Avid has pledged its commitment to developing tools for high-resolution mastering as post-production facility owners come to terms with the manufacturer’s decision to end development of its DS software.

Avid’s decision to halt development of DS at the end of last month has left many facilities contemplating critical changes to their workflow, with no obvious like-forlike replacement on the market.

A key factor is the ability of new finishing systems to complete projects at 4K, as facilities brace themselves for an increase in Ultra HD deliverables.

While Avid supports 4K ingest, post-DS it no longer has a product to support 4K finishing.

Crow TV head of post Andy Briers said: “We’re expecting to see an increase for 2K and 4K mastering, and this will drive our move to enhance our Ultra HD conforming capabilities, which we’ll be losing with the end of DS.”

StormHD co-founder Paul Ingvarsson added: “An admission of not having a 4K delivery product for new customers after 1 October will damage Avid’s reputation because most people won’t differentiate between 4K acquisition and 4K delivery.”

Avid senior director, broadcast storage and editor product management, Dave Colantuoni told Broadcast the company was working to address any demand for UHD finishing.

He said: “Although relatively few productions are finishing in 4K at this time, we are taking steps to stay ahead of that need.

“We’re exploring ways to implement hi-res delivery from Media Composer as the demand for greater-than-HD masters begins to take shape.”

Competing systems under review at post houses include Autodesk Smoke and Flame, SGO Mistika, Adobe software and Da Vinci Resolve.

Avid is encouraging customers to buy Eyeon Fusion software alongside Symphony licences as a DS alternative.

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