Media Composer's licensing options: Own it, rent it, or share it

I thought I'd take just a brief opportunity to describe the new licensing options for Media Composer, because Avid has changed their business model in a number of ways with this version, and this does affect the way you get and use the software. Basically it now comes down to three options. Own it, by buying a perpetual license. Rent it, by subscribing to the software for a monthly price or share it by getting a floating license for labs or facilities. Let's talk a bit about each of these.

I won't be going into absolutely all the details, but I do want to highlight some key points. Here's a chart explaining some of the main features of the perpetual license versus the subscription license. As you can see, there are a number of key differences, mostly regarding the licensing terms and the software included. You can peruse this to get the basics and certainly go to Avid's website to learn more, but basically, overall you do get more included with a subscription model. Also, understand that when you buy the perpetual license, you've got Media Composer forever, but only at the version that you buy it.

So if you buy it at version eight, and then after a year your software upgrades run out, you need to buy an upgrade contract to get additional support and software updates. It gets a little complicated about what you get, how much it costs, and when things run out in each of these options, so let me just try to quickly run this down for you. As of this recording, here are the prices for a perpetual license. So as you can see, some pretty decent educational pricing here, and notice that the Avid support contract, which includes technical support and software upgrades is a flat rate per year after the first year.

So bottom line, you no longer pay to upgrade from version eight to version nine or version ten anymore. You just purchase Avid Support and it comes with technical support and software upgrades so that you can remain up to date on whatever version Avid is on. So again, if you don't buy that then you'd stay on the current version in Purpatutiy, now this may be a good option for those people don't want to be forced to subscribe. Some companies are going the way of the subscription only model and feedback has shown that some people don't like that and are holding back on previous versions indefinitely.

Avid doesn't want you to have to do that so they've come up with perpetual license option. Now, here are some additional purchasable options that you can add on to your perpetual license if you wish. Again, most of these options are simply included at no extra cost when you subscribe to Media Composer. And here are the prices if you do subscribe to Media Composer. Subscribing is media composer's way to come out with new features and fixes every few months, and to ensure that you're always up to date. Again, note the difference if you sign up on a month to month basis, like if you have an Avid job come in the door and you'll only need it for three to four months, versus purchasing an annual contract, and again, some pretty good educational pricing with this option.

There's also an option for a floating license, which lets you purchase a pack of shared licenses to distribute across an entire facility using a single system ID. You can purchase these in packs of 20 or 50 licenses. This option lets multiple editors use Media Composer simultaneously on any number of systems when licenses are available. And then, once you close the software, the license is automatically returned to the pool of available licenses on the licensing server. These licences can also be checked out for a predetermined period of time.

So, for example, if you have several editors that need them for a two weeks while they are working on laptops on a field project, then you can just reserve the licences for two weeks and they would automatically expire and become available again on the server so that you can continue to use it back at the facility. So pretty convenient. The Floating License does require that you run server software on a computer, but that computer doesn't actually have to be a server, and currently that computer does have to be run on Windows Operating System. But the computers in the facility can be either Mac or PC.

And here are the current prices for an outright Floating License as well as a converted license to a Floating License. Now one last thing, Media Composer is now managed by something called the Application Manager. This is where you see what Avid software and related third-party applications are installed on your system. The Application Manager notifies you when new updates, upgrades, and renewals are available. It's where you download, activate, and deactivate your software options, and you're also often able to activate software trails, and finally, it will also notify you about special offers, upcoming webinars, and events.

Here's my application manager here, and so you can see that it's a pretty intuitive interface to run my software from. So if you need to know more about any of these options please visit Avid's website. But again, because there are so many options available, I did want to at least run down a couple of these so that you can figure out where you might like to place yourself in the various Media Composer licensing options. With that out of the way, let's start getting our feet wet in Avid Media Composer.