Avid Media Composer 8.8

Avid are really pumping it out aren't they!?

MC 8.8 - Phrase Find is back

Avid's version 8 media Composer had been prolific to say the least. Version 7, which was a huge milestone, only saw a single release and never made it past 7.0.x, but v8.x has soldiered on and on. 8.0.x, 8.1.x, 8.2.x, 8.3.x, 8.4.x, 8.5.x, 8.6.x 8.7.x and now 8.8 which heralds the return of phrase find, at long last, and a nod to non Avid shared storage?

Most of these 8.x releases have had minor enhancements (OSX version support and Windows 10) and small features, but it was the release of 8.6 that saw the biggest change with the loss of the familiar menu structure and the tidy up into sub menus. The old AMA linking browser also got a refresh with the ability to scrub images in the browser rather then loading them into a bin.

There also a feature that has to mentioned here, which is also very significant and hasn't been mentioned all that much. 8.8 now has an option in the General Settings that allows you to allow Third parties that emulate Avid storage systems. To quote from the Whats New guide...

The editing application will notify you if your third party storage is emulating Avid NEXIS or Avid ISIS storage. Once you access a project connected to storage that is emulating Avid NEXIS or AVID ISIS storage, you will receive a message asking if you would like to enable bin sharing on your third party storage. Click Yes in the message to enable the bin sharing option in the General Settings.

This setting ensures that you are aware that the third party storage is currently capable of emulating Avid NEXIS/ISIS storage and is capable of supporting shared bins and projects as verified by the third party, not Avid. 

This is the first time I have ever seen Avid acknowledge that people are using MC with Third Party shared storage and more importantly, allow them to continue using it. As the system detects that you are using a non Avid shared storage system it is notifying you of this fact and that you may well get unpredictable performance as this is not a true Avid solution. I've not had chance to try this yet, but does this mean you no longer need the AllDrive command entered into the Console for the likes of such non Avid systems?

But I digress. NAB looms in April and Avid have long eluded to the idea that they will be dropping version numbers, so will we see the release of MC 9.0 or perhaps a more Adobe approach with a simple 'MediaComposer 2017' release?

From a support point of view there must be some form of version monitoring to allow versions (even Adobe still uses version  numbers) to be monitored and adjusted for bug fixes and OS versions etc, but this can be easily hidden away from the user.

I've lived through NuVista, ABVB, Meridien and Adrenaline, but this version has to be the most prolific, although I think it was the Meridien platform that saw releases up to version 12. That aside, is there a 8.9 still left in it?

Lets wait and see what happens in April!