Every New Feature in Avid Media Composer 8.6

June 30, 2016
4 min read
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Every New Feature in Avid Media Composer 8.6

new features in Avid Media composer 8.6

Avid Media Composer 8.6 is now available to download and is the latest update to the software. In this short post you can learn all about those new features in a jiffy and pick up a few extra tips too.

The two main features of note are the new source browser window and the new audio ducking that automatically creates simple mixes in seconds. Of all the new features, this is the one that users of other NLE’s are likely to wish they had too.

You can check out the official ‘what’s new pdf’ from Avid over on the documentation site.

The rest of this post includes:

  • Avid’s most recent news (from NAB 2016) including their new NEXUS storage
  • a recap of the new features that came in the 8.5 update (Jan 2016) ICYMI

In this 20 minute tutorial from Kevin P. McAuliffe talks you through all the new features and how to use them. If you want to get up to speed in less than half of your lunch break, watch this. You can get a little write up on this from Kevin over on the Pro Video Coalition blog.

These handy little video tweets demonstrate each of the new features in 30 seconds or less. You can get more info on each of these over on Wim Van den Broeck’s Avid blog post about all the new features.

One feature that doesn’t get a little gif (for some reason) is that of the updated timecode generator which has been updated to allow clip comments to be seen onscreen during playback. Which will no doubt be handy, but just be careful what you write in your clip comments if you have this enabled.

Using Avid Shared Storage with Premiere Pro and FCPX

Avid NEXIS and Premiere Pro

In a surprising, but strategic move at NAB 2016 Avid announced the NEXIS storage system which is “the world’s first and only software defined storage system” which allows for everyone to share the same media on a network and work in whatever app they want. It also works in tandem with existing ISIS hardware so you don’t need to throw that out to use this new one.

Avid NEXIS will enable your creative team to collaborate in real-time, regardless of what type of media software you use. Thanks to the openness of Avid Everywhere, NEXIS works with all top media creation applications, including Media Composer, Pro Tools, Apple Final Cut Pro X, Adobe Premiere Pro, Grass Valley EDIUS, and many more.

All NEXIS systems are powered by the Avid NEXIS | FS file system, so you’ll experience the same consistent performance, reliability, and protection—regardless of the size of your network. It’s also the only scale-out storage solution lets you configure the system to give high priority projects more power. You can give critical projects maximum performance and throttling back on less critical workflows.

One of the main thrusts of Avid’s time at NAB was a new openness and expanding collaborative approach to working more intimately with other software applications like Baselight, Mocha Pro, Pro Tools and Premiere Pro. Check out the detailed article for more info on all of that.

https://vimeo.com/163340519

In this 5 minute summary from the Digital Cinema Society with Matt Feury you can get a high-level overview of Avid’s announcements at NAB 2016 and the evolution of the companies products that have led to the NEXUS storage system.

New Features in Avid Media Composer 8.5

The update to Avid Media Composer 8.5 came with a lot more new features than the 8.6 release has provided so just in case you weren’t aware of some of those features and improvements I thought I’d add them in here too.

For more details about all of these and the other new features in the 8.5 release check out the official Avid blog announcement here. If you’re scratching your head to remember all the new features that came in the 8.4 update check out this previous blog post.

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