You have to upgrade to a Media Composer to get 2 rows of buttons???!!!

[Dom Silverio]

Yes and know. Some very well known bugs have beend fixed, like slow motion, but there are still some minor and esoteric bugs in existence (like recompression with correct field arrangment) – not to mention the lack of overall robustness. Its very ‘lite’ as a mendia manager.

[Dom Silverio]

[Oliver Peters] “If you look at FCE versus FCP, there are differences, but at least same-named features act the same.”

Yes, I agree that buttons should behave the same way. But to frame the argument in a way that it made “thousands of dollars” of expense unjustified is disengenous at best.
The argument also ingores the fact the XPro enjoys some impressive features that are NOT in the older Meridien MCs like color correction and AVX 2.
BTW – a lot of the features named here ARE IN Xpro. Just need to map them.

Also, I guess I am not really in the same industry as you since the offline/online workflow is very much alive here in NYC (be it small or large production and post facilities). Hell, many can’t even offline in DV25 mode (15:1s, 20:1 and its 24p counterparts are very popular). FCP users tend to do it in DV25 or 1:1 – then again offlining in FCP is bit more involved considering its media management and offline resolution RT support is quite lacking.

[Oliver Peters]

MPE,

Maybe you should re-read my posts. I never framed the argument in terms of price and I never mentioned functions that are really there, but needed mapping. Those were other posts. I’m merely arguing for a consistent interface and a possible unbundling of hardware and software. Avid can charge what it wants, but the reality is that the software that runs Adrenaline is essentially the same software that runs Xpro with some items disabled. The Adrenaline DNA provides hardware codecs, some on-board codec scaling and I/O – essentially the same functions as AJA Io or maybe Kona2. So you’ll have to draw your own conclusions as to the worth of those items in the competitive marketplace.

I don’t know if we’re in the same industry or not 😉 I cut everything from commercials to feature films in resolutions ranging from SD to more than HD. I realize offline/online is alive and well in long-form entertainment and national commercials, but that is more true in NYC and LA than the rest of the country. For example, news, corporate videos, local/regional commercials are less likely to use this route than ever before. That’s because drives are so cheap.

This wasn’t an Avid vs. FCP argument, but FCP editors use far more than DV25 or 1:1. For example, a lot of folks also use DVCPro50, DVCProHD, uncompressed HD, HDV, etc. Right now I’m cutting a project on FCP that will mix everything – SD, HD (720 and 1080) 4×3 and 16×9. Yes, I could do this in Avid but it would be a lot more difficult. And yes, I am using an offline/online approach.

For the record, I’ve used nearly every Avid post system from Xpress to DS. Last year I cut a feature on an Xpress Meridien – a UI that’s far more crippled than Xpro. Heck, there are actually some things I prefer about it!

I’m not trying to diss Avid. I’m merely urging that they get their act together before they lose the rest of the market. That’s a point of view you probably don’t agree with, yet I find myself speaking with more and more facility owners (including in NY and LA), who simply find it hard to justify sticking with Avid. I hope they are wrong, since I like the company and the product, but Avid’s a pretty big battleship to turn around. I guess we’ll see what NAB holds.

Sincerely,
Oliver

Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Dom Silverio]

[Oliver Peters] “Maybe you should re-read my posts. I never framed the argument in terms of price and I never mentioned functions that are really there, but needed mapping.”

Sorry-I was not refering to you but to the original poster of the criticism – Mr Raudonis.

[Oliver Peters]

MPE,

No offense taken on my part. In all fairness, Mark is one of the folks who has made a switch facility-wide from Avid/Unity to FCP/XSAN for many reasons, including cost, but more so for other issues. Places like Mark’s facility are what should really make Avid sit up and listen. This is the sort of enterprise-wide installation (not the one-man-band post shop) that is still Avid’s core (profitable) business. If they are losing on that front, then management needs to definitely re-evaluate the status quo.

Thanks for the give and take, but we’ve probably beaten this horse to death!

Sincerely,
Oliver

Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com

[Annaël Beauchemin]

well, yeah, I thought Xpress DV had the same editing features as Pro, and since I go from one to the other to symphony to DS and back to FCP, I get a bit lost ;-). But I also realise that Xpress is not “perfect” for offlines like I often hear. It’s “good”, no more.

Of course, one could argue that the features like “tail snap” are higher end functions, but in the context of offline/online workflows, editing feature set should be identical between softwares.