Hi,

With 2020.12 MC release (Big Sur compatibility) is it possible to use Media Composer on M1 Macs through Rosetta? 

Hi davidemasi,

  We don’t support the M1 macs at all, no matter what you’ve got running on it.

Thanks,

RalphC

Hi Ralph,

thank you for the answer. Will they be support in the near future?

Avid (and many others) don't tend to annouce timings of feature changes etc. It opens the door for litigation if they fail to deliver as "promised"

It is of course being looked at and considered abut there are complications. The current M1 ARM processors are limited to 16GB RAM and thats now the minimum for Media Composer. So its not a great fit in terms of hardware. There are various forums talking about the next generations (I guess M2) that will allow support for greater then 16GB RAM but that may well involve another cycle of code re-working to be supported.

So if I was Avid I'be be looking at whats involved but not jumping too quickly. So near future? depends what near is :-)

Hi Pat,

thank you for the answer. I understand all what you said. I just hope they will support M1 Macs anyway, there are many people (including myself) that invested in this brand new technology despite the 16 GB RAM and rumors about M2 chip.

davidemasi:

Hi Pat,

thank you for the answer. I understand all what you said. I just hope they will support M1 Macs anyway, there are many people (including myself) that invested in this brand new technology despite the 16 GB RAM and rumors about M2 chip.

I've always had a rule never to purchase hardare or software until I've seen it work (and be supported) thats stood me in good stead for many years as often promised support is very late or somehow limited.

If I needed to buy an M1 Mac today for what that and only that offers then I'd accept its not for my Avid work.

Otherwise I'd be buying a mac system that is supported.

I'd love Avid to run on my Android tablet but I won't be buying a tope end tablet on the hope it gets ported across.

Don't forget M1 support isn't just an OS change its a whole different platform.

Personally I'm not keen for Avid to divert development resources to a third platform as it will slow down advancement.

Sorry Pat but I can't get your answer. "Slow down advancement"? These are advancements. It's the same transition from power pc to Intel processers past years ago. Users will follow this other Apple transition as they have ever done. All other competitors have already released beta (Resolve, Adobe etc.), I don't think that Avid will stuck to Intel processors because it's not the way that Apple (so many many users) draws.

I love Avid and it is and will be ever my editing software (there's no better NLE outside) so I'm sure they will follow the right path and not disappoint part of the users

Avid keeps abreast of new technology and delivers generally very robust professional solutions, after much qualification e.g. ProRes on Windows, H265, IMF, ACES etc. but what you have here with the M1 is currently a consumer device. Despite the wild fanfare, it's not proving yet to be the total gamechanger that early adopters championed, not for Resolve nor Adobe, not under the microscope for heavy lifting. You can bet that Avid will code for Arm based processing on Macs if second generation machines and pro workstations prove strong but you can't blame Avid for the fact that you bought a  brand new technology current M1 Mac, when there was absolutely no mention from them that they wil be supporting it imminently - you'll have to be patient I'm afraid.

I guess if Apple announce they are completely dropping Intel for Arm and they commit to a workstation version then Avide will move across to that platform and continue support for the older Mac systems for a while and that would still be just 2 platforms being supported. But if Arm runs parallel to the Intel Macs then you have Intel PC, Intel Mac and ARM Mac to code for and support and that would be another platform in affect.

Hi Mercer,

To be clear: I don't blame Avid at all even why I've read that they will support M1 chip as soon as possible. I disagree with the statement that the M1 technology is not an innovative technology advancement. Even some pros, Hollywood employees (farther the public incredible benchmarks) said quote "Mac mini M1 could be huge". So I don't agree with "customer device". So I strongly believe Avid will follow Apple lineup as it should be. I'm just waiting for the "when" and I'll be patient becausa I'm not going to leave Media Composer software for editing.

Thank you for exchange of views

I never said M1 technology is not innovative. Whether M1 could be 'huge' or not remains to be seen - I'm sure the vast organisation that is Apple knows what it is doing. But in many ways Arm (a UK technology that we sold btw) was a step backwards at first. And so ever since the sadly missed Steve Jobs first had an iPhone in his hand in 2007 it has been playing catchup. The incredible benchmarks you speak of are not currently there under strict anaylsis - try loading a 4K non proxy timeline in Resolve and adding a few nodes plus NR and say Chromatic abberation compensation etc. then exporting that. My ZBook can handle this quite well and is a portable pc too. I am keeping my eye on this technology but for me it not there yet.

I'd much prefer Avid to look at a UNIX based MC version. Imagine the gains of a lean optimised OS.

Also for Apple the ARM route makes perfect sense. All the hardware in one chip. Need to upgrade RAM, CPU or even graphics and its a complete new system. I know this has been part of the apple world at the comsumer lever for some time but in Post we can eak out the hardware by upgrading components as they become more affordable gaining a longer life from hardware.

Not to mention failures and the ability to change a failed RAM chip or GPU card.

Has anyone actially tested MC to see if it works woith rosetta 2?

I see that big sur support is working. 

Hi Ryan,

I don't. Simply because according to the official Avid documents is "not yet supported" even though it seems not updated (still says that "Big Sur Intel support - coming soon" when the 2020.12 is supported)

Ryan:

Has anyone actially tested MC to see if it works woith rosetta 2?

I see that big sur support is working. 

yes, I did.

After installing MC 2020.12 on my iMac from 2017 (love the new features btw.)

i tried it just for fun on my 13" MBP M1.

During start up, a pop-up is saying "BoB is unavailable".

What a surprise :-)

it is Definately not Supported!!