Is Media 100 Dead?

[Jim Wiseman]

Unlike Michael, I have never edited film, although I have been doing portable and broadcast video since 1970, well before computer based editing. I was the exclusive Avid dealer here in Hawaii from the early to late ’90’s, as well as one of two Media 100 dealers from near the beginning to the end. Since then I have returned exclusively to production work. I also now use Adobe Premiere to preview material in any codec and do some color correction and titling, then exporting ProResHQ to Media 100 for final edit. Why? Because it has the fastest, simplest, most direct editing metaphor of any non-linear editor I have worked with, the quality is superb, audio simple and direct, and exports have always been flawless. It just works. Premiere on the Mac has been less than stable, but seems to be improving. A bit too much concentration on features as opposed to functionality. The M100 software has grown up on the Mac, it is not the second choice platform. The other reasons I prefer M100. And Avid, while great for closed system feature production, is not open enough for my workflow that can involve many sources.

I am almost exclusively in documentary production these days, so my need for complicated effects are few when I get to final. M100 has good hooks to After Effects, and of course RED is integrated. I could also do effects at the Premiere stage of my workflow. I do hope that Boris keeps developing M100, at least keeping up with OSX updates, AJA drivers including support for Thunderbolt devices, and bug fixes. I would hate to see M100 fall by the wayside. The silence has been rather deafening. I, like Michael, will probably continue to use it for as long as possible.

Jim Wiseman
Sony PMW-EX1,Pana AJ-D810 DVCPro, DVX-100, Nikon D7000, Final Cut Studio 2 and 3, Media 100 Suite 2.1, Premiere Pro 5.5 and 6.0, AJA ioHD, AJA Kona LHi, Avid MC, Hexacore MacPro 3.33 Ghz 24Gb RAM GTX-285 120GB SSD, Macbook Pro 17″ 2011 2.2 Ghz Quadcore i7 8Gb SSD, G5 Quadcore PCIe

[Olof Ekbergh]

I have used M100 since the mid 90’s and I love it.

But I have finally stopped using it except for legacy projects that need to be reedited.

I am very sad about this but it is just not working well any more.

I use FCPX and it is really fast and works w/o the need to transcode any of the solid state media I shoot these days. The lack of tabbed timelines and bins is ridiculous. That should have been done a decade ago. Media management is a pain, the separate audio and video files is really silly in todays world.

So I have basically said goodbye to an old friend. I still have 4 licensed seats but they all use other SW most of the time now and there are really only 2 that still work with M100.

I would give M100 another chance if they updated it to be as fast and easy to work with as FCPX and other modern NLEs. But that seems unlikely. I have not even looked in on this forum for a month or so now, I used to be pretty active and I often talked with the crew at M100 about problems and possible improvements.

So I am sad to see M100 go but for me it is the reality that it has been abandoned to a slow death. I stopped my platinum updates a year ago I think, good move it seems.

RIP

Prove me wrong…

Olof Ekbergh

[Michael Slowe]

Yes Olof, we’ve missed you. Sorry to hear your tale but I don’t quite understand your gripes. How inconvenient is it with separate files for audio and video? I thought that Media Management was one of the strong points compared to others and the speed, seems quick enough, doesn’t that largely depend on the computer in use? Transcoding media from the cards is a pain I agree but it doesn’t take long and once it’s done it’s done.

The lack of communication with Boris is a worry as we’ve all agreed. Still no word from the main man.

Michael Slowe

[Olof Ekbergh]

Michael, once you start to work with FCPX, you will be really impressed by how quickly you can work. And how easily and well you can manage media.

As soon as you mount a card or a HD with pretty much any media on it you can import it in a lot of different ways. If it is organized in folders each folder becomes a keyword (a smart bin really) and you can assign many keywords and favourites to any clip. You have to wrap your head around this but basically FCPX is a searchable Database for all your media, and you can save “smart searches”. You can also start working with the files as the import is going on.

Once you start using a modern way of file handling the old bins and media folders really is clunky in comparison.

All your projects (events) and programs (timelines) are always visible but can be hidden or just put into folders to keep them organized and instantly available. M100 1 project at a time and locating media when opening is a pain.

M100 is just stuck in time, there are new and much improved ways of working once you wrap your head around them. If these new ways of working were not faster and easier to find/archive media and project I would not care. But the new ways save time and keeps me much more organized, it is so easy to find any clip even from a totally different project.

I resisted switching to FCP/Avid/Premier for years and I think the first program that really is worth switching to is the latest versions of FCPX. I did end up using FCP7 a lot in the sat few years because of collaboration with other editors, but I never liked it. I have always loved AE and I still use it a lot, but I must admit that Motion is very good and integrates really well with FCPX.

I don’t want to sound like an Apple ad. But the truth is that there are new and different ways to think about video editing and at least for me it works well.

I would love to see a modern version of M100, but it does not seem likely.

As long as M100 works for you, use it. I just found FCPX is much faster and easier to organize for my way of working.

Olof Ekbergh

[Michael Slowe]

Olof, thanks for your explanation, I must seem like a dinosaur to you. The trouble is I was a film editor and the Media 100 system of bins is merely carrying on with our previous work flow. Also, speed is not important to me and I certainly don’t need to access more than one project at a time. Once a film is finished that’s it – archive the file and wipe it all off the system – one at a time is quite enough for me.

It really does seem, from what you say, that the heading on this thread is the reality. I’m upgrading this week to the latest version and that might well be it. I’ll carry on as long as it all works, my films seem to be very popular and I’m not so far, in any way inhibited in my editing with Media 100, other, younger, more ambitious editors will doubtless thrive on the wonderful new software appearing almost daily it seems.

Michael Slowe

[Maxwell Federman]

It’s unfortunate to think that this thread is going unread or at least not acknowledged by Boris FX or Floh Peters or anyone really “in-the-know” but I’d guess the reluctance has a lot to do with the jump to 64-bit systems and the implications of re-writing the software.

[Maxwell Federman]

Here in Texas, the biggest universities had been training students exclusively on FCP and had gone so far as to build massive and elaborate servers for it. Even Apple, a giant of the computing world, decided they’d throw in the towel on a conventional editing system and release FCPx much to the dismay of many people. It just so happens that Apple has a large wing here in Austin and rumor has it that a 64-bit “FCP 8” was in development of not finished and will probably never see the light of day; probably because the business people at apple figured it would make sense to release what amounts to a hybrid of FCP and iMovie and release it at a very low price point. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’d likely get a laugh from the FCP X video released by the Conan O’Brien show that mocks professional use of FCPx; it’s worth a search on YouTube.

Anyways we’ve watched as Avid took full advantage of apples move, solidifying themselves as the one professional edit system. I guess premeire is also gaining momentum now on Mac; but working with Premiere CS_ on the PC and all of the horrible bugs and crashes remind me of what brought me to Media100 in the first place.

While it was the very first NLE editing system I ever saw in action; it took some time until I could convince my then-employer to try it. Media100i was a great product for its time albeit not without it’s own quirks and flaws. Editing style often dictates the best tool to use, and nowadays the projects I am working on often require as many as 12 tracks of video to incorporate the layers of graphics and keying that go into a composition. Sadly this workflow would be less than ideal for m100 in its current incarnation and probably not so great for FCPx either.

It’s easy to look at what it would take to get Media100 up to snuff so to speak and think it wouldn’t take much. But perhaps we must consider the difficulty and expense involved in creating a video editing application. And apparently changes in Apple’s development program have added additional hurdles. I think you guys are doing the right thing by voicing your opinions here on the COW.

And in defense of Boris Y, I think he is probably a very busy person, and it’s not unlikely that he also has his own feelings about media100 as it has been a part of the Boris FX / Artel story for so long now.

I have a 10 year old German shepherd. Last year her ACL tore in the hind leg. I spent $2000+ on surgery and an implant to prolong her life… but I did it out of love; not because it made financial sense to do so. Granted, we are discussing a piece of software and not an animal. But it’s a piece of software that people love, or this thread would not exist. I only hope that the Boris team will chime in here and at least explain what is going on with the software; if its nothing, then why.