HD Native Card Discontinued - Changes to I/O Limits? Things to Come?

[Samuel BotsteinParticipant]

https://www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2018/5/16/avid-quietly-discontinue-their-pro-tools-hd-native-pci-e-cards-is-this-a-sign-of-things-to-come

The HD Native PCIe card has been discontinued. This was the one that let one use 64 I/O using the proprietary mini DigiLink connectors, but didn't allow expansion beyond that, did not have DSP processing on it, and did not unlock HDX-exclusive features.

Avid says they will continue to sell the Thunderbolt box, which in my honest opinion is a perfect storm of proprietary technologies. It isn't expandable, there are known issues with its Thunderbolt implementation, it requires Thunderbolt anyway, Avid has not yet qualified a PCIe Thunderbolt card to make it work on non-Apple computers, the new models of which use USB-C connectors anyway.

My 2018.4 system seems to work with 64 I/O now, where before it had been limited to 32. However, I still can't use more than 32 audio tracks at 192kHz, where this is still great news for hardware inserts, though I can actually arm and record 64 inputs on 64 different mono tracks at 92kHz. I hope Avid did this is on purpose. It's excellent.

The 32 I/O limit was the main reason I wanted the Pro Tools HD (now called Ultimate or whatever) software, along with the ambisonic and surround capabilities. I still want an HDX card, mostly for the possibility of I/O expansion. HD Native (Thunderbolt or PCI) never appealed to me, because I felt I wasn't getting anything because it was still I/O limited to 64, which I now seem to have anyway.

What do y'all think will happen to HDX?

• This topic was modified 6 years ago by Samuel Botstein.

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