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जागो “Wake up Dear AVID”
With the release of Apple Final Cut Pro X and reaction from the industry, I feel that apple is deliberately doing all this. This is of because:
1. everyone is complaining about XML, multicam, color grading, plug-in support type of stuff, not even 5% are saying about the new editing paradigm (casual style of editing- magnetic timeline and all that)- so they are giving a mute yes to it. Temptation given by apple are $299 price and a lot of free learning resources.
Once they get addicted to it, they won’t be able to edit on any other NLE, the concept of hybrid AvidFCP editor will get lost.
So I think apple has deliberately omitted these things to draw the attention of users from new trackless editing paradigm and users will accept it, and will continue complaining about pro features, which they say and I’m sure will be added in future versions.
(If apple had added all pro features to fcpx-version one with 64bit+multiprocessor+background rendering , users will have been complaining about new editing techniques only . And that could be a major issue for so many Hollywood features and prime time TV. So apple is very clever on this. They want users to slowly adapt to new NLE, the slow you take it, the more it hurts)
2. Apple wants to get rid of the editing paradigm set by edit droid and or avid. When they entered the NLE market they could do FCPX at that time (editing methodology way), but no one would have accepted it except some school going children, much like corel video studio. So they kept the avid way, made an avid like NLE and make it accessible to everyone for very low price and features like DV editing. Later they added advanced features like professional uncompressed video support, bought the very industry standard in compositing – shake (later killed it but many people drew to fcp because of shake), integrated into FCP suite, again integrated final touch color grading software (price went down to fraction of what it originally costed)- to draw people from avid->baelight, nucoda, smoke, lustre, davinci league. Added some other secondary softwares – compressor, DVD studio, sound editing software ( I don’t even remember its name). So broke the empire of avid. Integrated prores into many hardwares for free and encouraged many developers to come to fcp ( number of fcp plugins are many many times more than avid)- and avid was dumb enough to follow the strategy apple set (they still charge huge for integrating DNxHD into your products )
****Apple has no interest in shake or Color beyond just complimenting to FCP, so they were never developed handsomely after they were fully integrated into FCP suite.People may say that it was very good for industry- avid costs went down, avid worked hard on its NLE, they again started listening to customers and gave an overall benefit to NLE community, which I also appreciate to some extent.
But not fully…..why? Because their applications never ran on other platforms windows or linux, they killed very mac clone making company, who were making better macs than them. Windows versions of FCP ( surprised ??::: fcp’s precursor originally developed by macromedia ran on windows) and shake were immediately drawn from that platform.
So their hardware business grew because of it. (mac pro machines are much higher in cost than a comparable windows machine , and much more limited too in terms of expansion or performance.) so overall cost remained same for them. Just a bunch of people who purchased macpro for running photoshop , were not the part of equation, but were giving additional money to apple just to show that were mac users and were more professionals. Apple shamelessly publicized that their MACOSX was the most advanced OS of world (it is not their OS, it is FreeBSD Unix with apple interface).
But even after so much of this they survived brilliantly because they always think of future and themselves.Well Some suggestion for avid.
I still love FCP 7 and avid. FCP 7 had all (and+) features of avid, but avid shines in two ways for me
a. trim tool::: trim tool::: trim tool::: trim tool and trim tool- avid ‘s trim tool is really the single most great tool that I can ever expect from any kind of software. All the essence of editing, pace rhythm feeling love anger hate —- all is related to this tool.
b. what they claim to do, they do—- if they say it will work realtime: it will for sure. They say DnxHD 1080p will play realtime,it plays even on very underpowered machine. I have very bad experience of working on other NLEs (you know who they are ), who claim realtime 4K editing, but fail to deliver even on their most recommended MACPROs.
Besides these , there are so many factors like rock solid media management, finest NLE tools, availability on both leading platforms and many many more.
Apple is never going to restore to FCP7 like NLE, because they don’t need to. Every new editing student from now onwards will learn FCPx way in school and their thought process will work accordingly. Apple will continue selling imacs , macbook pros and all that kind of stuff. Revenues from ipad and iphone will let them manipulate the NLE industry in the way they like.If avid still remains sleeping, they will become extinct like dinosaurs. People will say that this creature (avid the mighty dinosaur) was very powerful but could not survive the meteor crash named apple marketing strategies. Small creatures survived.
I don’t think avid should change its editing tools (they are already best in industry), the change should be in prices, workflows. Adding 4K or 8K realtime support to media composer will not benefit users, but adding decklink card capture and playback ,seamless integration with resolve, ability to open and encode DnxHD mxf in any application — will help.
I always think of editing on media composer at 1080p DnxHD, but this DnxHD should be a proxy version of the original highres media in uncompressed video or DPX kind of files. Whenever I export from avid, it should give me an option that whether you want to export proxy media resolution or the original media. I know that this kind of trackback is possible but you always need some external application like DS, davinci or smoke to conform media. (well no need to show 4k media all the time, I can happily edit on DnxHD36, but when doing compositing a shot in nuke I need the original 4k DPX or R3D, not the lowres video version ). no one now follow the paradigm of locking the edit, scanning the negative, doing the fx, color grading and scanning back to film. Everything is merged & non linear and edit is never locked until the release date.
Or alternatively Avid should develop an external application that can capture and playback 4k or higher media but should always link to MC for editing (it should be dynamic,with one button press, no aaf import export, MC can always be editing a proxy version of that file ). no DS , that is too costly- and I don’t need the compositor. Say a virtual digital negative cutter who is always keeping his eye on my MC timeline to cut the negative and show me in 1 second what I have edited on my MC. (it may utilize 1024 CUDA cores of my newest graphics card to do 4k playback, I don’t mind that)
Avid Editing tools are best, while price and workflow needs something to compete with an NLE with comparatively (in my opinion) inferior editing tools but very open workflow (It is going to be in the future , apple I believe has all the code to add pro features to PFCx) and availability.
Avid should take example of Pixar. George Lucas was not interested in feature animation projects, his interest was only VFX. Pixar was a burden to him for the investment he made, so sold for very low, and they made much much more money than vfx projects of ILM. If Lucas could have them do animation in addition to VFX he could have made much more money. Media composer is to avid what vfx is to lucas, but vfx are not answer to disney, so is media composer not to fcpx.
Fcpx could be easily tackled with liquid kind of NLE… but this lucas(Avid) want to tackle disney with VFX.“Apple learned a lot of editing software making from you, it’s now your time to learn a little marketing strategy from them.”
“Well no offense to what apple is doing but I really want to die while editing on my Avid Media Composer.”
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4 Replies
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As for Apple ‘entering’ the NLE market, they simply bought Final Cut from Macromedia. They did not develop it originally.
As for the Trim Tool, did you ever check out the new Smart Tool and its trim features in Avid since last year’s release of MC5?
As for working in DNxHD 1080p, that works, and in realtime. So I doubt you need a proxy.
If you do want a proxy, there’s a great ‘offline’ HD codec (DNxHD36). If you’re coming from file-based sources, it’s fairly easy to bring in the files, encode them to 36, edit, then hide the 36-files from the system, open up the originals, and all will relink to the orignals. Works with R3D, XDCAM EX, Quicktime, etc.
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Well written.
But I wonder, six months, a year, two years from now how much of this will be relevant?
Conversely, for all those hundreds or maybe thousands of Avids in India which are still Meridien, XPress, MC ver 2.7 and 2.8, and Windows Avids… how much of all this is relevant?
And then again, for the tens of thousands of FCP systems who’s installs came from Torrent sites, and serials numbers came from Serial Box, how does it matter?
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Neil Sadwelkar
neilsadwelkar.blogspot.com
twitter: fcpguru
FCP Editor, Edit systems consultant
Mumbai India -
thanx neil. well but, did ever india affect them? no in my opinion.Even i had to e-mail michael philips for 24/25frame issue in media composer before daring to edit a feature, manual does not explain it well.
but we will get the system that is affected by others, if it is bad : bad for us too.“So I think apple has deliberately omitted these things to draw the attention of users from new trackless editing paradigm and users will accept it, and will continue complaining about pro features, which they say and I’m sure will be added in future versions.”
hey this confirms my fear
am i the only one feared ?should have i written जागो “Wake up Dear AVID”in FCP forum instead of here?
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AVID 6 is super and
https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/45/882749
i know my fears were genuine but avid has exactly acted like what it should have. many many thanx to avid… thanx mr. greenfield
avid will be the king of NLE again.
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