Avid has made significant changes to their shared storage support in the Media Composer 2026.8 release, first announced publicly on August 17th in this KB article.
With this policy and code change from Avid, beginning with MC 2026.8 you must run the "Enterprise" version of Media Composer to enable bin-locking functionality on any third-party storage including EditShare EFS. Bin-locking will no longer function with Media Composer "Ultimate" 2026.8 connected to EditShare (or any other third-party storage). Please contact Avid sales for the latest information on upgrading your Media Composer seats from the Ultimate to the Enterprise tier.
Media Composer Ultimate 2025.12 and earlier are unaffected and will still continue to have bin-locking functionality with EditShare AvidStyle Media Spaces. Therefore, if you wish to remain on the Ultimate tier, we recommend that you do not upgrade to Media Composer 2026.8.
Additionally, with the changes introduced in 2026.8, the Media Composer Enterprise tier now enables bin-locking and media sharing functionality on any shared network drive without depending on Avid emulation (e.g. bin locking/shared Avid media on an EditShare Unmanaged Media Space) however this is only a safe protected workflow if exclusively using all 2026.8 Enterprise tier seats together.
EditShare has tested the 2026.8 release for compatibility and confirmed that bin locking and shared media work correctly between multiple Enterprise tier 2026.8 workstations as well as in mixed environments (e.g. MC 2026.8 Enterprise tier stations collaborating on projects with MC 2025.12 or earlier Ultimate tier stations (using AvidStyle spaces).
In summary, if you are a current EditShare customer using AvidStyle Spaces with Media Composer, your options going forward are:
1. Upgrade your Media Composer seats from the Ultimate to the Enterprise tier and upgrade those seats to 2026.8.
2. Remain on 2025.12 or earlier and on the Ultimate tier if your workflow does not require other features otherwise provided by Media Composer 2026.8.
Note: You may also safely combine the approaches above and collaborate using EditShare EFS between some seats on 2025.12 or earlier (on Ultimate tier) and some seats on 2026.8 and later (on Enterprise tier) as long as you only use EditShare AvidStyle spaces.
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As always and going forward, EditShare is committed to best in class enterprise support for all popular industry standard editing platforms, including Avid. As the first non-Avid solution to offer bin locking and project sharing, EditShare has been qualifying our shared storage platform to work safely and reliably in collaborative workflows with Media Composer versions for over 20 years. While Avid understandably might not have directly supported or stood behind these workflows, EditShare itself has, and the proof is in the tens of thousands of Media Composer seats and countless productions cut on Avid editors connected to EditShare.
In the decades since EditShare first introduced third-party support for Media Composer collaboration, many other companies emerged offering other versions of Avid Nexis emulation. Their reliability and compatibility varied widely, leading to Avid's concerns about production risks like project conflicts, overwritten changes, and lost work—risks that did not affect EditShare users. Because of this, Avid took the decision in 2026.8 to embed the bin-locking technology into Media Composer Enterprise itself in order to guarantee a consistent user experience.
If you have questions or concerns, please contact EditShare support.
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