Now Available — Avid Artist | DNxIV
By Jim Bask
From Avid Dec. 21, 2017
Today we’re excited to announce that Avid Artist | DNxIV is now available from your local reseller. Combined with the latest update to Media Composer (8.10), the DNxIV interface is the perfect portable solution for independent editors and smaller post-production and news teams.
Avid Artist | DNxIV
Avid Artist I/O interfaces are designed to offer extensive format support to future-proof your production by allowing you to easily capture, monitor, and output SD, HD, 2K, UHD, and 4K content.
Compared to the 2RU, rackmountable Avid Artist | DNxIQ, the Avid Artist | DNxIV offers much of the same connectivity, but in a smaller, more portable form factor.
Both Avid Artist I/O interfaces offer high-speed Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, providing up to 40 Gb/s of bandwidth to deliver the smoothest performance and operation. Both interfaces offer a wide range of analog and digital I/O to plug into today’s diverse media productions, including SDI, HDMI, XLR, RS-422 and timecode. While you can purchase Avid Media Composer 8.10 to work with either interface, you can also use another creative application, like Apple Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro.
So apart from being different sizes, what’s the difference between DNxIQ and DNxIV, and which applications are they best suited to?
| Avid Artist | DNxIQ | Avid Artist | DNxIV | |
| I/O | 3G, 6G, 12G SDI | 3G, 6G, 12G SDI |
| SDI monitor output | ||
| HDMI 2.0a | HDMI 2.0b | |
| LTC In/Out | LTC In/Out | |
| Device Control (RS-422) | Device Control (RS-422) | |
| Audio Punch-In | Audio Punch-In | |
| Composite / Component Connectors | Audio Break-out Cable with 8 I/O | |
| AES/EBU, XLR Audio | Reference Input/Internal Clock | |
| Optical Fiber SDI (video & audio) | ||
| Form Factor | Rack-mountable | Desktop |
| Host Connectivity | Thunderbolt 3 | Thunderbolt 3 |
| PCIe Gen 3 | ||
| Format Support | SD, HD, UHD, 2K/4K DCI | SD, HD, UHD, 2K/4K DCI |
| DNxHR Encoding | Hardware encode | Host CPU encode |
| Miscellaneous | Use with Davinci Resolve | |
| Universal Mastering | ||
| LCD Panel on Front |
There’s a simple reason for the DNxIQ being a bigger box – it has more extensive legacy connectivity, boasting banks of component and XLR connectors. Built-in encoding to Avid DNxHR allows you to edit massive 4K files with ease and you get real-time format and frame-rate conversion on output and playback, thanks to hardware-accelerated Universal Mastering.
In short, if you work with a wide range of older and newer equipment from different manufacturers, and desk real-estate is no issue, then the Avid Artist | DNxIQ is the workhorse for you.
The Avid Artist | DNxIV, on the other hand, is more portable, and much more a product of the digital age than a bridge to the analog one. It offers quad SDI and 8-channel surround sound monitoring, so it gives you 5.1 or 7.1 directly out of the box, as opposed to having to split it out of the HDMI or SDI signal, as you would have to do with the Artist | DNxIQ.
Whatever your production environment, whatever resolution you’re working in, there’s an Avid Artist interface for you.