Avid Technology - History

History

Founded by a marketing manager from Apollo Computer, Inc., Bill Warner, a prototype of their first digital nonlinear editing system (the Avid/1) was shown in a private suite at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in April 1988. The Avid/1 was based around an Apple Macintosh II computer, with special hardware and software of Avid's own design installed.

At the NAB show in April 1989, the Avid/1 was publicly introduced. It was "the biggest shake-up in editing since Melies played around with time and sequences in the early 1900's". By the early 1990s, Avid products began to replace such tools as the Moviola, Steenbeck, and KEM flatbed editors, allowing editors to handle their film creations with greater ease. The first feature film edited using the Avid was "Let's Kill All the Lawyers" in 1992, directed by Ron Senkowski.The film was edited at 30fps NTSC rate, then used Avid MediaMatch to generate a negative cutlist from the EDL. The first feature film edited natively at 24fps with what was to become the Avid Film Composer was "Emerson Park". The first studio film to be edited at 24fps was "Lost in Yonkers", directed by Martha Coolidge. By 1994 only three feature films used the new digital editing system. By 1995 dozens had switched to Avid, and it signaled the beginning of the end of cutting celluloid. In 1996 Walter Murch accepted the Academy Award for editing The English Patient (which also won best picture), which he cut on the Avid. This was the first Editing Oscar awarded to a digitally edited film (although the final print was still created with traditional negative cutting).

In 1994 Avid introduced Open Media Framework (OMF) as an open standard file format for sharing media and related metadata. In recent years the company has extended its business expertise through several acquisitions and internal investments towards the full palette of multimedia generation products including those to store and manage media files. In 2006 Avid launched new products such as Avid Interplay and Unity Isis. Avid used to be considered just a "Video Editing" company, but now has consolidated a well-rounded multimedia generation technology company.

In the past, Avid has released home versions of their professional line of editors, such as Xpress DV and lower cost professional versions (primarily to compete with software such as Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere) such as Xpress Pro. Additionally, Avid Free DV was available as a free download, providing an introduction to the Media Composer interface, but in a limited version. All of these have now been discontinued as the core Media Composer product has been lowered in price and is now heavily discounted for academic/student use.