Avid Unveils New Brand Identity

Avid® today unveiled a new brand identity as part of the company's business transformation to better serve the interests and needs of its audio and video customers—who range from home enthusiasts to complex media enterprises, and create the most listened to, most watched and most loved media in the world.

At the center of Avid's brand identity is a new logo composed of simple geometric shapes derived from the buttons, icons and markers that consumers and professionals recognize as fundamental to the digital audio and video solutions they use every day to enable their creativity. The new logo forms a visual connection to iconic shapes that represent "volume up, volume down, play, pause, record and forward," signaling a unification of the company's core audio and video offerings. The distinctive mark also spells out the company's name in abstract letterforms.

"Avid is coming together as one company with new offerings, a new strategy, and a new operating model. We are stronger as one company than we are as separate parts, and we have a unique opportunity to help our customers achieve greater success in a digital world," said Gary Greenfield, Chairman and CEO of Avid. "Our new identity is one of the powerful ways we are communicating the evolution of our business as well as our commitment to partner with customers by understanding exactly what they want to do. Whether it's the flawless execution of a global television broadcast, a chart-topping hit song, a lean-forward moment on the big screen or in a sold out concert venue, or a home movie that family members will cherish for a lifetime, our customers want integrated, interoperable, and open audio and video offerings. By pulling together all of our category-creating technologies under one roof, we are beginning to serve our customers with digital media solutions unlike any other company in the world."

Historically, Avid has been a family of separate, industry-leading businesses—Avid, Digidesign®, M-Audio®, Pinnacle Systems® and Sibelius®—that served audio and video customers independently of one another. As part of a strategic transformation that began last year, Avid's new brand identity communicates the fusing of these businesses and further positions the company to capitalize on the convergence of digital audio and video technology while addressing customer requirements for integrated systems that enhance creativity and deliver significant ROI.

Dave Lebolt, Avid's Chief Technology Officer, said, "We are refining the way we define and develop our solutions, leveraging technology across all of our audio and video capabilities in ways that no other company can. Having unification across the breadth and depth of Avid's portfolio allows us to accelerate interoperability between Avid systems—like Pro Tools® and Media Composer®. These two systems now sync smoothly via Video Satellite, allowing users to connect a Pro Tools|HD® system to an Avid Media Composer system for synchronized playback and connect up to four Pro Tools|HD systems plus one Media Composer when adding the Satellite Link option—and all without requiring any rendering of complex video sequences. We're also in a better position to further explore integrated bundled offerings—and how these offerings work openly with third-party applications—in a way that meets new and emerging demands of today's content creators. We look forward to working closely with our customers to define these next-generation solutions."

At NAB this week, the results of the changes at Avid and its commitment to customer success will be on full display. For the first time, the company will be showcasing audio and video products side-by-side—and in integrated workflows—throughout its booth. Customers will experience Avid solutions working openly with products from more than 40 third-party companies—including Final Cut Pro running on Avid Unity™ ISIS® shared storage, and Avid NewsCutter® systems sending Sony XDCAM footage for playout on Omneon servers. Avid will also host a range of high-profile customers who will deliver main stage presentations about key audio and video innovations, such as RED workflows, 3D stereoscopic editing, surround sound mixing and file-based workflows

YouTube Symphony Orchestra Debuts At Carnegie Hall

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. Then, audition on YouTube. When a 10-year-old Hannah Tarley asked to get her ears pierced, her mom told the aspiring violinist she could if she performed at Carnegie Hall. Seven years later, using a computer placed atop several volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 17-year-old Hannah filmed herself playing Brahms' Symphony No. 4 to audition by video for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. On April 15, Hannah will made her debut with others who made the cut at New York City's Carnegie Hall in a concert conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

Zombie Macs Launch DoS Attack

ZDNet has a story (and several related articles) about how Symantec has discovered evidence of an all-Mac based botnet that is actively involved in a DOS attack. Apparently, security on the exploited Macs (call them iBots?) was compromised when unwary users bit-torrented pirated copies of iWork 09 and Photoshop CS4 that contained malware. From the article: 'They describe this as the "first real attempt to create a Mac botnet" and notes that the zombie Macs are already being used for nefarious purposes.'

Facebook Users Get Lower Grades In College

According to a survey of college students Facebook users have lower overall grades than non-users. The study by Aryn Karpinski, an education researcher at Ohio State University, found that Facebook user GPAs are in the 3.0 to 3.5 range on average, compared to 3.5 to 4.0 for non-users and that Facebook users also studied anywhere from one to five hours per week, compared to non-users who studied 11 to 15 or more hours per week. Karpinski emphasized that correlation does not equal causation and that the grades association could be caused by something else. 'I'm just saying that there's some kind of relationship there, and there's many third variables that need to be studied.' One hypothesis is that students who spend more time enjoying themselves rather than studying might tend to latch onto the nearest distraction, such as Facebook or that students who use the social networking site might also spend more time on other non-studying activities such as sports or music. 'It may be that if it wasn't for Facebook, some students would still find other ways to avoid studying, and would still get lower grades. But perhaps the lower GPAs could actually be because students are spending too much time socializing online.' As for herself, Karpinski said she doesn't have a Facebook account, although the co-author of the study does. 'For me, I think Facebook is a huge distraction.

Apple Shifts iTunes Pricing; $0.69 Tracks MIA

Steve Jobs vowed weeks ago that when iTunes shifted to a tiered price structure in April, older tracks priced at $0.69 would outnumber the contemporary hits that are rising to $1.29. Today, several weeks later, iTunes made the transition. While the $1.29 tracks are immediately visible, locating cheaper tracks is proving to be an exercise in futility. With the exception of 48 songs that Apple has placed on the iTunes main page, $0.69 downloads are a scarce commodity. MP3 Newswire tried to methodically drill down to unearth more of them only to find: 1) A download like Heart's 34-year-old song Barracuda went up to $1.29, not down. 2) Obscure '90s Brit pop and '50s rockabilly artists — those most likely to benefit from a price drop — remained at $0.99. 3) Collected tracks from a cross-section of 1920s, '30s, and '40s artists all remained at $0.99. Finally, MP3 Newswire called up tracks in the public domain from an artist named Ada Jones who first recorded in 1893 on Edison cylinder technology. The price on all of the century-old, public-domain tracks remained at $0.99. (The same tracks are available for free on archive.org.) The scarcity of lower-priced tracks may reflect the fact that the labels themselves decide which price tier they want to pursue for a given artist; and they are mostly ignoring the lower tier. Meanwhile, Amazon's UK site has decided to counter-promote their service by dropping prices on select tracks to 29 pence ($0.42).

Harbourside IT Graduate Nomated for Leo Award

Congratulations to Stephen Hamm on his Leo Nomination for "Impact!" Best Sound Editing. Also congratulations to Harbourside Instructor Ken Cade for his Leo Nomination for Best Sound Design. You can view the other nominees here.

Music Game - Alpine Legend for the Xbox 360

Microsoft has announced the upcoming release of Alpine Legend for the Xbox 360. Building upon the established titles of the music game genre, Alpine Legend takes you to the Swiss mountaintops, where you and your friends play up to three Alpenhorns at a time while a fourth yodels along. When you're done playing, you can disassemble the 8-foot horns for easy storage. "Jam with alpine legends like Franz 'The Manz' Lang and Johann Hornbostel. Shake the mountain tops with 100 classic Alphorn tracks including, 'Whose spit is in my horn?' and 'More goat bell (It needs).