NAB and FCP X

[Joseph Owens]

[Marcus Moore] “Exactly, we need organization, but not “tracks” as other NLEs have them. Track information is just another form of metadata. What we need is for Role info to be represented in the timeline.”

This is outmoded thinking. Who needs the timeline? This obsession with structure, order of things and hierarchies and stuff is so last-century. The real problem with FCX is that it is not revolutionary enough. It dropped too much of what people were comfortable with and offered something which wasn’t actually different enough to warrant changing a whole way of life.

The winner of the edit sweepstakes will be the one who can get rid of the whole timeline/tracks paradigm. Everything should take place in the browser, which is your storyboard-in-waiting. Maybe it (the browser) should be the whole edit, everything optional, nothing written in stone, no gaps, no broken process links.

Edit in the bin.

jPo

“I always pass on free advice — its never of any use to me” Oscar Wilde.

[Craig Seeman]

Is it the disbelief in Lightworks?
Just my gut but I think “They rebelled. They evolved. And they have a plan” much like the Cylons.
It’ll take time but I think they are looking at challenging Avid.

I think there’s some interesting marketing pieces they’re throwing together.
In addition to Editshare there’s
https://www.lwks.com
and
https://www.redsharknews.com

It may take a year or more before things come together and like any plan it may not work but I see pieces getting put into place.

[Herb Sevush]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “No, I’m afraid not Craig. That is an un-buyable statement.”

I can see where Craig is coming from.

If you assume that Avid is going under financially and will not have the money to invest in R&D, then what other editing system out there is designed specifically for the feature film market – Lightworks. Given they are owned by Editshare, a company providing networking and storage solutions, they might seem the most logical successor to the Avid mantle. Craig included Adobe in this for obvious reasons but PPro does not have a hardware division nor is it as focused purely on the actual timeline cutting side of things. You could see the future as PPro takes much of the FCP market and Lightworks takes Avid’s more niche market.

Not saying it’s going to happen, but I can see the logic, if you presume Avid is going to fail.

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

[Chris Harlan]

[Craig Seeman] “Is it the disbelief in Lightworks?”

I’m not saying that there aren’t interesting things about Lightworks. I’m just saying that Adobe and EditShare are in such different places that implying that there is enough parity between them to have them in “a race” is fanciful.

[Steve Connor]

[Herb Sevush] “If you assume that Avid is going under financially and will not have the money to invest in R&D, then what other editing system out there is designed specifically for the feature film market – Lightworks. Given they are owned by Editshare, a company providing networking and storage solutions, they might seem the most logical successor to the Avid mantle. Craig included Adobe in this for obvious reasons but PPro does not have a hardware division nor is it as focused purely on the actual timeline cutting side of things. You could see the future as PPro takes much of the FCP market and Lightworks takes Avid’s more niche market.

Not saying it’s going to happen, but I can see the logic, if you presume Avid is going to fail.”

Now you’re going to panic Aindreas even more – yet another NLE he might have to learn

Steve Connor

There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum

[Matt Trubac]

Put your music in a secondary storyline. It keeps it in one lane and eliminates multiple connection points for your music “track.” Is there a downside to this that I’m not realizing?

[Craig Seeman]

Thanks Herb. You got what I was alluding to.

Looking at the marketing going in to Lightworks and developing their own news outlet with RedSharkNews shows signs of long range a messaging/marketing campaign.

They are, at least in part, targeting Avid. They’re using a business/marketing model that Avid probably can’t approach or compete with. They have a competing storage system and an NLE which might be considered on the opposite end of the pricing structure… and has had a “Hollywood” past.

It may take them some time to “get there” and they may not succeed but you can see where they may be headed… and it’s yet another blow to Avid.

The longer Avid stagnates the more time competitors have to gear up, each with very different business strategies.

Unlike Avid, Editshare may not really care which NLE you choose. They are a hardware company. In their case their NLE is just a facility. What the NLE does give them is a marketing tool. And that’s how they’re using it.

It’s ironic but I could have seen what Editshare is doing as something Avid could have done as a change in their business model but this is what happens when Avid can’t reconcile selling MC/Symphony and Isis for example, as a clear business model. I don’t mean to say Editshare wins and Avid loses ultimately but Editshare is trying and Avid is stagnant.

Avid is in a perpetual preservation mode and in the long term that doesn’t lead to growth or even survival especially when you consider their loses have been ongoing since 2006 and it’s now 2013.

[Herb Sevush]

[Craig Seeman] “Looking at the marketing going in to Lightworks and developing their own news outlet with RedSharkNews shows signs of long range a messaging/marketing campaign.”

I never heard of Editshare until I started investigating the new Lightworks, so in that sense they are getting something for their investment. I’ve also become a regular reader of Redshark News, many of the OT threads I’ve started lately come from their articles.

I still don’t believe in the imminent decline of Avid, but I do see the direction Editshare is heading and I agree it’s very interesting. Nice to have a player in the business whose name doesn’t start with an A.

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

[Craig Seeman]

Both are targeting Avid’s market in some fashion.

All these companies have different business models and very different product lines. Avid is a target though and I think Adobe wants to be the NLE and Editshare wants to be the hardware solution and is using their NLE as a marketing tool.

[Marcus Moore]

You’re being facetious, of course, but I think my analogy between Keywords-Events, and Roles-Timeline is completely apt.

If you have a piece of audio that you’ve tagged with the Role “SFX”, wouldn’t it be great to know that when you drop that into your timeline, it’s automatically deposited into the right “track” or Lane as I think they’re referred to in X. That SFX Lane isn’t restricted to just one “track” of audio, but is as deep as the number of overlapping elements it contains. All those individual elements are connected to specific visual moments, but are free to move (stack or unstack) depending on what you’re doing with the picture edit.

You’re joke about eliminating timelines implies you think that Tracks as they exist are essential. And I’m proposing they’re not. A way to visually organize audio elements IS essential. That’s two completely different things.