I can't remember the last time I turned on my Avid Media Composer (and I have two of them BTW).  I really can't.  What I do remember is exporting video to use with Adobe Production Premium CS5.5. I've even rebuilt projects (at no cost to my customers) just because I could now use them to greater efficiency within the CS5 Production Premium suite.

So I am interested to see how Avid can re-earn my business. A few weeks ago Avid unveiled their latest version: Media Composer 6. And it's purported to be 64 bit... YAY!

It seems that Avid is finally listening to their customers and have made great strides in the usability and features that users want and need.  Many ex-Avid users went to Final Cut for many reasons, price and features likely being the biggest reason. I switched to Adobe CS4 (then CS5 and now CS5.5) and I quite love it. There are some things I wish the CS5 suite did that I know Avid does well. What I didn't like about Avid outweighed what I liked and consequently I switched.

Price was a big reason for me, primarily in the hardware department. I wanted to work with and export HD material and to buy into the Avid hardware was a lot of dough. For a fraction of the price I could buy the Adobe suite and 3rd party card (I originally chose the Black Magic Design Decklink and while it had many great features their support was incredibly bad. I only ever heard back from them once... and I had a myriad of issues... so I sold the card and bought an AJA. It's not without it's shortcomings but at least I get support) read more...