Has Avid Cinema completely disappeared?

[Patrick Cooper]

I did use Avid Cinema some years ago at University. It was actually the first time that I had used video editing software. Since then, Ive mainly used other (similar) basic / cheap NLE programs like Ulead Video Studio and Windows Movie Maker. There's a project that I'm going to start work on shortly that unfortunately would reveal the limitations of both Ulead and WMM. Ive looked through Ulead's list of transitions and I just cannot find dissolves which seems crazy for an NLE program. While WMM can do dissolves, it doesn't offer very accurate cutting (can't trim frame by frame etc.) And for some strange reason, if you want to create a DV avi of your film with WMM, you don't have the option of saving it to your hard drive (it is exported to tape as default.)

 

So I thought why not grab a copy of Avid Cinema. It should be pretty cheap (used) and hopefully straight forward to get to grips with again. I haven't used this software for ages so my memory of it's capabilities / features is a bit vague. I do remember that it can do dissolves. I can't remember how accurate the cutting is (whether you can do this frame by frame or every 5 frames etc.) Does it allow you to save a DV avi to the hard drive? And does it support firewire capture and export? Ive just had a look on Austrlaia eBay and to my surprise, there were 0 results for Avid Cinema!

[Patrick Cooper]

Sorry, I accidentally posted this in thw wrong section.

[Hal Smith]

I did use Avid Cinema some years ago at University. It was actually the first time that I had used video editing software. Since then, Ive mainly used other (similar) basic / cheap NLE programs like Ulead Video Studio and Windows Movie Maker. ........

 

Avid's dropped all products below Media Composer. If you're editing a digital format you might be able to find a copy of Avid Xpress Pro or Xpress Pro HD on ebay. Their editing functions are pretty much the same as the current version of Media Composer.

 

If you're student or faculty at a school there's an educational version of Media Composer 5 that runs around $300US. Be forewarned, it takes a pretty stout computer to run MC5, I had to upgrade to an HP workstation with two dual core 3GHz Xeon processors to meet the minimum specifications for MC5.