Avid’s updates continue now later in the week with announcement of an update to Avid DS, to 10.1.1. This update will add native RED support for RED’s proprietary .R3D file format. Since RED released their software development kit we have seen a lot of 3rd party vendors providing this kind of support and Avid’s DS is the latest. From this screen shot it looks like the DS will provide access to all of the parameters and options for R3D importing that you need:
I really like this little histogram thingy down in the corner. This update will provide Avid with an entire “one brand” RED finishing pipeline. That is offline edit in Avid Media Composer and then conform from native RED .R3D files in Avid DS… all under one brand. Yes you can stay all Apple with Final Cut Pro and Color but the DS is a very capable finishing tool that in the right hands can do a more complete job of final finishing, versioning and DI work than FCP ever dreamed. While it has been able to conform from DPXs for a while this new native RED option makes RED finishing easier.
I have to say that this wasn’t entirely unexpected. It makes total sense for the DS to support native RED .R3Ds since the DS is (first and foremost) a finishing tool. The real question is will Avid bring native RED support to Symphony since that is a finishing tool as well. And from there we are only a hop, skip and a jump to Media Composer. There have to be a lot of Symphony owners getting asked to finish RED project so they are turn have to be asking for native RED support. The DS is a good start.
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2 Comments
The problem with Symphony is not just a lack of red support. It is lacking so many other tools that it can only be considered a finishing system for a narrow scope of work. Sure it is great iif all you need are the same basic tools you had in offline, but the lack of good paint tools, color management, good tracking and a host of others really limit its usefulness. You would need to rewrite the entire app to take advantage of modern UI improvements such as node based compositing, scripting, effects applications etc. It needs to be reworked from the ground up before it can be called a complete finishing tool.
Avid Should consider to merge Symphony into Media Composer, that would give us one impressive and fast tool for editing.
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