Phase One's Expression Media updated, rebranded as Media Pro
updated 03:30 pm EDT, Thu May 12, 2011
Capture One integration, Core Image support
Phase One has launched Media Pro, an updated and rebranded digital asset management app based on Microsoft Expression Media. It handles photos, videos and multimedia, and various storage types, like hard drives, DVDs and shared folders, with offline workflow. It bypasses an old barrier of 128,000 files per catalog, and can cope with an unlimited number of catalogs. Images can be added via drag and drop, and keyworded, browsed, rotated, cropped, resized and magnified, with search and annotation support. Catalogs can be archived, published as a slideshow or web gallery and distributed as a contact sheet or print.
Other additions include non-destructive editing using the engine of Phase One's RAW processing tool, Capture One, with which it works in tandem as changes to images from Capture One appear in Media Pro. The two apps exchange ratings, tags and metadata, with XMP support. An option exists to switch from Capture One's rendering engine to Core Image processing on the Mac, or Windows Imaging Components on Windows.
Media Pro's interface is likewise based on Capture One, focusing on photo management and supporting video. It also allows for audio, text, fonts and HTML files.
RAW file support covers most of the major cameras from Canon, Nikon, Leaf, Pentax, Olympus, Sony and Mamiya, totaling over 100 in all. The app can batch-process and tag thousands of images, and offers scripting support for repetitive tasks.
On a Mac Media Pro requires an Intel processor, 2GB of RAM and Mac OS 10.5.8 or 10.6.6. Windows requirements are a Pentium 4, 2GB of RAM and Windows XP SP3, Vista SP2 or 7 SP1. Media Pro normally costs $200, although a $60 upgrade is available for Expression Media 2 owners, and a $70 option is accessible to users of iView Media Pro/Expression Media 1.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jan 2006
Wow it's not dead
I was sure that MS had killed off this product. I used iView for so long and have lots of catalogs. But I have pretty much moved to Aperture. But it is still really slow compared to iView. The Media Pro catalogs are really handy too when you need to give media to a friend.