Concerning the newly announced 5.5 release, I'm not seeing any additional support or love for HVX200E users in pal land:
http://avid.com/products/xpresspro/featurelist.html
Specifically, what I'm lamenting is the this line:
Native DVCPRO HD: 1080i/59.94, 1080i/50, 720p/60, 720p/24
there is still a gaping whole where I had hoped I'd see 720p/50, 720p/25
Is this official?  I'm editing a feature that starts production in July on the hvx200e.  Am I going to have to tell them to go with 1080i afterall?  If so, may I frankly state, that sucks.
Someone please tell me something different.
Well atleast the mac users should be happy with this release...

Still no 720p/50 or 720p/25? Aw come on Avid... can someone on The Inside confirm or deny this is the case?

Anyone know when 5.5 will be available?

Very disappointing. Any updates from NAB. We've been told more than once to wait for NAB to inform us on this problem.

No support for 720/25p? What are they up to? Haven't they heared the cry outs from PAL EU? They must put in the support pretty soon, because they loose alot of customers if they don't. Many uses the JVC GY-HD100 because it's the best you can get under HVX200. At this time, no one can work with that camera if they edit in Avid.

And, people working with real HD doesn't work in Avid Xpress PRO HD. I think they use Symphony or nitris much more. Avid Xpress PRO HD is I think the best solution if your gonna use HDV. But it must support more then this. Why don't they work hard to release a major update that adds support for every now known prosumer HDV camera? HD tv is on it's way and DV is going to die after a while. HDV and HD technology is the "new" DV and is going to be developed more and more.

 DS Nitris will support 720p50.

It would be difficult to for Avid to insult PAL users more if they tried.  If their marketing plan is to reduce their share of the market, this is a great move.  Xpress has supported 720p/60/29.97 and 24 for ages now.  How difficult can it be to include 720p/25?  It's just plain insulting

The only problem is, that the other NLE´s don´t support 720 25/50p too. FC doesn´t, Avid doesn´t - maybe Edius does (but I don´t know for sure).

But I want to buy an HVX200e and I will do it a few weeks after NAB. So I need an application in witch I can edit my footage. If Apple is going to release a FCP Version with 720 50p support I will sell my Avid License and go with a new Intel Mac and FCP. I hoped, that Avid  will release a more up to date Version of Xpress Pro, but 5.5 is not that step foreward for PC users I was waiting for (maybe it is a cool release for Mac guys). 720 50/25p is a must have for me and when Avid don´t care about the PAL people, maybe others will do (but somehow I doubt, Apple will be faster with that release).

MC 2.5 is for sure a cool thing, but I will not spend $5000 when I can get something similar with FCP on a Mac. $5k for MC 2.5 with Mojo included (and 720 50p support) would have been a cool deal, but so, I´m not sure this is the right way for me to go.

Edius does support 720p/25 and it works great.

I'm with you on selling my license - if Avid is happy to abandon the PAL market, then this PAL particular market for one is happy to abandon Avid.  I'm getting 3 new edit stations this year and 720p/25 is a must.  I was on the phone to Avid in the UK this morning, and they had no idea when support would be introduced, even though they freely admitted that everyone was screaming for it.  I wouldn't mind so much were it not for the fact that it would appear to be the simplest thing to implement as Avid supports every other 720p frame rate, and has done for a while.  It demonstrates a complete lack of respect for the customer, and the more people that vote with their feet the better.

I'm at the moment researching a low budget digital acquisition movie due to start in August, and have coincidentally just spent a day with an editor friend and Edius, and I was very impressed.  Yes, it does support 720/25p, and it's also FAST!  I was very impressed with its realtime capability as well.

So maybe there's an Edius in my future.  BUt gee, I'd love to stick with Avid.

FYI - there is no support for 720p/25 in Media Composer-  for what it's worth.

Well, I was told to wait for NAB. I've waited. I'm now downloading the trial version of Edius. See how that works.

Trying the edius demo but can only import sound with no picture. Oh well!

jwrl:

I'm at the moment researching a low budget digital acquisition movie due to start in August, and have coincidentally just spent a day with an editor friend and Edius, and I was very impressed.  Yes, it does support 720/25p, and it's also FAST!  I was very impressed with its realtime capability as well.

So maybe there's an Edius in my future.  BUt gee, I'd love to stick with Avid.

I'm looking at the Edius spec page and it only mentions support for 720p 25 for HDV.  It doesn't say anything about it for DVCPRO HD.
It appears all the popular NLE's were caught off guard by the pal variation of 720p.  I wonder why. 

It has support for P2 and I've read that others are using it fine. I either just can't figure it out or the demo doesnt quite work. More investigation.

 

I'd rather have one solution than have to use Raylight along with Avid.

Alas, I've searched the forums at canopus and 720p @ 25 is not officially supported.  the people who are getting it to work are actually getting it to work under a hdv 720p project setting somehow but are not really then able to export true native DVCPRO HD as I understand it.  Edius plans to add official support for DVCPRO HD 720p/ @ 25 and 50 sometime towards the end of june.
But back to topic:
Does anyone know if Avid is planning to add support for 720p/25 for xpress pro at all?
Looks like they might just be planning it for the new media composer software only version.  And when will they be adding it for MC?  Media comp. looks nice but the hardware req. seem to be a bit steeper than xpress.  But 10 bit CC for the masses at last as I understand it.