Avid Courts HD

On the same day that Apple rolled out its HD strategy at NAB, Avid answered the challenge with DNxHD: a new technology the company says will enable HD editing at "mastering quality."

It was an important step for Avid, whose systems are clearly in Apple's sights. At its press conference, the computer manufacturer offered a slide showing that its xSAN technology is one-third the price of a similarly sized Avid Unity system.

Avid's response? You get what you pay for.

DNxHD, which stands for Digital Nonlinear Extensible High Definition encoder. "We told our engineers that if they built the best codec in the world, they could pick the name," joked Avid President and CEO David Krall. "It's a mouthful, but it means uncompressed HD quality at SD data rates."

Krall and company believe in the new encoder, which makes it possible to store HD files acquired in DVCPRO HD or HDV in the same amount of space as SD files. Uncompressed HD files require 1.2 Gbps of bandwidth; DNxHD requires only 220 Mbps for 10-bit video signals (DVCPRO HD uses 8-bit technology). There is also an efficient 8-bit version that needs only 145 Mbps. "The use of 10-bit means it can do color correction or contrast adjustments," Krall says. "It was designed to have multiple generations of compositing without degrading image quality."

Another plus: It always preserves the full image, lessening the chance of a frame being lost, while keeping high quality. HD support includes optional uncompressed-HD capabilities for Media Composer Adrenaline and NewsCutter Adrenaline FX editing systems, as well as native-HDV and native-Panasonic DVCPRO HD capabilities for Avid Xpress Pro, NewsCutter XP, Media Composer Adrenaline, and NewsCutter Adrenaline FX editors.

DNxHD has two areas of impact. First, adding the technology makes the company's Avid Unity storage system HD-capable. The other is collaboration. Users of Avid Unity shared storage can work together.