Avid had been the dominant player in video editing solutions for many years with high-end products like Media Composer and Symphony. But they were late to get on the Windows bandwagon and a number of other companies such as Pinnacle Systems, Canopus and Discreet quickly saw an opportunity to move into that market space. Avid addressed the Windows market with its Avid Xpress, but like their other products this was a complete video editing system. With more and more users opting for flexible and integratable hardware and software solutions, Avid has come out with a professional software editing package that directly competes with Apple's Final Cut Pro and Adobe's Premiere - Avid Xpress DV 2.0. The product was actually available last year, but only as a bundle with IBM's IntelliStation systems. Now Xpress DV is available as a stand-alone package and runs on desktop workstations as well as notebooks. The product is ideal for anyone working with DV, offline editing, and Web video delivery and is priced at $1,699
Avid Xpress DV 2.0 running on a standard notebook
The company also released the Avid Xpress DV PowerPack which includes Avid ePublisher Companion Edition, Knoll LightFactory AVX, Pinnacle Commotion DV 3.1, Sonic Solutions DVDit! SE, Image Stabilize AVX, and the DV Filmmaker's Toolkit for $2,999
Canopus is one of those companies that doesn't have a lot of mindshare in the video market, but that has not stopped them from continuing to crank out some great products. At NAB the company introduced Xplode Professional, a 3D video effects package that works with Adobe Premiere, Ulead MediaStudio Pro and the Canopus Edit products. Xplode Professional retails for $399 and is able to provide near real-time effects thanks to the company's Xplode engine.
Another new product from Canopus is Storm Rack, a rack-mount turnkey editing system which is based on the company's DVStorm NLE. The product, which will ship in June for $6,999 has an impressive list of features including dual Pentium III, 30 GB system hard drive, 60 GB disk array, DVD/CD-RW drive, MPEG output for DVD and web streaming. In addition it includes a SoftMPG Encoder for creating MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 streams, Canopus' StormEdit, Adobe Premiere 6.0, Xplode Professional, SpruceUp!, Sonic Foundry ACID Style, and Web Video Wizard.
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