRONG_FORMAT

The media is just a simple mp4 1080 30p clip

Uninstalling and reinstalling 2020.6 everything is fine. So something is up with this version.

+1

same here: transition between linked clips UHD 25p. The same clips transcoded everything is fine.

best regards

Klaus-Dieter

Not much negative feedback or bugs reports on 2020.9 here, can we consider it a "mature version"?

pierreh:

Not much negative feedback or bugs reports on 2020.9 here, can we consider it a "mature version"?

There's a bug with FrameFlex (again) when using rotation. Workaround is to Disable GPU effects.
Some people reported problems with rendering but I couldn't replicate this on our systems.

Does this new version fix the avid import issues for mov, mp4 and other standard files (h264)?

Ryan:

Does this new version fix the avid import issues for mov, mp4 and other standard files (h264)?

If you mean the problems importing on Catalina-based Mac systems, no. If you mean something else, can you be more specific?

Yes for Catalina. Most new syetsm have Catalina only. When will this be fixed? Mac os Big Sur is comming out soon.

Hope Avid is prepaied for that and thew new apple silicon.

Big sur?Ha!  we barely just got Catalina support and the features are crippled. 

Avid Media Composer 2020.9 Windows 10.

In the mixer, when klicking Track solo 90% of the time Avid will freeze and you have to force-close Avid.

This never happend with the earlier version.

Avid needs to be repaired as more big changes are comming. Hope they are testing the new systems with apple to move ahead 

Rob Gold:

Avid Media Composer 2020.9 Windows 10.

In the mixer, when klicking Track solo 90% of the time Avid will freeze and you have to force-close Avid.

This never happend with the earlier version.

Rob

trying to get a case created for this so we can bug bust it but I dont see any account tied to you.  Can you email me the company that the system is under and I can do that for you. I have your email but it isnt tied to the account and you.

Marianna