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Xpress Pro is now only $295 through educational pricing!

Best Regards,
Chris Wright
Studentfilms.com

holy dog-doo on a stick, that's a really great price. From what I've looked at, it's only $80 more than the Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 academic pricing.

Tell me what is main differences about Avid Xpress Pro and Premiere Pro 1.5?

I've never used Premiere (unless you count a really horrible version from around 10 years ago).

Avid Xpress Pro is a great piece of software. I have it at home and it is a near replica of the "real" Avid Media Composer software that I use at work. Sure there are some minor differences - annoyances mainly for people used to Media Composer such as a few buttons that act slightly differently...but other that that Xpress Pro is an Avid through and through.

The projects and media are compatible with Avid's big boys. It is truly a Pro piece of software.

That being said...since Avid has a huge product line going from the $295 Xpress Pro to the $150,000 Avid DS Nitris there are some features left out of Xpress for Marketing reasons.

Xpress Pro isn't a great compositor for example - you'd need to use third party apps in conjunction with it.

It is however, an excellent editor. Does 24p film excellently, multicam, and is a wonderful editing interface designed by editors for editors.

I edit using Avid Media Composer all the time at work. I even teach Avid here in Hollywood once a month. And years and years ago I even worked for Avid in Boston. I'm a little biased - but it is a wonderful product.

Once you master Avid you can be an extremely fast editor.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

As far as I remember, Avid software generally comes with associated hardware (like MOJO), without which one can't use the software. By any chance, is the "Express Pro" the one that does not need any hardware? OR, is it that everything together comes for $295? When I said hardware, I did not mean the dongle, which I think is more of a "key" to the software.


Someone please throw more info.

Nope - the Mojo is optional for Xpress Pro.

The Mojo basically unlocks uncompressed 1:1 video and the ability for full quality real time effects on an external video monitor as well as analog component in and out.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

quote:

The Mojo basically unlocks uncompressed 1:1 video and the ability for full quality real time effects on an external video monitor

With the new version, Avid Xpress Pro HD, you no longer need mojo to view full quality real time effects on an external video monitor.

Really? That's cool. I'm amazed I didn't know about that. I'm checking the site now...

-Chris
Studentfilms.com

Yup. They sneaked that new feature in under my nose.

Play back 23.976/24 sequences with pulldown out to NTSC

Choose pulldown cadence type when outputting back to NTSC – ADVANCED or NORMAL.

Effects are in real time when going out over IEEE-1394 (Avid Mojo allows more real time performance since it relieves the host computer processor from handling DV compression and decompression)

That's really cool. I beta tested version 4. It's too bad Xpress Pro HD isn't out for the mac yet.

-Chris
Studentfilms.com