PT 8 and Media Composer 3.1

[nukepicnic]

I'm thinking about upgrading to PT 8 soon so I looked over the tech specs for avid hardware and I noticed an interesting passage that said you need to remove any Avid Video editing application BEFORE Media Composer 3.1 before installing PT 8.... does this POSSIBLY FINALLY mean that you can install Pro Tools 8 and Media Composer 3.1 on THE SAME partition? could it be?????

this would be a GODSEND.

[Craig F]

not according to my inside contacts, maybe in the future

[Gary Nattrass]

DOH!

Looks like I will be sticking with my final cut and pro tools set up and leaving the avid to collect dust!

[Craig F]

they can be on the same rig just not the same OS disk

[lego]

Excuse my ignorance, please, but:

Do you mean that I CAN'T have Digidesign PTLE 8.0 and Avid MC 3.1 INSTALLED (as opposed to running) at the same time on the same partition??? (I'm on XP)

That would be the joke of the year!

[jglasgow]

You can have them co-installed as long as you don't install the Avid video engine with PT. We expect to have improved co-install support with the Avid video engine later this year.

[lego]

Originally Posted by jglasgow

You can have them co-installed as long as you don't install the Avid video engine with PT.

Thanks jglasgow! It ain't so funny now ;-)

[Gary Nattrass]

Originally Posted by jglasgow

You can have them co-installed as long as you don't install the Avid video engine with PT. We expect to have improved co-install support with the Avid video engine later this year.

I am sorry but that was said last year and still PT and Avid will still not work on my Macbook and i-mac.

Therefore I am firmly a final cut pro and use PT for dubbing, most of my clients are also switching to this combo as avid is now very clunky compared to FCP.

[nukepicnic]

Avid is clunky compared to FCP? I use both systems quite a bit and actually prefer AVID for general editing...it's much more intuitive and the keystrokes are quicker to bang out projects... It's also been quite a bit more stable for me over the years and requires less rendering overall. The workflow for AAF and OMF's alone make it the preferred system to go between offline and audio post. FCP does a lot, and it is very functional, but I dare say FCP is the more clunky of the two programs for real day to day editing... (and I get called on AVID jobs over FCP at a rate of about 8 to 1).

what has been clunky has been the inability to install both Pro Tools and Avid on the same system... glad to hear that's been at least partially fixed.

[Postman]

Media composer is a champ. MC 3.1 has many big improvements over 2.8, and way better than MediaStation|PT! MC is not as "feely touchy" as people tend to expect these days, but it is solid, fully pro, and real editors I know (I am not in that category) still prefer it. I had this discussion just before Christmas with a young-ish editor who was finishing a several month job in Final Cut. He was lamenting that he wasn't using Avid. Why was he using FPC then? Because he'd gone on his own and couldn't afford a real Avid. Price points change everything.

Not to stray OT too much...Personally I hate Avid mostly because I suck at it. It is not like Pro Tools, for sure, the interface is so 80's. I mean some things about it make me feel like I am sitting at a VT100 terminal. But just about anything that needs to be done can be done with it and it is predictable, noteably when dealing with 23.976 vs. 24fps material. I am a hack editor but I know how to read the manual and get a task done.

Back to topic...I got stuck a couple of years ago when I was depending on Express Pro and Pro Tools to be installed together. You have to watch out because you may not be able to upgrade one without upgrading the other, which means that when one upgrade breaks the co-install (generally the very next version), you have to wait until the other is upgraded to be compatible before you can upgrade either, or you must maintain two boot partitions. The operating system versions come into play also. Co-compatibility may or may not happen with any particular upgrade, and if it does it will probably be a long wait, and you'll have to pay two upgrades charges. Avid likes to charge for upgrades too, I've learned. Like when I upgraded Express Pro only to find out soon after it was being dropped entirely, but Avid was happy to offer me a special limited time offer to upgrade again to Media Composer...or forget about the whole thing. But, those versions were never conveniently compatible with Pro Tools versions that I could use. I gave up on the whole idea. But then Video Satellite came out on MC 3.1, and "they pulled me back in".

My opinion? Forget about the co-install. Use another boot drive and maintain them separately. They are each fine programs, but cut your losses now and treat them as separate entities. You'll be much happier with your flexibility.