Pro Tools 2019 Joins Netflix Post Technology Alliance
Avid previewed a new release of Pro Tools that supports 4K and UHD playback at the Audio Engineering Society (AES) show in New York today.
The new capabilities, which Avid said include playback and display of 4K and high-frame-rate files, will allow sound departments to use high-resolution files from editorial, rather than transcoding and/or downresing proxies for audio.
Essentially, Pro Tools and Pro Tools Ultimate will support the same video rasters and frame rates as Media Composer, with the ability to set resolution and frame rate independently. It will also allow more precise editing to picture, Avid’s Greg Stryke Chin wrote in an Avid website post, explaining that resolution and frame rate will display correctly on the main timeline.
New resolution options in Pro Tools include UHD and DCI 4K options
Avid
“The latest Pro Tools 2019 update allows audio professionals to work on the same high-resolution video used in Media Composer within Pro Tools, eliminating the need for transcoding and file format or resolution conversion,” said Rob D’Amico, director of product marketing for audio & video solutions, in a prepared statement. “This dramatically streamlines end-to-end audio post-production workflows, saving time and costly storage.”
Dolby Atmos support has been beefed up as well. Pro Tools 2019 will be able to send 130 CoreAudio channels to Dolby Atmos Renderer software, which Avid said will simplify “in the box” mixing and playback workflow — meaning workflow where Dolby Atmos Renderer runs on the same system as Pro Tools.
Avid also announced multi-mix WAV bounce, meaning multiple stems may be interleaved in a single .WAV file, making it easier to deliver localized mixes for streaming.
Speaking of streaming, Avid said Pro Tools is now part of the Netflix Post Technology Alliance (PTA), indicating that it meets technical and delivery specifications for Netflix Original movies and shows. Pro Tools is one of three audio tools participating in the PTA, along with Nugen Loudness Toolkit v2.8 and Steinberg Nuendo 10.
Avid did not announce a release date for the Pro Tools 2019 update.
