Avid to release DS 11, which should increase your productivity

A few weeks ago, Avid announced they were getting out of the consumer business to mainly concentrate on the professional post-production marketplace, which has always been their biggest strength.

Good on their word, today the company announces the arrival of Avid DS 11, which is their high-end editing, graphics, color grading and compositing solution. Formerly known as Avid DS Nitris (the ‘DS’standing for ‘Digital Studio’), DS 11 features better hands-on color correction with Avid Artist Color integration, additional file format and hardware support, 16 channels of embedded audio, better integration with Media Composer 6 and Symphony 6, and more.

Here’s an expanded look at what’s new with DS 11…

Avid Artist Color and Avid Artist Transport Integration: Offers greater hands-on precision and the ability to speed up color correction, grading, editing, and navigation with support for Artist Color and Artist Transport control surfaces. These surfaces are now supported across all Avid professional video editing products.

Resolution Independent Canvas: Allows editors to customize the size for source generators and visual effects, saving time and improving quality for high resolution graphics creation.

Blending modes in timeline: Accelerates workflows by blending operations directly on the timeline to single or multiple clips or containers.

Long-GOP Support: Enables editors to connect to and play Long-GOP MXF essence (such as from XDCAM) when conforming from Media Composer or Symphony, eliminating transcoding time.

Avid DNxHD® 444: Allows users to edit high-resolution media in real time—in master quality—using the high-quality compressed Avid DNxHD 444 codec.

HDR File Support: Enables use of HDR imagery in projects with support for the Open EXR and TIFF DCDM format

16 Channels Embedded SDI Audio: Enables bigger, richer audio mixes with capture and output up to 16 channels of audio (up from 8) or send up to 16 channels of audio through AFE from Media Composer.

RED SDK: Enhances flexibility with support for RED EPIC and SCARLET camera footage.

You can also purchase DS 11 as a turnkey hardware/software package.

Media Composer 6/Symphony 6 Conform: Speeds workflows with the ability to send high-resolution 2D sequences to Avid DS directly from Media Composer 6 or Symphony 6. In addition, DS 11 integrates with the latest version of Avid Interplay® and Avid ISIS® shared storage systems to simultaneously access and share media.

Third-party hardware support: Supports KONA 3G hardware, as well as any hardware supported by Media Composer and Symphony.

Avid DS 11 is available now and pricing starts at $9,999 for pro licenses. Each copy comes with Media Composer 6 as well. For an additional cost, DS 11 can be bought as a turnkey hardware/software system as well.

For more information, please visit www.avid.com.