April 17, 2005

AVID UNVEILS SYMPHONY NITRIS

LAS VEGAS - Avid is at NAB with a number of new products, as well as new pricing for its Xpress line of tools.

The newest member of Avid's DNA product family is Avid Symphony Nitris. The system offers the editing familiarity of the company's Media Composer, along with Symphony's finishing experience, and DNA acceleration to provide realtime editing and effects for multi-stream, 10-bit HD and SD media. The system offers realtime primary color correction, plus realtime secondary color correct, realtime titling, and universal mastering capabilities for any format around the world. It's priced at $89,995 with storage.

The Avid Xpress Studio HD package includes five applications, all of which experienced upgrades: Xpress Pro HD (now offers realtime multicam); Pro Tools LE; Avid FX (now HD); Avid 3D (with new animation and modeling tools); and Avid DVD by Sonic (with new backgrounds and menu graphics).

Pricing has also come down: Xpress DV is $495, Xpress Pro HD is $1,695; Xpress Pro Power Pack is $2,494; Xpress Studio HD Essentials is $3,495; and Xpress Studio HD Complete is $5,995.,p> Native HD editing is being shown at booth and will be available later this year.

On the broadcast editing side, Avid introduced iNews Instinct, a compositing tool for creating news stories with text and video footage without the need for journalists to learn traditional NLEs.