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FCC orders Avid Telecom to stop health insurance-related robocalls
The Federal Communications Commission has issued a cease and desist letter to Avid Telecom, the same company sued by nearly all Attorneys General in the US for alleged robocall activities.
Pro Tools is now only available as a subscription service
There are three plans, starting at $10 per month or $99 per year.
How Arturia made its music-making software more accessible
Arturia talked to Engadget about how it developed the new Accessibility Mode it's launching in Analog Lab V today.
Hollywood's favorite video-editing tools arrive in a free app
If you're serious about video editing and are weighing up your software options, two choices usually pop up: Adobe Premiere Pro CC and Final Cut Pro X (FCPX). But Avid, Hollywood's go-to editing company, just played a wild card by releasing Media Composer First, a limited version of its pro software, for the hard-to-resist price of "free." I'm well-acquainted with Avid and have used Premiere Pro and Final Cut Pro since they launched. I was excited to try out MC First to figure out if I'd recommend it, and the answer is a qualified yes -- I like it, but it's not for everyone.
The music industry's best-known production app will soon be free
You've probably heard the output of Avid's Pro Tools audio production software, even if you don't know what it's like -- it's virtually a staple of the music industry, and spawned now-famous (or infamous) effects like Auto Tune. There hasn't been a cheap way to try it for nearly 15 years, however, so it's not exactly practical for crafting songs in your basement. Thankfully, Avid's about to lower the barriers to entry. It recently unveiled Pro Tools First, a free version that lets you get your feet wet. It includes a "subset" of the usual features (you're mainly missing extra tracks, score editing and video playback), but it otherwise behaves like the paid version. You won't have to relearn anything if you hit the big time and start using the full software.
Daily Update for April 8, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Avid announces two iOS-compatible audio interfaces at NAB
Avid announced a pair of iOS-compatible audio interfaces at NAB today. The Avid Fast Track Solo (US$179) and Fast Track Duo ($299) connect directly to the iPad to provide high-quality I/O for iOS apps that support recording, and also include licenses of Pro Tools Express for Mac and PC. The Solo provides a mic preamp and instrument input, while the Duo (image at top of post) includes dual mic preamps / instrument inputs as well as line-level inputs. The Fast Track line is designed for mobile and studio applications, and does not require an iPad Camera Connection kit to attach to an iPad. More information about the Fast Track Solo and Duo can be found on Avid's website and in the press release below. Show full PR text Avid Fast Track Solo and Duo Bring Professional Quality to Mobile Recording with First iOS-Compatible Avid Interfaces LAS VEGAS, NV, April 7, 2013 , 2013-04-07 Mobile audio interfaces pair with Avid Pro ToolsExpress for versatile, high-quality music and audio creation NAB (Booth #SU902), LAS VEGAS, NV, April 7, 2013 –- Avid® (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced two new portable audio interfaces for composing and recording high-quality music - Avid Fast Track® Solo and Fast Track Duo. Both interfaces feature a robust industrial design, include Pro Tools® Express software for Mac and PC, and connect directly to the iPad®, providing high-quality I/O for supported iOS apps. Designed for musicians, students, and aspiring professionals, Fast Track Solo and Duo offer easy entry into the Pro Tools family. Key features include: Pro Tools Express software Provides many of the same tools and features used in commercial recording studios. Records up to 16 stereo audio tracks and offers full MIDI editing and notation tools. Includes high-quality virtual instruments and effects for creating the best sounding work. Facilitates time, tempo and pitch adjustments with Elastic Time and Elastic Pitch. Users get session compatibility with Pro Tools and Pro Tools HD systems. Fast Track Solo and Duo hardware Provides ideal form factor for home, studio, and mobile applications. Features a rugged metal chassis and reinforced controls and jacks, offering protection against physical damage. Enables the capture of two sources simultaneously at 24-bit, 48 kHz resolution with high-quality mic preamps and inputs: Fast Track Solo includes one mic preamp and one instrument input. Fast Track Duo includes two mic preamps/instrument inputs and two line inputs. Allows direct monitoring while recording without latency. Enables users to create anywhere on Mac or PC with the Bus-powered USB port. Allows direct iPad connection with tablet port - No iPad Camera Connection Kit needed. "Today's aspiring songwriters and musicians want a high-quality, affordable recording solution that's portable enough to let them create wherever they are," said Dana Ruzicka, vice president of Segment and Product Marketing at Avid. "Providing access to the industry-standard Pro Tools family, Fast Track Solo and Duo deliver this capability like nothing else on the market today." Availability & Pricing Fast Track Solo and Duo are available now at Avid resellers and will be available soon in the online Avid Store. For more information, click here. Pricing is as follows: Fast Track Solo-$179 USD Fast Track Duo-$299 USD
Pro Tools 10.3.4 now available
Pro Tools has released version 10.3.4, which addresses a number of issues on the Mac. While many of the issues are minor, users will be happy to know that the company has resolved annoying bugs in the Edit window that were not resolved with 10.3.3. Users can see a complete list of fixes in this update in the ReadMe file here. Pro Tools is the industry-standard sound and audio production software made by Avid.
Avid Studio for iPad gets renamed, free on the App Store for a limited period of time
Avid Studio for iPad arrived back in February, priced to coax iPad filmmakers away from Apple's in-house iMovie. Since then, however, the company sold its consumer business arm to Corel, leading it to re-brand the package as Pinnacle Studio for iPad. The editing app has gained a bunch of features that users were clamoring for, including 1080p support, integrated uploads to Box and a raft of stability tweaks. As part of the change, it's being offered free for a limited time, so if you own an iPad (or plan on getting one in the future), we suggest you jump-cut to the App Store pretty quickly.
Avid Studio for iPad loses support, replaced with Pinnacle Studio
You might get a surprise when you open Avid Studio on the iPad today. A pop-up message advises users that the app won't get any more support. Users are urged to download Pinnacle Studio, a similar high-end editing app owned by Corel. The changes are a result of Corel buying the consumer line of Avid editing tools. Avid Studio was US$4.99, but Pinnacle Studio, at least for now, is free. The Avid app and new Pinnacle app are very powerful, with a great many features not contained in Apple's iMovie for iOS. The Pinnacle app allows the creation of projects containing video, audio and photos that can all be placed into the editing timeline. The app supports 16 transitions, title creation, and video compositing. Files can be shared via YouTube, Facebook, Box, Apple TV and more. Projects can be exported in 1080p to Pinnacle Studio which runs on a PC. Media can be imported using the iPad Camera Connection Kit. %Gallery-164072% I put together a quick movie using some media I already had on my iPad. The workflow is intuitive and the final output is of very high quality. With iMovie for iOS at US$4.99, Pinnacle Studio seems like a no brainer. So grab it while it's free and give it a try. The app is a 67 MB download and works on the iPad 2 and the latest iPad. It requires iOS 5.1 or greater.
Avid Studio rolls onto iPad, treads on iMovie's toes (video)
There may be a number of options for budding iPad Scorseses, now you can add Avid's "Studio" to that list. Conveniently launching at the same price as iMovie, Avid's intention to woo Apple's users is clear. Those five bucks get you a tidy storyboard solution, "precision" editing, the usual array of transitions and effects, plus multi-channel audio support (including access to your iTunes library). Video can be shot from the device itself, of course, and camera kit owners can import footage from your archives. The final results can then be rendered in either 480p, 540p and 720p or shared via the usual social options. Most importantly, projects can also be finished off in the desktop version -- handy, if they start getting into Titanic territory. It's available today, just focus your iPad at the app store (or the source link below).
Avid Studio takes iPad video editing to the next level (Updated)
Updated to clarify that Avid Media Composer is cross-platform. Avid Studio on the desktop is a Windows-only product. Take that, Apple! Avid has just released an iPad iMovie competitor called Avid Studio. The US$4.99 app is a scaled-down version of Avid's pro video editing tools. Avid Studio features a timeline and storyboard, plus some iPad-friendly gestures so you can scale images and videos. You can arrange your edits on the timeline for special effects like picture-in-picture.The app also offers 3D animations and transitions, and video tracks can be composited. Avid Studio lets you export a project to the Avid Studio app for the PC via iCloud, and you can share your finished project via YouTube, Facebook or email. Videos not shot with the iPad camera can be imported with the iPad Camera Connection Kit. The app is supposedly compatible with the iPad 1 (unlike Apple's iMovie), but iTunes reviews suggest that it is not stable on the older hardware. While Avid's new iPad app is clearly a consumer tool and not a pro video editor, it does show some commitment from the company to Apple's platforms, and may serve as a 'gateway drug' for pros who are considering the Avid suite as an alternative to Final Cut Pro X. The initial poor reception for the release of Final Cut Pro X for the Mac last summer, which dropped many features and angered several professional customers, has provided an opening for alternative products. Avid (and also Adobe, with its Premiere Pro product) stepped into the FCPX breach and offered discounts to FCPX users who wanted to switch to the pro products on the desktop. Avid's most basic desktop suite runs only on a Windows PC and costs $169, but the company's pro app Media Composer is hundreds (or thousands) of dollars more, and does run on the Mac. Final Cut Pro X is $299 and requires an App Store-friendly version of Mac OS X. Apple updated FCPX this week to bring back some features that were lost in the FCP7 to FCPX transition, but I think some video professionals and serious hobbyists feel the momentum is swinging away from Apple. [Award-winning editor Walter Murch isn't among the naysayers, at least not anymore. –Ed.] Avid Studio for iPad will be $4.99 during a 30-day introductory period, and $8.00 after that. The app is a 30 MB download, and requires an iPad running iOS 5.0 or greater. Apple offers its own iOS version of iMovie for $4.99, which has been generally well reviewed. %Gallery-146266%
Pro Tools beta adds Lion support
Pro Tools is the industry-standard audio creation and production software used in the music and entertainment industries. Traditionally, Pro Tools takes its sweet time to be updated to work on newer OSs, but today Avid has released a Pro Tools 9.0.5 beta, which adds support for OS X 10.7 Lion. Note, however, that even though Pro Tools 9.0.5 is officially qualified to work on Snow Leopard systems, that's not the case with Lion. Hence the "beta" status. If your livelihood depends on Pro Tools, you probably shouldn't upgrade your production workstations to Lion and version 9.0.5. If you intend to upgrade, note this warning and advice from Avid. When Lion is installed on a system with Pro Tools, the OS will disable some Pro Tool plug-ins. Given that, Avid recommends against updating a Snow Leopard workstation that already has Pro Tools installed. Instead they suggest Pro Tools users create a new partition on their hard drives, then install Lion from scratch, and then install Pro Tools 9.0.5. You can check out Avid's Read Me file on the matter here (PDF) and download the Pro Tools 9.0.5 update here. [via Loopinsight]
Avid offers $995 crossgrade to Media Composer for Final Cut users
Are you a Final Cut Studio user? Have you looked at Avid Media Composer and wished you could afford it? Regardless of whether you feel Media Composer is better or worse than Final Cut Pro, it's still a popular editing platform that brings not only prestige but also the potential to pick up more work from clients that want or need their editors to be using Avid. If you're in that camp, now might be the perfect time to add Media Composer to your toolbox. Until June 17, Avid is offering a staggering crossgrade deal to Final Cut Pro users: US$995 for the boxed version. While that may still seem expensive, it's a huge discount from the regular $2,495 price for the boxed edition (or $2,295 for download only).
Superchips turns an Archos into a vehicle interface, dubs it 'Vivid'
We've seen the awful, terrible, hideous things that an iPad can do to an otherwise respectable car interior, and now it's time to see what horrors Android can unleash. Superchips, makers of chips and flash units to summon a few extra ponies under the hood, has announced the creation of the Vivid "vehicle performance programmer" -- an Archos 43 Internet Tablet that's been... augmented with some software. Thanks to this, and a Bluetooth OBD-II module, the car can monitor car performance in real-time and display data while also acting as a G-meter and even a back-up camera. No word on what any of this will cost when it ships in early 2011, but those who already have a little Android buddy will be happy to know that a standalone Bluetooth dongle called the AVID will be releasing in the summertime, enabling all the same functionality without the need for another device. What'll we stuff in our headrests then?
Intel's Light Peak optical interconnect shrinks slightly, LaCie, WD, Compal and Avid begin prototyping
Intel's Light Peak isn't setting any new speed records at IDF 2010 -- it's still rated at 10Gbps for now -- but the optical data transfer system is finally looking like it might appear in some actual products. As you can see immediately above, a Light Peak to HDMI converter has shrunk considerably since May, and a number of optically-infused sample products were on display at Intel's Light Peak booth. Compal's got a laptop with the optical interconnect built in, while Western Digital showed an external hard drive, from which the Compal could pull and edit multimedia in real-time using a Light Peak-enabled Avid rackmount. Meanwhile, LaCie showed off what appeared to be a 4big Quadra RAID array with two Light Peak ports catapulting high-definition video content at 770MB/s to a nearby Samsung TV, though we should warn you that the TV itself was a bit of a hack job, and not a collaboration with Samsung -- note the big, honking EVGA video card sticking out of the back. Though obviously a good bit of work went into these prototypes, Intel reps told us none would necessarily become a reality. Either way, don't expect to see Light Peak products until sometime next year.
Hauppauge puts a fresh coat of paint on its newly-acquired PCTV tuners
It looks like it took a little longer than expected, but the sale of Avid's Pinnacle PCTV line of TV tuners to Hauppauge has finally gone through. The handoff certainly seems to be getting started on the right foot -- Hauppauge has already fired up the PCTV Systems brand as a separate entity to keep things moving nice and smoothly. The new company's webpage offers a cornucopia of tuners in USB, PCI and PCMCIA flavors, all brandishing a revamped but strangely familiar logo. The PCTV products certainly are right in line with Hauppauge's other offerings, but from the looks of things, the PCTV brand will get treated to a little more colorful and polished marketing.
Avid sells PCTV product line to Hauppauge Digital
Announced today, the Pinnacle PCTV line will soon be property of Hauppauge Digital, not Avid Technology. After laying off 410 employees and divesting its Softimage 3-D game animation software business last Friday, the company has announced yet another major move in its restructuring efforts. According to Avid CEO Gary Greenfield, he's hoping to transform Avid's business into one that "focuses on software applications that not only meet consumer demand, but also complement our broader portfolio of video and audio solutions." Even he confessed that "PCTV [was] a compelling standalone hardware product and a better fit for Hauppauge, a recognized leader in the TV-viewing hardware market." While financial terms weren't disclosed, the deal is slated to close before the end of 2008, and the happy new owner has already announced its intentions to continue supporting and developing both the hardware and software components of the PCTV line.
Is your Pioneer AVIC-F Series navigator acting up?
We aren't suggesting that these problems are widespread or anything, but a fair number of users over at AVIC411 seem to be having all sorts of issues with their (admittedly pricey) F-Series navigators. According to owners, the issues range from complete lock-ups to distorted voice commands to quirky iPod interactions -- and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Have any of you taken the plunge only to find a litany of problems after installation? Or is your unit humming along just fine? Chime in below and let us know what's up.
Avid's DNxHD codec approved for VC-3 standard
Avid has been working with the SMPTE organization for two years, and can finally announce that its DNxHD codec, intended for use in HD postproduction, has been approved as compliant with the newly created VC-3 standard. The upshot of this is a standard that can be used to work with and transfer high quality HD media at lower bitrates and file sizes, without being locked into just one hardware manufacturer. We'll have to wait and see who else adopts this standard, and what cost/time savings are to be had, but things are looking up for our art house production of Format War: The Tale of Two Brothers, Blue and Red.
