Running AVID on new iMac

That iMac works with Avid without any problem. Note that it's the most powerful iMac that it's sold with a very good graphic card and processor, so it will run perfectly with that configuration. Enjoy your iMac

Finally, someone else on this forum using AVID Media Composer!

It certainly sounds like you will have the necessary specs to be able to edit videos at the resolution you want. I believe that iMac should work fine, but maybe someone else will be able to give you some better knowlege.

Also, you need an external drive. It is highly recommended to use an external drive to store your media and use it as your media drive when working in AVID.

AVID is the industry standard and is a great NLE to learn. It will handle any workflow you need it too. And, the iMac you are looking to get will give you the performance you need when working with AVID and handling those types of video files. Yes, ideally a Mac Pro would be the best choice but that option is a lot more expensive. What you are looking at will still work great! Definitely learn AVID, it's a great NLE!

A lot of people is migrating to other applications because of the Final Cut Pro X release. Apple is adding features to Final Cut Pro X, but this doesn't stop. You must be sure that the iMac will run properly Avid

I use AVID with my 27" iMac and AVID runs properly on it. Your computer easily passes all of the minimum requirements to run AVID. The only thing that might be an issue is if you have OS X 10.8.3. Currently MC only supports 10.8.2, but I'm sure a patch will come out soon. This, however, should not cause you any major issues.

Awesome choice! One word of advice if I may, buy the imac with the minimum 8GB of ram and instead of paying Apple $600 for the upgrade to 32 GB you can buy 32GB from Crucial for $260 and install it yourself in minutes.

If the iMac you ordered doesn't work as you expected, you have 14 days to return it and get refunded the money. However, I don't expect that because it's the most powerful iMac

Your iMac meets the specs. Here they are:

Mac OS X

• Computer: Avid-qualified Mac-based computer²
• OS: Mac OS X Lion and Mountain Lion (64-bit) (Still need 32-bit?Learn more about Media Composer 5.5)
• Processor: Intel Dual or Intel Dual Core 2.66 GHz Xeon processor or faster, or Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 GHz processor or faster (laptops)
• Memory: 4 GB of RAM (6+ GB recommended); 16+ GB of RAM recommended for Stereoscopic and other high performance workflows
• Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce family³ (recommended) or ATI Radeon family (as supported by Apple)
• Internal hard drive: Minimum 80 GB 7200 rpm hard disk

Mike makes a great point as well, purchase your RAM through Crucial or OWC. It's the same quality for less.

You chose a great computer as well as NLE. AVID is a great choice.

Just a side note: "This year, all of the nominated films in the Best Editing category were cut by Avid customers, while one or more of Avid’s audio and video solutions were also used in the creation of all of this year’s Best Picture nominees. Argo won the Oscar in both categories. Other winners created with Avid solutions include Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall for Sound Editing, Les Misérables for Sound Mixing, Life of Pi for Original Score, and Skyfall." 🙂

Did you purchase it yet? If not change it to 8GB. It's $296.99 for 24GB on Crucial. That saves you $300. Also, make sure you purchase the USB SuperDrive and a Keyboard with Numeric Pad.

Also, make sure you have a fast connection for your external drive. USB 3.0 is not good enough, yes it has very fast read/write speeds in bursts, but for video editing you need continuous speed/performance which USB 3.0 is not good for. If you can, get a Thunderbolt drive. If that's too expensive then a FireWire 800 RAID 0 configured drive.

Do not forget about the external drive, it is highly recommended, especially for what you are doing. But, you're welcome! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Hi SemNick,

Well, I thought the exact same thing in buying a maxed out iMac to run Avid. It will work fine if you use the iMac's internal sound card, but if you are planning to use an external audio interface connected to studio monitors, then it will have problems when you connect an inteface via the Firewire 800 port on the back of the iMac. Bottom line, Avid MC7 does not work well with Firewire 800! I ran an FW400 to FW800 cable from my fApogee Ensemble which is connected to Mackie monitors and Avid began making a really bad motor boating sound when I routed the audio signal to the Apogee interface. I spent nearly a month working with Avid until we finally narrowed down the issue to the FW800 port on the back of the iMac.

The best solution for this, especially if you want to import video and audio via the same interface, is to purchase the much anticipated Motu HDX-SDI Thunderbolt interface which is about to be released in next month or Oct at the latest. This is the first Thunderbolt interface by Motu and apparently they collaborated with Avid on the design. Plus, the price point is way lower than Avid video interfaces. Rather than paying Avid's very high cost for their video interfaces $4000 to $6000, it looks like the HDX-SDI Thunderbolt interface will come in at $999 retail, which means you can probably pick one up for $799 street. The beauty of Moto the gear is the combination of both great audio and video on the same interface. Mark of the Unicorn has been around forever and is known for quality workhorse audio interfaces, plus they put a cool time code display on the front and even some legacy connectors for old cameras too, S-Video, Composite so you can upconvert your old footage. Check it out man!

Here's a link http://www.motu.com/video-products/hdx-sdi-thunderbolt