What first came to light a month or so ago is now reaching us from all sides. With the upcoming release of Media Composer 2026.8, Avid is rumored to be planning changes to the project sharing functionality of their popular NLE. As Avid has not made any public statements on the matter, this information should be treated as unconfirmed.
Bin Locking Changes
Until now, Avid Media Composer has not officially supported Bin Locking when using third-party storage. According to unconfirmed information, this is set to change with Media Composer 2026.8, which is said to introduce official third-party storage support for customers with a Media Composer Enterprise license. However, it remains unclear, whether this update would affect the ability of Media Composer Ultimate users to continue using project sharing functionality on third-party storage.
The same reports suggest that Bin Locking on Avid’s own NEXIS storage will be supported across all license tiers: Media Composer Ultimate, Media Composer Enterprise, and newly also Media Composer Standard. Avid is also rumored to be preparing a special upgrade offer to encourage Ultimate users to move onto the Enterprise tier.
Based on the information currently available, customers will not be required to update to the new version and can remain on their existing supported version of Media Composer, retaining the project sharing functionality they are familiar with
What to do
We recommend all Media Composer users, whether working on ELEMENTS or on other storage, to postpone the update until the scope of the changes to this crucial functionality is clear and the version has been thoroughly tested in production environments.
Check out our other Avid Media Composer blogs:
Avid Media Composer 2025.12 Documentation (Editing Guide) with Chapter Links
Bin Locking Overview and Troubleshooting in Avid Media Composer
Avid Media Composer – Performance and Troubleshooting Guide
MAM to Avid Media Composer (and other NLEs) Workflow
