Announces Audio Control Surface, New Customer Association

Avid said the new ISIS 5500, the successor to its ISIS 5000 online shared-storage system, would double its predecessor's maximum capacity to 64 TB at the same price point, supporting up to 90 editors on Avid Media Composer, Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, and Apple Final Cut Pro 7 connected concurrently. With six ISIS Engines working together, that makes a maximum of 384 TB of raw storage (about 300 TB with RAID 5 protection) with 1.8 GB/second of bandwidth in one ISIS installation. 

The new ISIS 4.5 software offers real-time editing and sharing of ISIS media using Red Hat Linux 6.2 compatible applications, connectivity to online and nearline storage via Windows 8 clients, and up to 8 million files, 5,000 user accounts, and 1,000 user groups on the ISIS 5500. And, as always, the ISIS is designed for tight integration with Avid's Media Composer as well as Avid Interplay asset management and the Avid AirSpeed ingest and playout server.

The ISIS 5500 is scheduled to ship later this month with pricing starting at $27,000. It's available in 16 TB, 32 TB, or 64 TB versions.

In other news from IBC, Avid announced the S6 control surface for Pro Tools and other EUCON-enabled digital audio workstations as well as editing applications including Avid Media Composer 5.5 and higher and Apple Final Cut Pro 7. Highly customizable due to a new modular design, the S6 can be purchased in preconfigured versions with required fabers and knobs already provided. A touch screen allows access to plug-ins, large track counts, surround panning, and other features, while the system also uses top-lit status knobs and high-resolution OLEDs as operational indicators. The S6 allows a user to work on up to eight audio workstations simultaneously via Ethernet.

The pre-configured M10 configuration (offering between eight and 24 faders with five knobs per channel) starts at $21,995 while the pre-configured M40 configuration (featuring TFT displays and offering from 16 to 32 faders and either five or nine knobs per channel) is priced from $43,480.

And Avid tapped the broadcast industry to create a new Avid Customer Association (ACA), with an Executive Board including executives from ZDF German Television, CBC/Radio-Canada, CBS News, CCTV in China, and ITV in the U.K. Avid said the new organization was meant to encourage collaboration and leadership in the industry. The first major event for the ACA will be a two-day event in Las Vegas on April 4 and 5, 2014, just before NAB.