The remake of Autodesk’s video editing software won awards at this year’s National Association of Broadcasters convention.
Autodesk is making Autodesk Smoke 2013 video editing software, a completely redesigned and repackaged pre-release version of its all-in-one video editing and visual effects tool for the Mac, available as a free trial download.
In mid-April, Smoke 2013 was introduced at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas to standing room-only crowds at the Autodesk booth and internationally, via social media and the AREA Virtual NAB. Autodesk says more than 3,000 people registered for the pre-release trial during NAB; registrations have continued at the rate of 1,000 or more per week since.
Video editing is a competitive market, with Apple, Adobe, and Sony only three of many companies with products. At NAB Smoke 2013 won six NAB 2012 awards: the Videomaker Best of NAB 2012 Spotlight Award; the TV Technology 2012 STAR Award; Post Picks, Coolest Gear from NAB 2012; the CGW Silver Edge Award; the 2012 Digital Video Black Diamond Award; and Creative COW Blue Ribbon Award for Best of Show.
Autodesk says the decision to radically redesign Smoke grew out of customer feedback and market research, in which the user community identified improved post production workflows and pipeline efficiency as vital to their business. Autodesk says the three-month pre-release trial period will afford users the opportunity to not only experiment with the unified editing and effects workflow, but also to provide additional feedback to developers.
Smoke works on recent generation of Apple iMac and MacBook Pro systems. Autodesk anticipates Smoke 2013 will launch September 2012 for $3,495 per license.
Key features
The Smoke User Interface (UI): An all-in-one creative workflow that combines track-based editorial, industry-standard editing conventions and existing Autodesk creative tools;
ConnectFX: Powerful node-based compositing inside the timeline for high-end effects and advanced compositing without leaving the editorial environment;
Creative Tools: A toolset with high-end finishing tools, Action for true 3D compositing, the Color Warper for professional grading and color matching, the Master Keyer for one-click chroma keying and stereoscopic 3D editing and effects;
MediaHub: A new approach to working natively with common formats that facilitates managing all project media from ingest to edit to effects and archiving;
Flexible System Requirements: Runs on most Apple iMac and MacBook Pro systems using high-bandwidth Thunderbolt storage and IO.
Autodesk has created a YouTube Smoke Learning Channel with tutorials for those who download the free trial.
