Ever since Avid Technology acquired Softimage in 1998, they have been steadily improving the DS Nitris hardware/software post-production package, adding tools and features to further bring DS into the Avid fold. With their latest version 10 release, Avid has announced a number of improvements that users should find compelling.

Gone is the Avid DS Nitris naming, henceforth the product is referred to simply as Avid DS. Gone also is the proprietary hardware acceleration, instead v10 will lean on an off-the-shelf AJA Xena 2K Dual Link HD card for capture and display. Formats now supported include 720p at 23.976 fps, as well as 1080p50 and 1080p59.94. DPX can be conformed at HD, 2K, and 4K resolutions, and realtime up/down converts are possible. Avid Interplay integration is now in place, and in addition to the Symphony based color corrector, there is now a realtime secondary corrector. Finally, options for LUT support are a boon for film projects. These and a host of other improvements all come despite the fact that Avid has reduced the turnkey pricing of DS v10 + HP workstation + 8TB storage to below $60K.

FreshDV was a part of the initial conference call that announced this latest update, and Avid has kindly granted us permission to post a recording of that call here. So check it out if you are a DS Nitris user and wish to get up to speed quickly, or simply want to learn more about DS. You can download the attached mp3, or simply subscribe to our podcast feed in iTunes.

UPDATE: Long-time Avid user Scott Simmons has posted a few thoughts on this update as well as the exclusion of native Red .R3D support.