Evan Schechtman @RadicalMedia – The State of the NLE – recorded a few days before NAB

[Craig Seeman]

[Jack Guthrey] “He did mention that Avid has a huge pool of freelancers but it wasn’t clear if that drives many decisions in their shop (I’m guessing no).”

I think that’s why he had 30 seats of FCPX from the start. His approach was to develop the talent pool internally.

[Jack Guthrey] “he seemingly praised Avid’s rigidity at the same time”

Curious where you saw that in his presentation. He did bring up the Smart Tool though. I got the impression he felt Avid was a good editing system but rigid in other ways (at least based on his shop’s needs).

[Craig Seeman]

[Herb Sevush] “That line, while colorful and funny, tells me he’s only using Windows when he absolutely has to, and it limit’s my interest in what he has to say. I did listen to the whole spiel and found it of some value, but when he says something that moronic, it does argue against the value of his perceptions.”

Why? Some people prefer Windows to Mac OS and some people prefer Mac OS to Windows. Neither is “moronic.” He mentioned that there’s no issue when one is inside the app so it’s really specific to OS functions and . . . he doesn’t like them on Windows. It’s not clear that he’s just referring to UI (Windows 7 UI is pretty good even coming from my Mac favoritism). I can’t speak for him but I think trouble shooting Mac issues are easier and if downtime is a concern, I can see that resulting in a very strong bias that some (and certainly not others) may feel.

[Herb Sevush]

[Craig Seeman] “. I can’t speak for him but I think trouble shooting Mac issues are easier and if downtime is a concern, I can see that resulting in a very strong bias that some (and certainly not others) may feel.”

I agree that the Mac is somewhat easier to maintain and deal with. I have to weigh that against the PC’s superior GPU choices and greater customization possibilities, and also the greater variety of software available.

But yours was not Evan’s position, he said that … well lets not go into that again. He used the language of a 12 year old Apple fanboy. He didn’t use that type of juvenile description for any other company in his 80 minute talk. He even mentioned JVC without directly insulting them, and trust me that’s hard to do. So it’s obvious he has some strong adolescent emotional thing going on with his Apple affliction, and that limits the value of his perceptions for me.

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

[Andrew Richards]

[Craig Seeman] “As to PPRo, as they move to include OpenCL support the differences may decrease . . . although even that might mean the user wants a bit more flexibility in choosing the GPU.”

CUDA had a significant head start as a proprietary technology, but OpenCL should see pretty rapid adoption and development. We are beginning to see that in the market now. OpenCL is sponsored by some rather important industry players, including NVIDIA, which chairs the OpenCL working group.

Best,
Andy

[Craig Seeman]

[Herb Sevush] “He used the language of a 12 year old Apple fanboy.”

I think it was his attempt at humor. It’s also possible that he’s had a couple of serious downtime issues to the point where he detests windows. I can understand if that where based on maintenance experience. As UI goes, I think Windows 7 is fine. We all have our pet peeves. Windows is his. That does mean one has to assume he’s only talking about Mac versions when he’s talking about cross platform since he doesn’t see great value in cross platform.

[Craig Seeman]

[Andrew Richards] “CUDA had a significant head start as a proprietary technology, but OpenCL should see pretty rapid adoption and development.”

That’s why Adobe’s first steps in the area are important. I do think the performance gap will close a bit over time as a result.

[Frank Gothmann]

[Craig Seeman] “I think it was his attempt at humor. It’s also possible that he’s had a couple of serious downtime issues to the point where he detests windows. I can understand if that where based on maintenance experience. As UI goes, I think Windows 7 is fine. We all have our pet peeves. Windows is his. That does mean one has to assume he’s only talking about Mac versions when he’s talking about cross platform since he doesn’t see great value in cross platform.”

It seems he doesn’t know as much about the other NLEs as he wants to make people believe. Media Composer handles 4K? What? He even put that up on the presentation slide? And then he talks about all the different formats their edits consist of, including ripps from Blu-ray. The only NLE on the Mac that can handle h264 high profile is… Premiere.

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“You also agree that you will not use these products for… the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.”
iTunes End User Licence Agreement

[Jeremy Garchow]

His uses and views are very similar to how I feel about this whole situation. While @RadicalMedia is much bigger and does much “higher end” visible work than we do, the methodologies are the same. We do not use Smoke, but the whole workflow looks very familiar as well as the thought and process behind them.

I will also say that I feel the same way about his observations on the different NLEs.

This is a user’s perspective. This is what I like it about it, we are speaking the same language, cuss words and all. If you need the marketing speak, there’s tons of it. Everywhere. And sure, we now know he’s had the advantage of getting sneak peeks at future tech versions.

This is not a corporate stand up; this is not specifically attuned to one company or product and he obviously has a preference as any user typically does. I think a lot of his observations are spot on, probably because I agree with them, and I could see how this presentation might not be beneficial to the sizzle core crowd.

His overall point is not about screaming performance, or what I like to refer to as sizzle cores, but it’s more about interconnectivity, collaboration, and fast drives on smaller computers, even if you have to use hot glue every once in a while to make it “professional”.

The overall capability has increased with “lesser power” or perhaps more portable machines. I guess it’s all about how you slice it. Flexibility and portability might not be important to everyone, but I will tell you it is to me personally, more and more, especially for the near future. And really, that Thunderbolt graphic tells it all. People keep harping on bandwidth, and yes it’s true you can crowd the bandwidth of Thunderbolt, but with another controller, you won’t. Yes, there’s GPU concerns, but how many MacPro people are running multiple GPUs today, honestly? PC people, who has really bought a Tesla system in these forums for your NLE?

Thanks for posting this, Craig.

Jeremy

[Richard Herd]

I say “EX” too, not 10

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Jack Guthrey] “I’m interested in why they went FCPX (I contend it’s X not “Ten” – “Ten” requires an “Eight”) when Avid MC6 received heaps more praise.”

Yep, just like Quicktime 8.

Oh wait…