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Avid?
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[Walter Soyka] “This line is doubly funny (or sad, depending on your point of view), given Avid’s current lack of 4K finishing solution.”
I just finished talking to a friend of mine who produces shows for a lot of the cable outlets – discovery, animal planet, etc. etc.. While we were both complaining about the state of the world, as per usual, he mentioned that there are not enough Avid editors to go around, that if you could handle an Avid and were basically breathing you could get a job in NY. My friend is not technical, he neither knows nor cares about the debates on our little forum. In his world, for employer’s of good paying (around $3500/week for a 50 hr week) jobs for editors, it is Avid or nothing. The inroads FCP legacy were making have vanished. There are no jobs in reality or documentary cable shows for editors who use PPro, FCPX, Edius or anything else. It is all Avid, all the time, and more so than it has ever been.
The conversations we have here about the decline and death of Avid have no bearing on the media production markets of NY and LA. Since I have never been an Avid editor it would be a major pain for me to go that way, plus for the moment my clients don’t care what I use. But as I plan my future, the most logical choice to enhance my marketability would be to switch to Avid – my resistance is mostly a sign of my irrationality, not a comment on Avid’s future.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Keith Koby] “For me, I thank god every morning that Avid hasn’t resorted to deceptive marketing practices like touting 4k.”
Avid Marketting does tout that editing native via AMA is a perfectly good workflow….great idea. It really isn’t. It MIGHT work in some instances, but real world workflows have shown that you really need to transcode to Avid media before editing. it’s getting better, but far from solid.
Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def -
[Herb Sevush] “the media production markets of NY and LA.”
Avid is very visible in STL also.
People have invested too much money to just toss it out. Even if individual editors liked something different. It’s too much of a lift for a network with all their little regionals that would have to move also.
Right now we (freelancers) can cut at home or in the truck and hand it in. Staff folk on Avid in-house.
I don’t ever want to work on staff there so it doesn’t matter to me but if I did, I would have to be on Avid.
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AMA is a licensed architecture from Avid that can be used by third parties to better integrate various workflows. While initially adopted by camera manufactures to be in control of their own codec support in Media Composer, it has evolved to also be used as an export mechanism. Companies like GlueTools creates AMA plug-ins for purchase, much like Panasonic charges for theirs. It is up to the developer to decide. The RED plug-in is actually developed by Avid, not RED which is why it is a bit behind in functionality compared to Premiere Pro for example getting access to all the parameters for control.
I agree that it can be better accessed by users and any plug-in that was tested as part of any release should be part of the installer and the user prompted which one they need. If there is an update, then tell me, but at least give me something that works as soon as the install is complete.
Michael
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[Jeremy Garchow] “I guess it’s time to start the “Is Avid Professional or Not: The Debate Saga of the Millennium” forum.
N’est-ce pas?”
Heh. Honestly, Media Composer has a lot of issues/limitations that you just know would be constantly used to support an “it’s not professional” narrative if FCP X had them. We ran into an entertaining example of this just last week involving timecode metadata on AMA clips getting lost.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[tony west] “People have invested too much money to just toss it out. Even if individual editors liked something different. It’s too much of a lift for a network with all their little regionals that would have to move also.
I agree though many did ditch Avid for FCP Legacy during a time when an Avid-centric ecosystem cost significantly more than it does today. The bigger the ship though the longer it takes to maneuver.
At least in LA it didn’t seem like FCP Legacy really gained acceptance until FCP 6 (so 2007-ish) and if X follows a similar trajectory then it has another 5 years or so of trust to build.
Right now we (freelancers) can cut at home or in the truck and hand it in. Staff folk on Avid in-house.I don’t ever want to work on staff there so it doesn’t matter to me but if I did, I would have to be on Avid.”
The types of projects you do impact this a lot as well. For example, I’m freelance too but I almost always end up at someone else’s place, editing on their gear in a multi-editor environment.
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[Herb Sevush] “it is Avid or nothing. The inroads FCP legacy were making have vanished. There are no jobs in reality or documentary cable shows for editors who use PPro, FCPX, Edius or anything else. It is all Avid, all the time, and more so than it has ever been.”
https://www.pbs.org/pov/filmmakers/2013-documentary-equipment-survey.php#.UqaV-42SnaE
Scroll down to the Editing and Workflow section. As I understand it this was compiled in September of 2013.
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Ima start getting back in these threads earlier so I’m not replying to 5 posts at once….
The usual disclaimer: speaking only for myself in this post….
[James Culbertson] “Scroll down to the Editing and Workflow section”
Very cool link, thanks!
Some things to note, though.
First, it’s 147 self-selected respondents. Without careful modeling, that’s just not a meaningful sample.
(For reference, there are 250,000 members at Creative COW, with around 2 million visitors every month.)
Most important, the survey doesn’t address Herb’s point at all — the top 10% of the industry, maybe even less. Maybe 5%.
Let’s say that the survey is entirely representative, and that only 12% of the entire universe of editing is using Media Composer.
If you make a Venn diagram of the slice of the industry that Herb and others are talking about, you might find 90% of THOSE jobs are on Media Composer. These guys are saying that in some markets, for some of the best kinds of jobs, the number is, in practice, 100% Avid.
That’s what he means when he says, [Herb Sevush] “for employers of good paying jobs…. it is Avid or nothing.”
(I’m trusting Herb to step in if I’m misrepresenting him.)
Now then….
[Herb Sevush] ” the most logical choice to enhance my marketability would be to switch to Avid”
Look, as much as I believed when I worked at Avid, and still do, that failing to have Media Composer in your bag of tricks is betting against yourself in the long run….I’d never suggest that it be the only trick in your bag.
Going back into ancient history, my last gig when I worked at Avid was the roll-out of the software-only version of Media Composer.
In even ancient-er history when I worked at Boris FX, I was presenting at FCP user groups every other week or so. I maintained a high-enough profile in those circles that, when Avid was inundated with requests for demos to FCP groups on the heels of software-only Media Composer, it was logical that I be the guy to go.
Here’s the thing. I was adamant that nobody should SWITCH. Just ADD Media Composer. The way to run the table is to play ALL the cards.
Here was my pitch, almost verbatim:
Buying Media Composer may seem like more money than you feel like paying, but you can earn it back in a single job if you’re working for the right clients.
The fact is that you’re probably working for the WRONG clients. You’ve been trying to teach your market, ‘My NLE isn’t Avid — but it’s better, and you can PAY ME LESS.’ No WONDER your clients are cheap.
So, knowing how little you charge, why are there potential clients who still want Avid? Doesn’t matter why. That’s not your problem. Your only problem is, “How do I get EVERYBODY to give me ALL THE MONEY?”
The answer isn’t for you to give up FCP. And the answer isn’t trying to get your potential clients to give up wanting Avid. When a client wants you to use Media Composer –JUST USE IT. TAKE ALL THEIR MONEY.
Of COURSE these clients who only want Avid are idiots. Your clients NOW are idiots too. ALL clients are idiots. The trick is to find the RICH idiots — and the guys carrying big bags of money are almost always looking for Avid editors. Stop arguing with them. Just TAKE ALL THE MONEY.”
If you’d ever seen one of my presentations, you know that this is exactly what I sound like in person, that I’m laughing pretty much the whole time…and using lots and lots of the profanity that I use in real life but not in the COW. LOL
And yeah yeah yeah, that pitch is pretty offensive, no matter what your perspective. Whatever. LOL
In context, I was of course also showing features that only existed in Media Composer (mostly still the case), and reasons why it made sense to include Media Composer alongside After Effects, Photoshop, and Microsoft Word or whatever — tools that cover specific needs in the company. Even if the company isn’t built around those tools individually, the company is built around using all the tools you NEED.
This demo speech was obviously geared for freelancers using FCP. My demos to film houses, high-end post, and in-house network production mostly didn’t need to address the WHY of Media Composer. They were by and large already using it.
EXCEPTIONS ABOUND. PLEASE DON’T LIST THEM ALL. LOL I’m just agreeing.
Also please recall that I’m a big FCPX fan, far more than I ever was of FCP. I’m even on record in this forum as a fan of Apple’s rollout of it and the EOL of FCP Legend. I’m not trolling. Go FCPX! I love you, FCPX!
(For the record, I’m also fond of Premiere. There were years when people were banging their heads against FCP that I kept saying, “I’m tellin’ ya man, those problems will go away if you’d just use Premiere.”)
[Walter Soyka] ” given Avid’s current lack of 4K finishing solution.”
A problem, yes and no. Media Composer was offline-only for most of its first decade, and even at the end of my time there in 2006, the assumption was that, not always, but more often than not, there’d still be a high-end finish from somebody like Autodesk, DaVinci, etc. The extent of the successful implementation is your call, but that’s why workflow management across solutions was so important.
It’s one reason why Avid has never been in the business of supporting the largest-frame formats first. Look at how late they were to HD. And just about the time they got to HD, they were shy of a TWO K solution that wasn’t file-based, so not shocking that they’re not there with 4K just yet.
They obviously lost some customers in those pre-HD days, but they were still working fine as an offline solution, and they were still nowhere close to peaking as a company. Their biggest money and biggest profits were yet to come. Lack of highest-end format support was thus a BUMP they went over, not a CLIFF they went over.
They have other cliffs to worry about now, but 4K isn’t one of them.
[Chris Kenny] “Honestly, Media Composer has a lot of issues/limitations that you just know would be constantly used to support an “it’s not professional” narrative if FCP X had them. “
True in spades, my friend.
And trust me, in my days in full-contact marketing (a phrase AFAIK I invented — thank you, and you’re welcome!), that message got flung around every day. Heck, there were a couple of years that Avid was getting dinged for not caring about professionals when Avid Symphony couldn’t support FireWire!
Again, please recall that I’m speaking for myself in this post. I don’t need to remind you that I’m also an idiot. Apologies again too for a post ridiculously long, even by my standards.
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[Tim Wilson] “They have other cliffs to worry about now, but 4K isn’t one of them.”
4K specifically? Agreed, not a problem today.
But I think the lack of 4K is symptomatic of more serious problems. Maybe it’s me — I’m admittedly not Avid’s target market anymore — but I can look at the products they offer and have an idea of where Adobe, Apple, Autodesk, Blackmagic, The Foundry and others are headed. I have absolutely no idea what Avid’s view of the future is in post. If it’s offline editorial, that looks a lot like their view of the future in 1989.
When is the last time you’d say Avid lead the industry on technology? Can Avid survive in permanent catch-up mode on tech? (That’s a serious question. I think it could be argued either way.)
Like you said, Avid wasn’t ready for HD — but they apparently didn’t learn from that somewhat pants-down moment when upstart FCP 4.5 put HD in the name of the app, because rather than developing some basic resolution independence at any point in the last decade, they scheduled another embarrassing pants-down moment for 2013 so upstart FCPX could emblazon 4K everywhere and while upstart Premiere Pro can do 8K and beyond.
Avid had even bought some great technology which could have saved them from this (DS, which in 1998 was ten years ahead of its time) — but then they neglected it for 15 years (you can do the math), and then they killed it earlier this year because wasn’t selling for some reason.
Sadly, it’s not just technology. There’s out-of-touch marketing, too. I got an email last week that said, “Go Pro with Media Composer for $999.” No, they are not selling a bundle that includes a camera.
Then there’s the Avid Customer Association (because no one’s talking about anything else called the ACA at the moment), where you get to PAY Avid $100 annually (or $300-500 if you want to go to their NAB party) in order to give them feedback.
Herb makes some great baseball analogies, but the Yankees aren’t playing right now. Avid looks like the Giants: a team with great heritage and some good current potential that just makes too many unforced errors to win.
This got ranty. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I remember my time cutting on Avid very fondly. Their ideas on media management from over 20 years ago have been validated. Bin-level sharing was and is still a good idea and a wonderful solution for collaboration. MC is still undoubtedly a great choice for many workflows — but Avid faces very serious competition. This is all focused on post, and maybe I’m just plain missing the bigger picture with sound and broadcast automation.
I just hate seeing Avid on this trajectory. I’d love to see Avid return to good corporate health and continue to challenge the competition with new innovations, but for now, for the love of Marianna, they have got to commit fewer unforced errors like no 4K.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Tim Wilson] “If you make a Venn diagram of the slice of the industry that Herb and others are talking about, you might find 90% of THOSE jobs are on Media Composer. These guys are saying that in some markets, for some of the best kinds of jobs, the number is, in practice, 100% Avid.
That’s what he means when he says, [Herb Sevush] “for employers of good paying jobs…. it is Avid or nothing.”
(I’m trusting Herb to step in if I’m misrepresenting him.)”
No, that’s it. I might add that I’m not particularly happy that this is the case, I’ve been avoiding Avid for 20 years or more, it’s just that the dissonance between this forum and the reality of the working world, at least in NYC, sometimes requires an airing.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf
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