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Screenlight: Will Accounting Woes at Avid Spark Big Changes or an Acquisition?
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[Oliver Peters] “I’m not piling on here, so forgive the question. You seem to be a fan of FCP X. No problem, but for the sake of clarity, how much seat time do you have editing with it in a client-supervised environment?”
I don’t really do client-supervised creative editing.
I know there are several editors now exclaiming “Ah ha! Why should we listen to anything this guy says?” But the reality is that what software wins and what software loses in this industry is really not determined by whether you can do a particular kind of edit with one key press in one NLE vs. having to grab the mouse in another. It’s determined by price, by larger workflow considerations, and, in the long run, by what software is most accessible to new editors.
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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] “[Chris Harlan] “Yes! I think making Avid X would be the final bullet in the brain pan.”
That’s exactly the problem. Given the likely reaction from Avid’s present user base, that might very well be the case. But the alternative is for Avid to slowly waste away. This is not a prediction — it’s what has been happening for years now.
“But that’s not the problem. People buy X because its from Apple and in the Apple fold, and Apple can sell X as it does because X is basically loss-leader. To suggest that Avid could benefit by directly competing with X on the ground that Apple has established is silly. Yes, Avid has problems, but I don’t see creating their version of X as even remotely an answer.
“Avid’s present user base” is far more varied than you might think, btw. Its not the same as it was a decade ago. That base is now made up of a lot of people who use multiple NLEs and are open to quite a bit more than once was the case.
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[Chris Kenny] “I know there are several editors now exclaiming “Ah ha! Why should we listen to anything this guy says?” But the reality is that what software wins and what software loses in this industry is really not determined by whether you can do a particular kind of edit with one key press in one NLE vs. having to grab the mouse in another. It’s determined by price, by larger workflow considerations, and, in the long run, by what software is most accessible to new editors.”
While I agree with that in principle, I see owners make plenty of evaluations of what software they think is good, based on a cursory exposure to it. Then in the “heat of battle” it falls over – but that’s the editor’s problem, not the person who made the purchasing decision.
That’s my experience with X and some express the same concerns about Premiere. Others have good experiences, so YMMV. In the end, it’s not about doing one kind of edit versus another, but rather can you deliver on time and on budget. Despite the financial issues, Avid has consistently proven that their products can do that. To a large extent – at least in the POV of most on this forum – so did/does FCP7/FCS.
If the consideration is larger workflows, X completely “fails”, unless you are willing to use a lot of extra applications and/or workarounds. Also from a facility owner’s POV, Apple should give you great concern, since they burned users of a number of their apps, like Final Cut Server. I freelance at such a shop and FCSrvr is all but completely dead in the water, thanks to all the Java/MacOS issues. They are moving on to something else at even more expense.
– 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. “
I think’s pretty relevant. It’s 2013 and when I import an image file into Avid it gets transcoded into a video clip. If I want to import a 720p60 clip as 720p60 my project settings have to be 720p60. If my project is set to 1080p24 the imported clip will be changed to that format and frame rate. Avid’s timeline can easily handle mixed media but ingesting mixed media is a chore. I don’t think Avid can truly leverage the advantages of modern code if the limitations of the old code are maintained.
I feel like Avid can retain the basic look and feel and MC, which will keep users happy and hopefully streamline the process as they shouldn’t attempt to reinvent the wheel, while removing workflow limitations that made since in the ’90’s but don’t make sense today.
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[Chris Harlan] “But that’s not the problem. People buy X because its from Apple and in the Apple fold, and Apple can sell X as it does because X is basically loss-leader. To suggest that Avid could benefit by directly competing with X on the ground that Apple has established is silly. “
I believe it would be fundamentally possible to develop an NLE and profitably sell it for a few hundred dollars a copy, it it were sufficiently accessible to have appeal to the broader editing market rather than primarily to just the broadcast/feature niche. I doubt Apple actually loses money on FCP X. And Resolve shows that if a tool is compelling enough, it doesn’t have to be from an Apple or an Adobe for people to pay attention to it.
I like FCP X’s timeline paradigm, but it’s clear that not everyone does, and Apple clearly alienated some folks with the way FCP X was introduced. If, two years ago, Avid had had an app on the market that was as user friendly and inexpensive as FCP X, built on a modern engine, available on OS X and Windows, and that had a traditional timeline and workflow features FCP X didn’t then (and in some instances still doesn’t) have (broadcast video I/O, EDL and OMF exporting, etc.), Avid would have cleaned up.
That didn’t happen, as far as anyone can tell. Think about that. Think about what it says about Media Composer’s appeal to non-Avid editors. When Apple axed FCP 7, MC should have been the overwhelmingly obvious choice for people who didn’t like X. It wasn’t. Instead it seems like the most common choice has been to stay put, and wait around for Premiere Pro or FCP X itself to get better.
[Chris Harlan] “Yes, Avid has problems, but I don’t see creating their version of X as even remotely an answer.”
The idea that Avid needs products with more mainstream appeal isn’t just some crazy notion of mine — Avid itself appeared to believe this a few years ago. But they addressed the issue mostly through acquisitions (of e.g. Pinnacle), basically failed to ship compelling products, and never really structured things in such a way that adoption of more mainstream products would plausibly lead to sales of higher end products.
Fundamentally, I believe a company in the NLE market could be quite successful with a model very much like Blackmagic’s — free/cheap ‘Lite’ software to pull people in, more expensive ‘pro’ versions of that same software, to provide a clear upgrade path, and reasonably priced hardware. Add in server software, etc. to support the customers who need collaborate editing (a traditional Avid strength) and I bet you could make it work.
Of course that doesn’t mean Avid, the corporation that exists today, necessarily has a clear path to successfully transition to this model.
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Digital Workflow/Colorist, Nice Dissolve.You should follow me on Twitter here. Or read our blog.
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[Oliver Peters] “While I agree with that in principle, I see owners make plenty of evaluations of what software they think is good, based on a cursory exposure to it. Then in the “heat of battle” it falls over – but that’s the editor’s problem, not the person who made the purchasing decision.”
I don’t just stick ‘Digital Workflow’ in my title to justify the nerdy glasses. I do fairly extensive workflow testing before putting anything into production.
[Oliver Peters] “If the consideration is larger workflows, X completely “fails”, unless you are willing to use a lot of extra applications and/or workarounds.”
If you step back and stop taking the workarounds required by other NLEs for granted, it’s not clear that FCP X is really any worse.
OK, so you can’t directly export an EDL. But we seem to have less trouble taking FCPXML files into Resolve than Media Composer AAF files — and if you fall back on an EDL out of MC, have fun rebuilding all your reframes. So really, which is more problematic, workflow wise?
And you can’t export an OMF. But roles are pretty powerful. And is this really a more egregious workflow limitation than, say, not being able to natively work with R3D or H.264 files in FCP 7? I mean, at least this can be pretty much addressed by an external tool; FCP 7’s format limitations couldn’t.
I have lists of workflow annoyances and limitations for Media Composer, FCP 7, FCP X, Resolve, Compressor, Adobe Media encoder, ffmpeg, Motion, After Effects… hell, OS X and Windows. A very big chunk of my job is to figure out “We need to start with A, and get B out of it. What’s the best way to do that with sensibly priced hardware and software?” And then I go off and try a dozen things, using various combinations of tools. And I often run into situations where I’m saying to myself, “If only this worked a tiny bit differently, it would solve everything” or “How can this feature not exist in this app?”
FCP X does not stand out as being uniquely problematic in this respect. It certainly was with the feature set in 10.0.0, but not so much these days. In fact, I’ve recently come up with a new workflow for generating various deliverables out of FCP X that works much better than any workflow I had ever found for doing the same in any other way.
[Oliver Peters] “Also from a facility owner’s POV, Apple should give you great concern, since they burned users of a number of their apps, like Final Cut Server. I freelance at such a shop and FCSrvr is all but completely dead in the water, thanks to all the Java/MacOS issues. They are moving on to something else at even more expense.”
Apple has a penchant for killing software. Avid is perpetually losing money and restructuring. Adobe seems to have decided to totally change the way its software is licensed, in a way that honestly seems like it’ll cost a bunch of extra money.
No vendor is safe. The only safety is in flexibility.
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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] “Fundamentally, I believe a company in the NLE market could be quite successful with a model very much like Blackmagic’s — free/cheap ‘Lite’ software to pull people in, more expensive ‘pro’ versions of that same software, .”
What makes you think there are significant numbers of Resolve users shelling out $1K for the paid version? Especially since the main Lite limitation is the lack of bigger-than-HD output. I’d bet almost no one, except for folks actually building grading businesses. Not too many of those. It’s a loss leader for the cards and sweetens the sale for the camera. Plus Grant has a soft spot for color correction. You’ll note he’s not giving Teranex away for free (and it has a software base inside all that hardware).
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Chris Kenny] “If you step back and stop taking the workarounds required by other NLEs for granted, it’s not clear that FCP X is really any worse.”
Sure it is. You cannot accomplish everything you need to do within the Apple software. You have to find outside solutions, which Apple does not directly support. At least within FCP7/FCS or Adobe or Avid, I’m working with solutions developed and supported by the company. Not so in X.
I currently cannot accomplish ANY advanced post job without falling back on some use of FCP7 to fill in the blanks. While that may seem to be all part of the plan, it’s pretty obvious that Apple has washed their hands of anything they don’t see as a “current” standard.
Plus, talk to any developer off-the-record and they have nothing good to say about FCPXML or the lack of a plug-in architecture within FCP X. While all the small developers are doing a helluva a job keeping up with Apple, it’s nothing like a sanctioned feature set developed to work inside the software.
[Chris Kenny] “I have lists of workflow annoyances and limitations for Media Composer, FCP 7, FCP X, Resolve, Compressor, Adobe Media encoder, ffmpeg, Motion, After Effects… hell, OS X and Windows.”
Yes, I would agree.
[Chris Kenny] “No vendor is safe. The only safety is in flexibility.”
Agreed.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “What makes you think there are significant numbers of Resolve users shelling out $1K for the paid version? Especially since the main Lite limitation is the lack of bigger-than-HD output. I’d bet almost no one, except for folks actually building grading businesses. Not too many of those. It’s a loss leader for the cards and sweetens the sale for the camera. Plus Grant has a soft spot for color correction. You’ll note he’s not giving Teranex away for free (and it has a software base inside all that hardware).”
I did propose selling hardware as part of the model for this hypothetical NLE vendor as well. And if I were running this hypothetical company, I don’t think I’d be quite as aggressive as Blackmagic is with Resolve Lite — I think maybe I’d do a very limited free version (unlike Resolve Lite, the limitations of which are pretty much irrelevant to most of the market), a mid-range product in FCP X’s price range (all editing features, but missing most ‘pro’ workflow features), and then a full version at maybe $800.
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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] “I don’t think I’d be quite as aggressive as Blackmagic is with Resolve Lite”
I think they had to. Apple devalued the market for color correction software when they rolled Color into Studio.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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