Avid to support Intel-based Macs

Avid Technology has announced plans to expand its video and audio content creation products to support the latest Intel-based Apple Macintosh systems.

Avid said its video division expected to deliver new versions of Xpress Pro and Media Composer systems for all Intel-based Macs by December. Avid's audio division, Digidesign, expects to release a compatible update to its Pro Tools HD 7.2 software in September.

Full qualification for the existing Intel-based Mac versions of Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools M-Powered on the new Mac Pro workstation is also expected in December, although preliminary testing indicates that both applications will run without problems, Avid said.

In addition, Digidesign's business unit, M-Audio, expects to qualify various hardware interfaces for the Mac Pro workstation by December. A wide range of Digidesign and M-Audio systems are already compatible with the Intel-based computers that Apple released earlier this year.

While continuing development on Intel-based Mac systems, Avid's video and audio businesses plans to maintain backward compatibility with PowerPC-based Mac systems. Avid and its businesses also expect to support future versions of the Mac OS, including the forthcoming Leopard OS announced earlier this month.

For more information, visit www.avid.com/.