Product: Xpress Pro
Version: 4.6
Manufacturer: Avid
Price: $1695

Performance & stability: 3/10
Features: 8/10
Expected return on investment: 7/10
Support: 1/10
Longevity: 5/10
Flexibility: 7/10

Pros: Does a lot, very popular

Cons:Mediocre software confounded by glitches

Bottom line:You’d have to have good reason, or nerves of steel to want to use this

Avid Xpress Pro

Avid has been in the video editing game for many years. The product line covers practically every level of the industry, from full-blown news-gathering solutions, through to editing on a laptop. Xpress Pro is probably the most promiscuous of it’s applications, it is aimed at both the casual editor and the professional.
The Xpress version of the software comes in a variety of different configurations. There’s even a self-explanatory HD version. With such an impressive lineage, you might think that this product would be the finely-tuned velociraptor of the editing industry. Well, you’d be wrong my friend.
The software plagued with numerous bugs and faults which are both frustrating and – I’m going to say it – seemingly typical of an Avid product. This is even true for systems using Avid’s recommended specifications and configurations. Try to work with a dual monitor set-up, for example, and you’ll find a multitude of things that go wrong. You’ll no doubt have to make several attempts to capture material from tape, as you try different approaches that each fail for a different reason. In addition, there is a list of known hardware and software conflicts, and rather than try to actually address the problems, the Avid support team seems to be content on just adding things to the list until they’ve narrowed down the working configuration to a single system, probably the one used for demonstration purposes on the pinewood lot. The only thing that provides any form of comfort to me when things break in an Avid system is when I read similar or worse experiences of other users on Avid’s own support forums (go see for yourself).
Anyway, putting aside technical issues, what’s substantially lacking is any form of innovation. The software suffers from an archaic design, and bears few differences from any of its predecessors. This, no doubt, suits long-time users of Avid systems, who are able to work with it as they would any other system. But to my mind, given the advances in hardware performance, and -for heaven’s sake – human-machine interaction research over the last few years, I expect a lot more than to use a design envisioned at a time when people used to wheel video tapes around on trolleys. Take one look at the design of Autodesk’s Smoke, and you’ll see what I mean. Even Pinnacle’s Liquid Edition manages to drum up some sense of forward-thinking in its design (it’s just too bad the performance is so poor). And Sony’s Vegas system is better thought-out than Avid’s, despite lacking some of the necessary features for serious work.
So what does it do? Well, in all fairness, if we overlook the problems, it does quite a lot. You can build up a transfer list of material logged from a tape, and “batch capture” it at your convenience. You can annotate the material while it’s transferring. You can mess about with the material’s timecode, and of course, you can edit material onto multiple video and audio timeline tracks. You can mix different types of SD video material together. You can colour-grade, mix audio, and apply effects to your material. And there’s even some third-party authoring applications that come with it, allowing you to generate DVD or web content. And more.
And if there’s anything an Avid system is good for, it’s the features. Granted, they’re pretty much all stripped down features taken from early versions of the MediaComposers, but there’s a lot there. It’s just too bad they don’t work reliably. So, yes, we’ve come full circle- back to the old issue of support and reliability (or lack thereof). But ask anyone why they use an Avid as opposed to anything else, they’ll either answer “because it’s what everyone else uses”, or “because it’s what I learnt”, but never “because it’s the best thing out there”. And to me, that sums it up perfectly.

For more information on Xpress Pro, see the Avid

The reviwer’s opinions are his own, and not affiliated with any third-party.