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Screenlight: Will Accounting Woes at Avid Spark Big Changes or an Acquisition?
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[Sandeep Sajeev] “The bounce back is oddly very harsh.”
they killed FCP studio, completely wrecked everyone’s head – and we will all see this software dead if it is the very last thing we do.
– or something along those lines.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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[Chris Harlan] I have also noticed that a number of X users seem unable to see the sugary, sparkly, diabetes-inducing, unicorn-frolicing, my-little-pony-like UI of X for what it is either.
Of course all of us FCP X users are delusional children. I mean come on! I worked with Media 100 for 5 years. I worked with Avid for 7+ years. I worked with FCP 7 for 7+ years. And now I’ve started working with FCP X. I’m no idiot. And let me tell you, there is absolutely nothing “sugary, or sparkly” about the interface. I find it the most efficient use of space that I’ve used. Now I do documentary-style work (which apparently puts me on a lower peg than Hollywood fictional work). So our workflows may not be the same. But to suggest FCP X is a toy, is simply without basis. Just because you can’t work with it, doesn’t mean that others can’t.
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[Sandeep Sajeev] “I must admit, I’m baffled at the venom that this program generates. It either works or it doesn’t, but people sure have an awful lot to say about just why it’s the worst NLE on the market.”
This reaction is all about the rollout that some folks here – Bill Davis and Tim Wilson amongst others – think was so wonderful.
By officially EOLing FCP7 without notice and replacing it with Beta software with a totally incomplete feature set Apple generated the intense antagonism throughout the industry that X is the recipient of. It remains to be seen if this initial reaction will be overcome by future releases and the passage of time so that the software will be judged on it’s own merits.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Chris Kenny] “I think they really need a clean start. As I mentioned in an earlier post, MC is the only major NLE that hasn’t had one.”
MC6 is a complete (64 bit) rewrite.
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[Jok Daniel] “MC6 is a complete (64 bit) rewrite.”
Porting to 64-bit does not require rewriting all source code. It mostly just requires cleaning up code that makes non-portable assumptions about the sizes of data types. MC6 does not appear to be a full rewrite, Avid has not said that it’s a full rewrite, and the technical feasibility of Avid having pulled off a full rewrite in the time between MC 5.5 and MC 6, or of having done a full rewrite that maintains the level of backwards compatibility that MC 6 maintains, is virtually zero.
It’s still the same old codebase.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Kenny] “MC6 does not appear to be a full rewrite, Avid has not said that it’s a full rewrite, and the technical feasibility of Avid having pulled off a full rewrite in the time between MC 5.5 and MC 6, or of having done a full rewrite that maintains the level of backwards compatibility that MC 6 maintains, is virtually zero.”
“With a complete rewrite of its code base, Avid freshens up the under-the-hood technology and puts the foundation in place for new features making more efficient use of 64-bit operating systems.” https://www.studiodaily.com/2011/11/top-five-media-composer-6-features/
“Avid has taken the opposite approach. In rewriting MC6 as a 64-bit application, a job that took two years to complete, Avid has kept the familiar way of working.” https://provideocoalition.com/ssimmons/story/avid_media_composer_6_is_announced_and_its_moving_into_the_future
“Avid also decided to rewrite all their code from scratch, but instead of one big hit, they have been progressively rewriting their code for the last three or four releases, if not longer.” https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2011/11/64-bit/
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[Jok Daniel] “”With a complete rewrite of its code base, Avid freshens up the under-the-hood technology and puts the foundation in place for new features making more efficient use of 64-bit operating systems.” https://www.studiodaily.com/2011/11/top-five-media-composer-6-features/
“Avid has taken the opposite approach. In rewriting MC6 as a 64-bit application, a job that took two years to complete, Avid has kept the familiar way of working.” https://provideocoalition.com/ssimmons/story/avid_media_composer_6_is_announ...”
These appear to be quotes from others who are also assuming that 64-bit means a rewrite occurred. It doesn’t.
[Jok Daniel] “”Avid also decided to rewrite all their code from scratch, but instead of one big hit, they have been progressively rewriting their code for the last three or four releases, if not longer.” https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2011/11/64-bit/“
This confirms that Media Composer was not rewritten between 5.5 and 6.0, and was in fact not rewritten from the ground up at any point. Over several releases, more and more code was progressively made 64-bit ‘clean’ (and/or updated in other ways), but there was no break in the continuity of the codebase.
Despite the “Avid also decided to rewrite all their code from scratch” language, it is extremely unlikely that no code dating from before this process remains. Even if that were the case, replacing code one ‘module’ at a time doesn’t really provide an opportunity to rethink the basic structure of an app, which is a big part of what Media Composer, in my opinion, requires.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Chris Kenny] “Despite the “Avid also decided to rewrite all their code from scratch” language, it is extremely unlikely that no code dating from before this process remains. Even if that were the case, replacing code one ‘module’ at a time doesn’t really provide an opportunity to rethink the basic structure of an app, which is a big part of what Media Composer, in my opinion, requires.”
For the most part all of this is entirely irrelevant. If you compare performance on most Macs between FCP X and MC 6.5.2 today, FCP X is clearly a worse performer. There are more memory leak issues, the UI is laggy and media handling is sloppy. So whether ported or written from the ground up, the proof is in actual results. Then let’s factor in that by rewriting X from the ground up, many of the features editors have relied on were completely dropped, forcing most established users to either stick with FCP 7 or add a lot of workarounds and extra utilities to use X.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “For the most part all of this is entirely irrelevant. If you compare performance on most Macs between FCP X and MC 6.5.2 today, FCP X is clearly a worse performer. There are more memory leak issues, the UI is laggy and media handling is sloppy. So whether ported or written from the ground up, the proof is in actual results. Then let’s factor in that by rewriting X from the ground up, many of the features editors have relied on were completely dropped, forcing most established users to either stick with FCP 7 or add a lot of workarounds and extra utilities to use X.”
There has been a fairly extensive discussion about why I believe Avid needs to consider a ground up rewrite, and your post pretty much ignores all of it.
But yes, feature, performance, and stability regressions in your initial release(s) are one of the expected costs of rewriting. We saw the exact same thing with the first couple of releases of OS X, in spades. Does this mean Apple should have kept Mac OS on its ‘Classic’ foundations forever? Twelve years after the OS X transition, if we think about what that would look like, I think it’s very clear it would have been a huge mistake — that today, Apple would be in a far weaker position had they not transitioned Mac OS to new foundations. I believe that Avid is making such a mistake right now.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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Thanks! I’ve only watched part of it thus far, but its quite interesting.
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