Avid Leads the Way with Open Solutions, Adding New EUCON Partners; Delivers Greater Tactile Control for Colorists

NAB (Booth #SU902) — Avid® (NASDAQ: AVID) today announced that content creators can use Avid Artist Color to control the color grading features of Assimilate Scratch, Image Systems Nucoda (formerly Digital Vision), and Pomfort Silverstack SET Edition via native support for Avid’s EUCON™ protocol. Avid is also previewing EuControl version 2.6 at NAB, delivering Windows functionality for Artist Color. Today’s announcement reinforces Avid’s commitment to driving openness across the industry — following January’s announcement of Windows 7 compatibility for Artist Control, Artist Mix, and Artist Transport, as well as EUCON support announcements by companies like Autodesk, RED, and The Foundry.

These new partnerships validate Avid’s efforts to provide customers with open solutions that work with a range of products in the content creation ecosystem, delivering the flexibility and tactile control they need when using Avid’s Artist Series control surfaces to do their best work. Designed to appeal to colorists looking for increased tactile control of their projects, Artist Color features high resolution optical trackballs, track wheels, displays, encoders and programmable keys that provide users with tightly connected command over almost all software functions.

"We’re proud to announce another milestone in our development of an open ecosystem of third party workflows based around the EUCON protocol,” said Chris Gahagan, senior vice president of products and solutions at Avid. "Creating open and interoperable audio and video solutions are key goals for Avid, and we are proud to work with industry leaders like Image Systems Assimilate, and Pomfort in the pursuit of that vision. Our expanded partnerships enable us to deliver even more flexible workflows, precise control, and the creative options that our customers depend on every day.”

EUCON is Avid’s open, high-speed Ethernet control protocol that allows Artist Color and other Avid Artist Series control surfaces to connect to a variety of third party creative audio and video software solutions, delivering deep, integrated control over multiple applications and workstations, resulting in increased efficiencies and cost-effective workflow expansions. EUCON is currently supported by a wide cross section of Macintosh- and Windows-based applications.

What Partners are Saying

"We're excited to have fully integrated the Avid Artist panel into the Windows and Mac versions of both Scratch Lab and Scratch Finish,” said Miguel Ferros, assimilate director of Product Management. "We believe that the quality and flexibility of the Artist Color panel’s integration makes it a natural and intuitive extension of the Scratch experience, enabling artists to maximize both their creativity and productivity."

"The precise and haptic approach to color correction through the Artist Color panel within Silverstack SET considerably accelerates the workflow for our customers,” stated Patrick Renner, Pomfort managing director. "The partnership with Avid perfectly matches our strategy of delivering highly professional and high quality products at a reasonable price."

"The support of the Avid Artist Color for our Nucoda Fuse grading software allows our customers to develop cost effective workflows while accessing the best color and image processing tools on the market,” concluded Martin Bennett, Image Systems’ head of the New Media BU. "Avid has been at the forefront of evolving post production workflows and our continued partnership ensures premium editorial, grading and finishing is accessible to all.”

About Avid

Avid creates the digital audio and video technology used to make the most listened to, most watched and most loved media in the world — from the most prestigious and award-winning feature films, music recordings, television shows, live concert tours and news broadcasts, to music and movies made at home. Some of Avid’s most influential and pioneering solutions include Media Composer®, Pro Tools®, Interplay®, ISIS®, VENUE, Oxygen 8, Sibelius®, System 5, and Pinnacle Studio™. For more information about Avid solutions and services, visit www.avid.com, del.icio.us, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube; connect with Avid on Facebook; or subscribe to Avid Industry Buzz.

© 2011 Avid Technology, Inc. All rights reserved. Product features, specifications, system requirements and availability are subject to change without notice. Avid, the Avid logo, Eucon, Media Composer, Pro Tools, Interplay, ISIS, Sibelius and Pinnacle Studio are trademarks or registered trademarks of Avid Technology, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and/or other countries. The Interplay name is used with the permission of the Interplay Entertainment Corp. which bears no responsibility for Avid products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.