Accelerate Your Video Editing
Edit projects faster and in ways you never thought possible. Media Composer 5.5 is now more open and interactive than ever, so you can work with practically any media format and expand your capabilities with options from Avid and third-party manufacturers. Media Composer goes where other video editing systems leave off. Edit the way you want, in real time, using full-featured, ACE-certified editorial and creative tools. Experience the fastest file-based workflows on Earth. Collaborate easily with video and audio editors. Get dependable, industry-proven media management. Save time, and money, with unique workflows and options. And more!



Media Composer 5.5 highlights

• Capture, monitor, and output with AJA Io Express
• Edit HDCAM SR Lite footage natively
• Accelerate AVC-Intra workflows with Nitris DX AVC-Intra
• Speed up editing and mixing with the Artist Series (watch the video)
• Find the right clips fast with PhraseFind (watch the video)
• Directly tweak transitions with the Smart Tool (watch the video)
• Gain better search capabilities
• Capture and monitor audio using Pro Tools hardware
• Work with audio more easily and creatively
• Fuel your creativity with the Production Suite

Matrox MXO2mini desktop / laptop bundle
The Matrox MXO2 Mini gives you all the features of a high-quality capture card and a breakout box in one very affordable little device. This special bundle comes complete with both a MATROX PCIe host adaptor and ExpressCard|34 adaptor.

For more information on the Matrox MXO2mini for Mac please click here, or for the MXO2mini for PC please click here

What’s new

Capture, monitor, and output video with support for the AJA Io Express interface

Natively access and edit Sony HDCAM SR Lite media through AMA (Avid Media Access)

Accelerate Panasonic AVC-Intra projects—and use multiple streams—with support for the new Nitris DX AVC-Intra hardware interface

Take hands-on control of your video and audio editing/mixing with EUCON support for Artist Control, Artist Mix, and Artist Transport control surfaces (watch the video)

Find the right clips fast with support for the new PhraseFind option (watch the video)

Directly manipulate transitions in the timeline with the expanded Smart Tool (watch the video)

Be more creative with updates to production suite (watch the video)

Quickly find files across local and shared storage bins using the improved Find tool

Capture and monitor audio in Media Composer projects using Pro Tools hardware

Specify audio track formats during import or through AMA, and expand your creative palette with 20 included AIR effects plug-ins

Be more creative with new updates to the included Production Suite (sold separately from download purchases)

Get more flexibility with audio signal routing when sending material to air (Send to Playback), with up to 16 audio output channels

View portions of the software interface in localized languages, including Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Korean, French, Spanish, German, and Italian

Get better Long GOP performance when using Send to Playback with AirSpeed servers

Use proxies of H.264 material in AirSpeed MultiStream environments for faster response time and increased stream counts

New format support with Matrox MX02 Mini now includes SD 23.976, 720p 23.98, 1080p 23.98, 1080p 24, 1080p 25, and 1080p 29.97 as well as the ability to select PsF or true P output in 1080p modes. Also MX02 Mini with Max acceleration has been qualified on Mac OS systems.

Capture, monitor, and output with AJA Io Express
Expand your audio and video capabilities with the popular, newly supported AJA Io Express interface. For those who don’t need the extra power provided by Avid Mojo DX and Nitris DX accelerated hardware, Io Express gives you video I/O capabilities in a more cost-effective solution.

Edit HDCAM SR Lite footage natively
With new AMA (Avid Media Access) support for the Sony HDCAM SR Lite codec, you can directly access the media and all associated metadata—without transcoding—to get a jump-start on editing and selecting suitable clips.

Accelerate AVC-Intra workflows with Nitris DX AVC-Intra
If you work with processor-intensive Panasonic AVC-Intra material, you can get real-time multi-stream playback and speed up your workflow with support for the new Avid Nitris DX AVC-Intra interface, which features built-in AVC-Intra encoding. Anyone working with this popular format will benefit from vastly superior performance using Nitris DX AVC-Intra.

Speed up editing and mixing with the Artist Series
Take full hands-on control over most video and audio editing and mixing functions with built-in EUCON support for Artist Control, Artist Mix, and Artist Transport control surfaces. With highly responsive tactile controls, unrivalled software interactivity, and programmable Soft Keys that enable you to perform complex functions with just one touch, you’ll never go back to editing with just a keyboard and mouse again.

Find the right clips fast with PhraseFind
Find video clips based on a spoken word or phrase with Avid PhraseFind, powered by Nexidia, a new Avid software option for Media Composer 5.5, Symphony 5.5, and NewsCutter 9.5. PhraseFind combines audio indexing with dialog search, so you can quickly find the right takes by typing a few words, or pull up every clip containing a certain word to edit dialog. All this from right within Media Composer, so you’ll be able to spend more time refining your edits instead of importing results or digging through bins.

Directly tweak transitions with the Smart Tool
Forget having to adjust transitions in the Quick Transitions dialog or Effects Editor. You can now manipulate transitions directly in the timeline with your mouse and the expanded Smart Tool. When enabled, simply grab one of the two handles to alter the span of the effect in the timeline, or grab the centre to change the transition’s position in your edit.

Gain better search capabilities
With the improved Find tool, you can quickly and easily find what you need by searching through clips, sequences, script text, the timeline, and monitors. You can even search for material in bins on local and shared storage.

Enhance your audio
Work with audio in more ways than ever before. Record high-quality voiceovers and overdubs in Media Composer and monitor your work using Pro Tools hardware, including the third generation Mbox family, Pro Tools|HD, and Pro Tools|HD Native (note: video hardware must be disabled/disconnected in this application – Mojo SDI and Matrox MX02 Mini users can toggle between video and hardware using the “1394” button). Specify audio track formats (up to 16 audio channels) before bringing them into your project, either in the Import Settings or AMA Settings dialog. And expand your audio sweetening palette with 20 new RTAS plug-in effects by AIR (the same ones included in Pro Tools).

Fuel your creativity with the Production Suite
With updates to the Production Suite, included in all boxed versions of Media Composer, you can create stunning video effects, graphics, music, and more, and deliver content for web or disc play. This updated collection includes Boris Continuum Complete 7, Sorenson Squeeze 6.0.4, Avid FX 5.8.3, SmartSound SonicFire Pro 5.5.2, and Avid DVD 6.1.1

For optimal performance and reliability, be sure that your computer or laptop meets the following minimum system requirements.

Important: Avid dedicates a significant amount of engineering resources and time to test and qualify specific platform configurations. Please note that Avid cannot provide support should you choose to use a non-qualified system.

Windows

• Computer: Avid-qualified Windows-based computer or laptop* (see details)
• OS: Windows 7 Professional (64-bit), Windows XP Professional SP3 (32-bit), Windows Vista Business SP2 (64-bit), Windows Vista Ultimate SP2 (64-bit)
• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz processor or faster
• Memory: 4 GB of RAM (6 GB of RAM recommended for Windows 7 and Windows Vista)
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA Quadro FX family** (FX 560 or higher)
• Internal Hard Drive: Minimum 80 GB 7200 rpm hard disk
• Optical Drive: DVD drive for disc-based software installation
  * Uncompressed video on laptops is limited to one stream of uncompressed SD video, except for Windows-based Intel Core i7 laptops (Quad Core with Hyper-Threading) with eSata external storage, which can play multiple streams of 1:1 uncompressed SD
  ** NVIDIA cards are recommended; full-screen playback requires a minimum of 128 MB of graphics memory.

Mac

• Computer: Avid-qualified Mac-based computer or laptop* (see details)
• OS: Mac OS X 10.6.5/10.6.6 (Snow Leopard)
• Processor: Intel Dual or Intel Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon processor or faster, or Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz processor or faster (laptops)
• Memory: 4 GB of RAM
• Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce family** or ATI Radeon family (as supported by Apple)
• Internal Hard Drive: Minimum 80 GB 7200 rpm hard disk
• Optical Drive: DVD drive for disc-based software installation
  *Uncompressed video on laptops is limited to one stream of uncompressed SD video, except for Windows-based Intel Core i7 laptops (Quad Core with Hyper-Threading) with eSata external storage, which can play multiple streams of 1:1 uncompressed SD
  **Full-screen playback requires a minimum of 128 MB of graphics memory.