Avid delivers Motion Graphics while Media Composer enjoys new lease of life

Plenty of stuff to talk about from Avid at IBC, with the introduction of Avid Motion Graphics, the European launches of Interplay Central and InGame, and – beyond the RAI – the venerable Motion Composer having its best quarter for a long time as Apple shoots itself in the foot with FCP X.

Of course, the company is too polite to put it like that itself. “There have been change sin the market and customers have responded by seeking alternatives,” says the company’s Angus Mackay. “Media Composer has seen a rise in popularity since NAB, not only amongst users but across the industry as a whole, and it builds on the momentum from the last three or four years of increased sales and a schedule of two releases a year. But yes, it is having its best quarter for a long while.”

The company’s big launch at the show is Motion Graphics, its next-gen graphics platform. With a new real-time 2D/3D graphics rendering engine, Avid Motion Graphics lets media enterprises—including broadcasters, sports teams, and post production companies—create “thrilling graphics and arresting imagery”, while it also includes a bridge to the Deko product family.

“In terms of the shading of objects and the materials handling, it yields nothing to anything else out there in the market,” says Jim Frantzreb, Sr Broadcast Segment Manager. The hardware part of the equation gets launched in November with the Deko compatibility, while the Motion Graphics software itself is expected to pitch up in Q2 2012.

Elsewhere, Avid’s Interplay Central browser-based production system (“An on-ramp to the Cloud” as Frantzreb puts it) which ships this month has made its first sale, though the company is so far remaining quiet about exactly who’s bought it, while also well-worth checking out on the Avid stand now that it’s launching in Europe is the InGame sports production and archiving system.