Avid?

[Keith Koby]

You have to stop talking out of your arse. There is more than avid in the broadcast sector in NYC.

Keith Koby
Sr. Director Post-Production Engineering
iNDEMAND

[Neil Goodman]

Someone mentioned Avid playing catch up, which is for the most part true, EXCEPT background transcoding now in MC7 works way better than Apples implemation, in that it actually keeps going in the background while you work, and doesn’t seem to heavily bog down while it’s going. Just one area where avids tech is leading. Also nothing feels better than avids timeline and trim tool for doing actual creative cutting, IMO.

I use it at work in an 88 bay facility in L.A. and honestly, this place will never change. The word final cut is a curse word here, let alone premiere, and yea most of it is plain ignorance but that’s just how it is and I’m sure the other major networks here, are the same. I also use it at home for the odd freelance job although I usually have to talk people out of using final cut 7. Premiere or Fcpx still haven’t come up in a paid work scenario.

[Dan Stewart]

Of course anyone with the bank balance to survive a year or so of angry screaming and massive loss in business will eventually put right what once went wrong. Sooner or later even tracks..

[Keith Koby]

btw – don’t take my sarcasm wrong from that earlier post. Avid makes and has bought a lot of great products and we’d probably use more of their stuff (besides protools etc) if it weren’t for the economics of it.

[Herb Sevush]

[Keith Koby] “You have to stop talking out of your arse.”

Well, yes, I have been doing that. I have been exaggerating to make a point. There are folks still using Legacy for broadcast in NYC, I’m actually one of them. I cut cooking shows distributed by PBS and while I used to do it on discreet edit* I’ve been using FCP Legacy for the last 8 years. But considering the fact that Legacy hasn’t been updated in almost 4 years those still hanging on will be changing sometime soon. And I’m looking for a ray of hope that there is a reason not to go Avid’s way.

So tell me what do you see, what companies do you know in NYC that are using something other than Avid for broadcast, something that can be purchased someplace other than eBay.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Chris Harlan]

[Neil Goodman] “Premiere or Fcpx still haven’t come up in a paid work scenario.”

Premiere is currently my personal choice for projects I produce, but yes, most bays I come across are MC. The Hallmark Channel has converted to Premiere, and I last heard that Pivot was planning to go that way as well. I’ve also heard, first hand, that the promo department for DirectTV was converting to X. So, there’s change going on. But, yes, if you are trying to work as an editor here in LA, you’d be pretty foolish not to know Avid.

[Walter Soyka]

[Tim Wilson] “So we can debate the slogan, but not the price. The PRICE is laser focused. The price IS the marketing message. That’s why it’s in every ad. If $999 is too much for you to profit on in a job or three, then you’re not Avid’s target. Chasing customers who aren’t Avid’s target, that Avid is unable to service, for the sole sake of more customers — that’s how to kill a business in no time.”

That’s the whole thing: I think this marketing IS chasing customers who aren’t (or shouldn’t be) Avid’s target.

The price point confuses me (though this is admittedly easily done). I think it’s competing with the ghost of FCP7.

Who will buy a new license of MC now at $1000 who wouldn’t buy it if it were still priced at MC5’s $2500? Are they making up for this much lower price point in much higher volume? Maybe they are, but I’m not seeing anyone I know going back to Avid, and the company’s financials don’t seem to be turning around.

The slogan is interesting. Avid isn’t competing with MC by what it is, they’re competing with it by what it’s not: FCPX or Premiere. Or perhaps more accurately, they are trying to appeal to people’s prejudices against FCPX or Pr. It may as well be “Avid: We’re Cheap Like FCP7 and We’re Not As Bad As You Think Apple or Adobe Are (Even Though We Seem to Be Unaware of the Trademarked Brand Names of Really Popular Cameras).”

I guess that’s focused, but it looks like it’s focused on scraps of the NLE market. They’re saying “Try us if you don’t like the first couple NLEs you think of.” They’re not giving a reason to think of Avid first, even though several good reasons exist.

[Tim Wilson] “You might say that a narrowly focused, specialist core business is the problem for Avid and Media Composer. Maybe. But I look at a company that’s wall to wall with specialist solutions whose fortunes have revived: Quantel, not because they tried to become someone new, or do anything especially different. They became a better Quantel.”

I don’t think that being narrowly focused on a specialist core is a problem at all. I think that Avid SHOULD be pulling a Quantel. (Quantel’s slogan: “The quality choice for high-end color and finishing.”)

I think that Avid has an identity crisis.

They are (in actuality) a specialist solution, and a very good one at that. But they are positioning themselves (at least on whatever mailing list they have me on) as a competitor to FCPX and Pr, with a mass-market price tag even though they clearly lack the mass-market feature set.

[Tim Wilson] “Except to the extent that, no matter what else is true, Avid’s future is the same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same. as. it. ever. was: cutting in a group setting… Stable timelines, stable bins, networked workflows — these are still priceless to Avid’s core business, and exactly why Avid’s not going away for those folks any time soon. Not because they’re on top of next year’s formats.”

Avid basically defined non-linear editing for a decade. I think it’s because they haven’t kept on top of things like next year’s formats that they’ve been forced to retreat to “cutting in a group setting.”

So if they’ve already conceded the broader editorial market and are hunkering down in this niche specialty that doesn’t match their marketing, what happens when Adobe Anywhere installs start popping up? Or if FCPX goes collaborative in 10.1 or 10.2? The space that Avid is best in could get crowded in a hurry.

[Tim Wilson] “I’m going to keep contending that by the time they HAVE to have 4K for the MAJORITY of their customers, they will. It’s not like they’re not working on it, just that their customers don’t feel the same urgency that YOU do.”

Conceded. MC does not need 4K today. This is not about 4K.

[Tim Wilson] “(Agreed that DS rocked. Even as the most expensive product in the video portfolio, it was the best bargain. As an example of not understanding that target customer though: those customers complained that the price was too LOW. They could no longer charge Discreet/Autodesk-room rates, because their clients knew how little DS cost. Another story for another day, but shows the problems Avid had when they tried to compete on price. That wasn’t helping DS customers AT ALL.)”

There’s a fascinating sub-thread in here on pricing and marketing for finishing products, but I don’t think it was only too-low pricing that ultimately killed DS. I evaluated DS last year, but it was just too far behind on features, so I went for Smoke on Mac instead.

My worry is that MC is on the DS path right now. It’s a great tool for a niche within a niche, but it’s falling behind on features outside that core, it might be priced unsustainably low, and other developers are better positioned to penetrate Avid’s core market than Avid is positioned to penetrate theirs.

From my comfy armchair CEO seat, I worry that Avid’s current unique advantages are not sustainable, and I worry that they aren’t developing enough positive momentum.

I’m not as down on Avid as I sound here. I enjoyed my time cutting with Avid back in the Meridien days immensely. I’m a former Avid customer because my needs changed, but I totally get why current Avid customers are sticking with them. I also understand why new customers would buy into Avid system in 2013. I think MC is immensely valuable, and I think Avid has mindshare in a very valuable market. I also think Avid could turn it around in the broader market I’m a part of if they really want to. The last few releases do show a clear understanding of where the market is going, with glimmers of hope like open I/O, AMA and their partnership with Eyeon. I just think they need to be clearer about what they want to be.

(Oh, and if this were actually about 4K, I’d point out that DS handled 4K just fine — but it’s not, so I won’t.)

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

[Keith Koby]

[Herb Sevush] “Well, yes, I have been doing that. I have been exaggerating to make a point.”

I can’t tell the difference between your exaggeration and regular tone. So I apologize for that… But it reads to me like you will write something a few times in a thread i.e. “it’s all avid in new york” to make it as if it is a fact when it’s definitely not the case.

And I do write sarcastically in response to people, see above, but I hope the sarcasm is taken as sarcasm and not taken as anything else. So your “Exaggerating to make a point” is lost on me because it seems the point you are trying to make is just not true.

[Herb Sevush] “There are folks still using Legacy for broadcast in NYC, I’m actually one of them.”

[Herb Sevush] “So tell me what do you see, what companies do you know in NYC that are using something other than Avid for broadcast, something that can be purchased someplace other than eBay.”

There are literally still thousands of legacy editing seats in broadcast in new york city. I’ve had several meetings with my peers at other broadcasters, networks, post houses and streaming services, over the last 2 or almost 3 years, all of whom had significant fcp7 and fcp6 infrastructures. The issues most of us faced were the same and it was interesting to discuss the dilemmas and they certainly were way more civil and productive discussions than the ones found in here.

I will not name names outside of those meetings and I otherwise won’t say what other businesses are doing (by name) where I have first hand knowledge. I don’t think that it would be my place to do so. They can do that themselves if they want. I don’t mind discussing generalities, but you’d have to take my word for it.

But what I don’t care for is throwing crap out there like it’s “all avid or no work in NYC”, because it’s just not true.

There are certainly former legacy places going with premiere. There are places like where I work that are going FCPX. There are many places holding on with 7 until the market shakes out (yeah that’s still a strategy). There are other places that were going premiere until they bungled the ownership thing which causes big companies to have to re-budget from a capex purchase to opex in mid stream (don’t cross the streams, it would be bad). Some corporations don’t like adding opex. And there are places that have different software in different divisions and they are just fine with that.

What I’ve heard little of except for what Mark R was saying here, was that companies are buying in whole hog on Avid switching from a legacy/xsan environment. I know of one other place that was avid edit and fcp7 for producers and they switched to all avid. I see Mark’s case as rare but I’ve been told that there are indeed places picking up avid, just not on the scale that everything else becomes extinct or even that they are in the majority in NYC even… The guys that switch legacy to premiere also probably have a mac to pc switch to deal with which is complicated on large scales because you have to administer windows boxes with way more attention in a large environment.

At this point I think it’s funny to share that all the folks that I’ve had the pleasure of sharing with (larger NYC broadcast post facility admins) had an initial panic that at some point we’d have a labor shortage with nobody knowing how to edit in premiere or fcpx – those two being the logical switch choices from legacy/xsan/stornext infrastructures. FCPX obviously being the bigger concern of the two a couple years back, because Premiere was nicknamed FCP8. However, I can tell you I haven’t had any problems so far finding guys that can edit well in x. Our best “go to” freelancers were all over it anyway and they, like everyone else love it for certain things and dislike it for others.

I’m now waiting for another week (?) or so until Apple gets around to releasing this software and hardware to see what the future really holds. If it is good for FCPX.1 or whatever is’s called, it will be interesting to see the flow of information between my peers yet again.

The message to apple was clear from the people like me and my peers over the last >2 years, and I do think that the FCPX team had there ears open.

[Herb Sevush]

Keith –

Thanks for the reply, it just goes to remind me how small my little world is. I know of plenty of FCP Legacy seats for broadcast that are hanging on, but I haven’t heard of anyone switching to anything other than Avid, and the Avid places I know of are not changing at all. Your post has been a little ray of sunlight. I don’t mind being wrong. On the other hand rumors of Avid’s imminent demise are also a bit overblown, 4K or no.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Walter Soyka]

[Herb Sevush] “On the other hand rumors of Avid’s imminent demise are also a bit overblown, 4K or no.”

To try to put my wall of text above in perspective, I agree with this.

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