AVID disclaimer from annual report

[Grinner Hester]

I disaree with nothing you said, Michael. Very objective and spot on.
My point is FCP’s upgrades are typicly upgrades while Avid has downgraded their product line on us, trying to force us to buy the one they didn’t write at all. They call their attempts at bug fixes upgrades now. By this, I think most of us would rather grow with a company/product rather than battle one.
I would, anyway.

[Michael Hancock]

I agree that Avid has been plagued with more and more bugs than when I first started using it (and that wasn’t that long ago–Media Composer 1.2 or something, if I remember right). I spent the last two years cutting primarily on an Xpress Meridien and it was rock solid (much like your old Symphony, I assume). Their latest releases/upgrades have been primarily bug fixes with nothing new added. That’s bad, especially when the competition fixes some bugs and throws in a lot of extra stuff with almost every new release.

Apple is on its way to having a great NLE and has grown leaps and bounds, but with all the flash and flair they’re adding they’re failing to fix simple things that are paramount to a top quality professional editing app (in my opinion). You still can’t monitor audio on capture, media management is a joke, they just now got mixed resolution timelines (and from what I’ve read, they aren’t handling mixed frame sizes properly), and roundtripping everything to seperate apps is a cumbersome workflow, particularly when it requires seperate renders from those programs.

While the competition from Apple has been great at driving Avid’s prices down, I wish one of the two companies would start borrowing even more ideas from the other to make the world’s best NLE. Or they can join forces.

Apple needs Avid’s media management something fierce. Avid needs Apple’s protocol for adding more and more features with each release. Avid’s multi-tiered product line is hurting them, especially considering the negligable differences between Xpress Pro and Media Composer. Apple needs to port FCP to the PC (and I’m not joking, actually. If it was on a PC I would have started learning it long ago).

It will be interesting to see what the future brings. Hopefully 2008 will be the year Avid revives and starts competing seriously again, and Apple will answer their call. Better products and lower prices all around for us, and then we all win.

Michael.

[Grinner Hester]

we shall see. I’m not sure that competing and continuing on is the plan. That’d mean alot of people have been veeery bad at their gig for the last 5 years or so. I’m wondering if the plan isn’t to merge or to file.
To me, it was a easy as throwing a few bells and whistles on the meridien line until the new breed was actually ready for release. That would have maintained their following and reputation while building for a future. As it is, they seem to have grabbed the axe themselves.

[Ted Levy]

Having not visited these forums for several months, I can see Grinner is still the same insufferable, irrelevant asshole as before (no big surprise). He masquerades on occasion as a source of help for Avid newbies, but usually just comes off as an abrasive shill for Apple with a mission of destroying Avid’s reputation for high quality products. He’s incredibly irritating and way out of line with his comments.

I can’t wait for the day when he disappears from these boards forever.