Avid Prepping for Intel Based Macs

[mjteix]

saw this article on "The Mac Observer" site, I thought I should share, good news. Maybe Digidesign is doing the same for ProTools.

Avid Prepping for Intel Based Macs
by Staff, 10:50 AM EST, November 7th, 2005

Avid announced plans for synchronized development of its products for both PowerPC and Intel based Mac platforms on Monday. The company is planning a mid 2006 release for HD versions of Avid Xpress Pro and Media Composer Adrenaline for PowerPC Macs, with versions for Intel based Macs after they ship.

Dana Ruzicka, Avid's Vice President of Post Solutions, stated "Given how important the Mac is to our customer base, we're embracing Apple's Xcode development environment, which enables us to simultaneously develop for both PowerPC- and Intel-based Mac systems."

Avid plans on adding HD editing support including HDCAM, HDV, AND DVCPRO HD, real-time HD Multicam support, and more to the new versions of its video editing tools.

Avid's decision to develop for both types of Mac systems is good news for video editors that aren't ready to upgrade to the Intel based Macs when they ship, as well as editors that are looking forward to new equipment.

[K.B.]

It should be pointed out that the HD referred to here is nothing to do with Digi HD, but is High Definition video.


So (have I got this right?) an application, like Avid Express, written for an Intel based Mac would require very litle re-coding for use on a PC? Which means that the Mac / PC divide is closing?

[bb_aus]

an application, like Avid Express, written for an Intel based Mac would require very litle re-coding for use on a PC?

until recently Avid has only been developing for PC, the big jump was to OS X. moving to OS X x86 should be relitive simple only requiring minimal coding changes and of course recompiling as x86 and PPC process instructions very differently.

most applications only need a small amount re-coding to different processors, i mean MS used to compile for processors other than x86 do it cant be that hard. these is a bigger difference going to a different OS. OS X and Windows use almost opisite processor scheduling (hell windows isnt even a real time OS) so intensive programs like ProTools and Avid Express require a fair bit of re-coding. look at the problems from windows 98 to xp and OS 9 to OS X as well as how long it has taken to go from single threaded to multi-threaded DAE under windows.

[K.B.]

So the answer is 'no'.