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Purchasing Cost of Avid Suites?
I’m wondering what the approximate cost of purchasing the different Avid systems (Adrenaline, Symphony, Composer, etc…) are. I’m a film student, so very curious as to what the various pricing structure is like. Thanks!
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6 Replies
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Media Composer Adrenaline HD (2.x) is $25,000 standard. To get the DNxcel card (HD), it’s an additional $10,000. That’s retail, which very few people pay. In reality, that $35,000 system could probably be had for between $25,000 and $30,000. That’s without computer, computer monitors, external NTSC broadcast monitor, storage, deck(s), speakers, Avid keyboard, mouse, etc. Depending upon your configuration, it’s not at all unrealistic to drop $60,000 on an Adrenaline setup.
Symphony Nitris is $90,000. Again, it can be had for less, but that includes storage, computer and monitors. You’ll still need to add in an external NTSC HD broadcast monitor and decks. You’ll spend WELL over $100,000 setting up a Symphony Nitris suite.
DS Nitris, last I heard, was hovering around $155,000, including storage, computer, monitors, etc. (same setup as Symphony Nitris). Including decks, external broadcast monitor, etc., will put you well over $200,000 (probably much closer to $300,000+).
The above prices don’t include the other various goodies that go into a suite, such as external scopes, additional software, client monitor, furniture, phones, rent/mortgage on your suite, etc.
As you can see, this business can get expensive REAL fast!
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If you go to Avid’s site, you can read about what tools are actually used on the films they showcase. They always have quite a few new and currenrt films in their showcase.
Here is one for King Kong
https://www.avid.com/profiles/060206_kingkong_adrenaline.asp
-Alex
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If you’re looking to purchase an Avid system and you’re just starting out, an Xpress Pro system is in a bit more accessible price range. You can probably pick up a turnkey Xpress with a few bells and whistles for $5-10k. If you just want to familiarize yourself with the software and really want to get something on a student budget- you can buy Xpress DV for around $500, or even download Avid FreeDV for free.
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Free DV will give you a brief of the interface basics, but it is so limiting, you might start with Xpress DV. But then if you’re in school anyway, you can get the education discount on Xpress Pro HD for $299 I believe. Get a pretty solid Pentium 4 with an nvidia graphics card and it should run just fine. Say two hard drives. 1 for the OS, and make the other the capture drive.
As long as you’re not after doing 1:1 uncompressed, Xpress Pro HD without a Mojo will run DV25, 50, 100 HD, and HDV. It’s a lot of bang for the buck. Go to https://www.visiblelight.com/mall/productview.aspx?sku=cceb and buy their $58 MPEG2 encoder, and you can use the included DVD authoring application that comes with the Avid to compress footage and author DVDs. You’ll likely spend under $500, not including the cost of the PC. Pickup a cheap MiniDV camera, and start shooting. You’ll have everything you need to get started.
-Alex
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As a student, you can buy XpressPro (The student version) for $295 (https://host117.ebm.bestsoftwarehost.com/iwwidb.pvx?;multi_item_submit). Proof of being a student is needed. You can use either Mac or PC with it. High end PC is the XW8200 costing around $4k, the HP 4300 is also solid. If you go Mac, the higher end laptops or G5 systems 2.5ghz or better. The above thread on pricing was pretty accurate for the overall systems.
As an interesting point of interest, we engaged in a shoot out of the Avid Adrenaline on local storage. The Mac (G5 Quad Core) outperformed the PC (HPXW8200) on rendering by a factor of 3X. The PC did scroll better in the timeline and gave better responsiveness. An Avid rep stated that the overall speed of the Mac was slower when multiple systems were connected to Unity. No tests have been done with the Quad Core on Unity yet, it is just now supported.
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