Avid, the broadcast software company, is adding significant new collaboration features to its Pro Tools range of professional audio software.
The new features, part of the company’s Avid Everywhere strategy, focus on cloud-based content sharing and creation.
Pro Tools editors will be able to post audio sessions to cloud storage, and work on an edit online or offline; Pro Tools can be set to push updates to a track to other collaborators automatically. Users can also stream from synched Pro Tools sessions.
The session synching is particularly powerful for projects that combine audio and video, as it allows remote collaboration for ADR and voiceover work, directly from within Pro Tools and over an internet connection, rather than an expensive audio link such as ISDN.
A further streaming function allows producers to stream audio to an iOS device, such as a client’s iPad, for review and approval, whilst retaining security controls over the content.
Avid is also developing an online marketplace that will allow producers both to sell their content, through licensing, and to buy in content, such as music beds or Foley, from other producers. A private marketplace function, aimed at enterprises, gives further control.
The company is also developing a new archiving format for Pro Tools, PXF, which should help to preserve the ability to play back and work on tracks in the future, even if plug-ins have changed or are no longer supported. Avid will support an open metadata format to make it easier to manage media assets across platforms and devices.
