Avid Trial?

[ralck]

Hello,

I was wondering if Avid had a 30 day trial so I could see if I liked it before buying it.

 

[professor aire]

Avid provides what they call: Avid Free. It's a fully-functional video editing program based on their standardized Avid interface. Since it's free and fully-functional (meaning you can offline, import, edit and export video without any time limitations or watermarks) it's obviously very stripped down. You don't have color-correction, media-management, only a few transitions, you can't re-map your keyboard, etc. However, the Avid interface is the Avid interface no matter what, so it let's you get a handle on what Avid is like with editing. They also provide a tutorial package to get you editing quickly. For any friends I have interested in getting started with editing as well as my students I recommend obtaining Avid Free to use at home. I've seen some pretty decent, but basic, projects completed with Avid Free.

You can obtain it here: http://www.avid.com/products/freedv/index.asp

 

[MarkG]

And beyond that, if you're a student you can buy the Academic version for a few hundred dollars. I don't think they offer trials of the full version.

But if you do some editing with the free version you should work out pretty quickly whether or not you want to use the full version.

 

[ralck]

Thanks a lot guys!

Avid Free sounds like what I'm looking for to get a feel for the editor to see if it's something I like.

And to get the academic price (should I want to buy it), how would I go about that? Do I need to fax them a picture of my student ID or something, or provide a reference at my school (RIT)?

Thanks again!

 

[MarkG]

And to get the academic price (should I want to buy it), how would I go about that? Do I need to fax them a picture of my student ID or something, or provide a reference at my school (RIT)?

I'm not sure, actually. I took a quick look on the Avid web store and didn't find any details there; you might need to call them or poke around on the web site.

I'm assuming they're still offering that option.

 

[professor aire]

Generally you have to provide some sort of proof of your current enrollment... This can vary depending on exactly where you purchase the program at. There are a variety of online retailers offering Avid products at educational discounts. My advice, however, is to see if there's a local dealer in your area; check out this page: http://www.avid.com/products/howtobuy/index.asp. Input your area-code and select the Avid Xpress Pro Academic product from the dropdown box. This'll pop up a list of the nearest dealers. I advise doing this because having face-to-face contact with people when you're making purchases like this is always preferred to online dealers.

Something else to be aware of, for when you graduate, is that Avid offers a very sweet deal for graduates. For $1000 graduating students can upgrade their XPress Pro (Academic) to Media Composer Software (Commercial). This means that for a total of about $1300 + tax you can purchase a $5000 piece of software and yes you can use the Composer software for business purposes, unlike your Academic licenses.

 

[marlowe]

is there anywhere on the web i can still get avid free dv?

 

[professor aire]

Probably not... The issue w/ Avid Free is that you had to register it, much like a regular product. If they've discontinued the product, undobutedly they've discontinued the registration process...