Avid used the first press conference of the 2014 NAB Show to announce that the NBC show, The Voice, has deployed a number of Avid products and to show off a number of new technologies.
The NBC show is using Avid workflows to enhance collaboration, streamline its production processes and better handle media assets, themes that were also important in a number of the new products the vendor will be showing at this year’s NAB.
Last year at NAB, Avid announced its Avid Everywhere strategic vision for the media and entertainment industry and this year, the company rolled out a number of products to build on that vision.
These included the new Avid MediaCentral Platform that is designed to be the foundation for all its products and workflows.
“The media industry is going through a period of unprecedented change and needs a leader to step forward with a clear vision for the future,” stated Avid president and CEO Louis Hernandez, Jr. in a statement. “Our Avid Everywhere vision uniquely solves the key issues facing the industry. By getting on the Avid MediaCentral Platform today, broadcast, video, and audio customers can strategically address both their current and future needs, with complete choice over how, when, and where they deploy and scale their solutions.”
Avid also announced it has reorganized its existing hardware and software products into three suites of products built on the MediaCentral Platform.
In addition it announced greater flexibility in the way those applications can be deployed, with on-premises and cloud-enabled options, and in the way these applications can be purchased with subscription, floating, and perpetual licensing options.
The three suites are the Artist Suite, which encompasses all of the products and tools used to create content, the Media Suite, which includes all of the tools and services used to manage, protect, distribute, and monetize media, and Storage Suite, which covers all of the products and tools used to capture, store, and deliver media.
Avid launched new products in all three suites.
In the Artist suite, new products included Media Composer Cloud, which allows editors to connect to Interplay Production systems remotely and access, edit, and collaborate with others as if they were in the same location.
Within the Media Suite, Avid unveiled Media Director, a media ingest module that automates the process of ingesting media into production and nearline storage; Media Distribute, which allow users to create content once and deliver it to multiple platforms; and Media Index, which improves collaboration by enabling customers to search for and move media across multiple Interplay Production databases.
The features in the Storage Suite include 4K support and the new ISIS 2500 nearline shared storage system.
Avid also announced that over 1,000 broadcast, pro video, and pro audio professionals from 43 countries attended its inaugural customer event, Avid Connect at the start of NAB on April 5th.
