Avid has begun shipments of the final versions of its Media Illusion and Matador. The Tewksbury, Mass.-based technology company says that while it will no longer continue development, it will continue to sell, support and maintain both lines.

Avid announced last month that it would discontinue the lines because they were not pulling their weight relative to other products in terms of sales.

Patrick Dumas, vp of worldwide product marketing, says Avid had hoped to continue nurturing these products by spinning them off to Blue Software, a software development company formed by former Avid employees.

‘Both parties worked very hard to make the spin-off happen, but unfortunately there were some fundamental issues that we were unable to resolve to each other’s satisfaction,’ he says. ‘As a result, we were left without the resources to continue the development of these products.’ Avid representatives would not state what these issues were.

Media Illusion 6.0, Avid’s irix-based compositing and special effects software, offers updated features such as node cloning, improved tracking and the latest in field handling and aspect ratio correction tools applicable to 16:9 and hd applications.

Matador 7.55 is a resolution-independent 2D paint and animation system used in rotoscoping, digital matte painting and design.