$699 NLE Adds 10-bit Processing, .R3D and EOS .mov Support, Plus Stereo 3D

Grass Valley today shipped version 6.5 of its Edius Pro NLE, putting its best foot forward in a crowded market that already has Apple Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer 6, and Adobe CS6 duking it out for the hearts and minds of editors.

The latest rev of Edius adds 10-bit color-correction; alpha-channel export; support for native .r3d, EOS .mov, QuickTime HQ and HQX, and AVCHD 2.0; stereo 3D editing; built-in image stabilization, and 720p Blu-ray authoring. Grass Valley's 3D-compatible Storm 3G editing hardware is now supported from the timeline, and Grass Valley also sells Edius Elite, which is tightly integrated with the Grass Valley K2 Summit 3G server and Stratus media workflow application framework.

Be aware that Edius runs on 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7, but not Windows XP or Vista. There is no Mac OS version, but Grass Valley has certified Edius running in Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop 7.

Edius 6.5 sells for $699, and an upgrade from v6.0 is $299. (Unfortunately, your plug-ins won't work — vendors will have to update their plug-ins.)

Edius users are a relatively small but loyal bunch. You can take Edius Pro 6.5 for a spin by downloading a 31-day trial version at the Grass Valley website.