Hi All,

Hoping for some crystal ball wisdom here. We're expecting to need to add another 10-20 suites in the next six months. Just wondering if we're going to get caught out with Big Sur in the same we we did with Catalina, or is the underlying architecture expected to be similar enough that it won't be a huge issue?

Obviously I know that the Arm transition is going to be a nightmare, so ideally we'd like to delay as long as possible so to get the latest "intel" machines, to tie us over until arm is stable.

With Apple planning a big change with the ARM rollout I would imagine we won't see any radical changes in the short term. But you never know with Apple they may start to update the OS early to preare for it.

Interesting to note the current ARM processors are limited to 16GB RAM. Apple need to jump to the next ARM development to move beyond that so for the Pro systems it may be later rather than sooner.

Hey all

Since many of our Avid products run on Macs, including the creative tools family of Media Composer, Sibelius, and Pro Tools, I wanted to ley you know that for those that run on Mac, Avid has been working to support macOS Big Sur and the new M1-powered Macs over the past several months in anticipation of these releases.  Dave pimm and the development teams have been busy :)

I will update the community for each product with the specifics regarding macOS Big Sur and M1-powered Mac support as soon as the information is available to me and/or Raff  to share.

Thanks

Marianna

Is it safe to assume it will be six months before MC will be compatible with Big Sur, like the time it took with Catalina?

I've updated my second, older mac to test some apps and it seems to work totally fine with 2020.10 (editing with dnxhd LB proxies). However I will wait on my main one.

Pat Horridge:

Interesting to note the current ARM processors are limited to 16GB RAM. Apple need to jump to the next ARM development to move beyond that so for the Pro systems it may be later rather than sooner.

I've also learned from Linus Tech Tips that they won't work with external GPUs. Doesn't sound like these first generation products are going to be good news for Resolve users.

Andrew:

Is it safe to assume it will be six months before MC will be compatible with Big Sur, like the time it took with Catalina?

Andrew.....

Im not sure of the answer to that yet as dave Pimm and team are still testing and  engineering is still working it. here is the knowledge base aeticle you can subscribe too so you get notified when it changes.

https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/compatibility/macOS-Big-Sur-Support

Feel free to ping me in a few weeks time direct to have me check in again with the engineers.

Marianna

Hi Marianna.

Apple, Adobe and Microsoft all have their apps working on Big Sur. Is there an updated time frame for Avid Media Composer?

Thanks

Video

As I said above no date yet on that but I hope to have something soon. The best bet is to subscribe to that KB article for updates.

Marianna

Any updates Marianna? Just got my new M1 MacBook Pro today so I'm eager to get Avid running as soon as I can! Everything seems to be running really smoothly on here - really impressed with what Apple have done. Adobe softwares are running with no problems so I hope Avid can do the same.

Thank you

George

Not yet officially..... when I know I will post / update the Big Sur Knowledge base article.  Unofficially people are using it.

Marianna

So some users got the latest Media Compser to work on the new mac book pros with M1?

I see now the new OS is supported.

So based on the above, if Apple introduces new 16 Macbook Pros soon with M1x or whatever, is it safe to make the leap or does Avid MC need the current Intel architecture? Thanks!

Kyler

We havent approved the M1 so stick with what we have already approved on the system recommendations list. Better to be safe than sorry.

Marianna

I'm just wondering why "M" drive systems have not been approved yet??  I am using M1(I thought it was M2, but I believe I was wrong) and M2 drives only, with a mix of other much slower, solid state drives and a couple older spin 7200 drives.  I just can't understand how these drives are not supported when all of the time, in my experience, they work and they are way way faster than any other drive, including scsi 10,000 or 15,000 raided drives.  Off of M1 and M2 drives I can export, import or transfer footage in no time flat.  Recently I transferred over 70 GB's in less than a minute and a half from an M1 drive to an M2 drive.  So why are feet being dragged on supporting these drives?  It doesn't make sense to me.

As a backstory, I only edit off of my M2 drive with an M1 system drive.  Any footage I need to acquire is transferred to my M2 external drive and mostly MC has no problems with the drives.  I have never been led to believe any issue I have with MC is an M drive issue, but like I said before, I have have been known to be wrong many times in my life....  not that I really think things will change much with official support of these drives, but still yet I can't wait until the day they are Officially supported by Avid.  And also I can't wait for Big Sur support, which is all I have been using since getting setup with 2021 Ultimate MC