Media Composer 8.9 is Now Available — Here’s What’s New
By Jim Bask
By Wim Van den Broeck
Fellow editors! The Avid team has prepared a brand new version of Media Composer. This new update (8.9) is packed with great new features that accelerate storytelling with the tools embraced by top movie, television, and broadcast editors. Here’s a detailed overview of what’s new in Media Composer — now available!
Support for HiRes Monitors
This release provides support for HiRes or HiDPI monitors. We currently support setting your monitor scaling to 200%. Download the Media Composer 8.9 ReadMe document to learn more about scaling on Windows 7, 8, 10 and Mac OS systems.
Performing Audio Slip
New audio Source Settings allow you to perform sub-frame slip on audio sources. This allows you to perform a more precise audio sync. Audio Slip can be applied to a master clip or to linked clips and adjustments are made down to the Audio sample level.
Audio Mixer Redesign
The option to set the Audio Mixer tool to a narrow display has been included with this release of the editing application. When in Narrow Mixer mode, button size has been reduced, stereo surround panners have been combined, stereo link and mirror buttons have been combined, and you can choose to display fader, meter or dynamic legend volume sliders.
Automatically Open Effect Editor
A new Timeline setting allows you to set the Effect Editor to automatically open when you apply Video, Audio Suite, or Audio EQ effect.
Pre-clip and post-clip playback
When you are in Color Correction mode, you can use the Segment Preview button to play a number of seconds of the previous clip and a number of seconds of the next clip. This allows you to see the colors in context of the scene. The default for the Pre-roll and Post-roll is 3 seconds.
Source Browser Collapse and Expand
An expand and collapse button has been added to the media display area of the Source Browser. If you have a large number of clips to display in the Source Browser, you can click the Collapse and Expand button to view more clips.
Larger Thumbnails in the Source Browser
With this new release, you can now view larger thumbnails in the Source Browser in Frame View. In the Source Browser, click the frame view button, and Press Ctrl + L (Windows) or Command + L (Mac) to enlarge the thumbnails or slide the Thumbnail slider all the way to the right to enlarge the thumbnail.
Position Bar Snap
An additional option has been added to the Timeline Settings. When the Position Bar Snap option is selected in the Edit tab of the Timeline Settings, clicking in the Timeline snaps the position bar to the nearest transition.