Post by Terence Curren
Note: Videoguys realizes that Avid Media Composer 4.0 is the latest version.  Unfortunately this article was not published sooner. It's still a very good read and with MC 4 things have only gotten better!

Those of us who have been editing for a while, remember Avid becoming the “product we love and the company we hate,” starting around the new millennium. With two aggressive leadership changes in the last few years, those days appear to be over. With the release of V.3.5 of Media Composer and Symphony, the revamped company is showing that it really cares what we think again.

There are a lot of bug fixes, new features and a paradigm shifting change in this version. The first immediately noticeable difference is the new software activation mode. Whether you like the dongle or hate it, it is on its death bed. This version allows you the choice of getting rid of your dongle now with a promise of a dongle-free V.4.0 in the near future. The new “software activation” can be cool, but you really need to rethink how you move between multiple computers. If you are one of those users who is used to taking your dongle from your desktop to your laptop to travel for instance, you now have to make sure you deactivate your desktop software before you can activate your laptop. read more...