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Is This the Suite for the DV Producer?
Avid brought advanced editing features to the television and feature film market. The DV format lowered costs and democratized the industry with a direct impact on many technology leaders. Avid responded with Avid Xpress DV and, soon thereafter, Avid Xpress Pro; and as the market has grown and matured, so have Avid's offerings. In late June, Avid started to ship the new Avid Xpress Studio, a suite of applications designed to deliver maximum bang for the buck in this hot market sector.
Avid Xpress Studio combines five applications into a single package: Avid Xpress Pro, Avid Pro Tools LE, Avid FX, Avid 3D and Avid DVD. Even more bundled software rounds out the suite, including Sonic Fire Pro fer soundtrack creation and looping, and Sorenson Squeeze to encode files for Web, CD-ROM (including Windows Media 9 HD support) and DVD.
There is hardware, too. Avid Xpress Studio Essentials comes with the Digidesign Mbox dual-channel audio interface. Mbox features two Focusrite mic preamps and can take in mic or line audio. If you opt for Avid Xpress Studio Complete, you get the Avid Mojo Digital Nonlinear Accelerator for video I/O, and the Mbox is swapped for Digidesign's Digi 002 control surface. The Digi 002 also functions as a standalone mixer, with four mic or eight analog line inputs, analog outputs and MIDI and S/DIF (digital) I/O.
Is studio Right for You?
Avid sees the intended market for Xpress Studio as the small business video professional working primarily in the DV format. Many of these owners are "one-man binds," without didicated audio or graphics departments, so Avid Xpress Studio gives them all the tools-ranging from design and editing to mixing and DVD authoring-in a single package. I'm not sure I with this assessment, because this high-powered package is equally compelling to facilities that own Avid's more advanced systems. Avid Xpress Studio Complete is a strong configuration for a second suite or in a television station's production or promo department, where tools such as Avid 3D may be of real interest. As attractive as these products can be, a suite based on Avid Xpress Studio Complete isn't inexpensive for a small shop. The installation requires a beefy PC, such...