Andrew Kimery
Forum Replies Created
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[Robin S. Kurz] “I was not talking about your example, no. I can hardly speak for that. In my case that amount of sharing isn’t needed, since mainly individual, single-person projects are produced. But again, even when it is needed, I think the minor amount of additional “effort” (if that what a few clicks actually represent for anyone) to have nearly the same result, only for tens if not hundreds of thousands of $$ less, it’s a small (huge) price to (not) pay. 🙂 “
I agree that worth is in the eye of the beholder. Bill, for example, really likes how the Share to Vimeo feature in X saves steps (even though they are minor steps) when you need to get something up to Vimeo. For me it’s not really a feature I care about because I rarely use streaming sites like Vimeo. The few extra clicks don’t bother me because I do them so infrequently, but if I uploaded to Vimeo frequently I’m sure I would find more value in having the process streamlined.
I’m not sure where the 10’s-100’s of thousands of dollars price difference comes from these days. Prices, at least in the States, don’t vary nearly that much. ISIS is pricier but 3rd party shared storage venders offer ISIS-style bin locking. The downside, from what I’ve read, is that there is a bit of a cat and mouse game between Avid and the third parties where Avid will update code to break 3rd party bin locking and then the 3rd parties will have to roll out their own update to enable it again. This can lead to some flakiness with bin locking on 3rd parties from what I’ve read? How bad is it? I dunno, but I guess you can see the extra cost for ISIS in that you are running on ‘official’ hardware that won’t have those issues. At least that the gist I’ve gotten from integrators that deal with this stuff on a daily basis.
[Robin S. Kurz] “But aside from all that, I think one needs to first and foremost keep in mind that we’re not even talking about STANDARD features or options in Avid, but we are with FCP X. So really it’s not even a reasonable comparison to begin with. Without all the additional, massively expensive soft and hardware, Avid’s sharing capabilities are no better than anyone else’s. Unless I missed something since I last used it (v6?).
“Of course they are standard features in Avid. Whether I’m working alone or in a group or with a guy on the other side of town Avid works the same way. As a solo editor I can move things around via the Finder, use the Open Bin command to open a bin up from another project, etc.,. One of the nice things about Avid is that working in a group is the same experience as working solo since in both scenarios everything can be contained in a single project. With other NLEs there is an additional layer of managing multiple projects that comes into play.
Again, the perceived value of all of this depends the users and the situation. I’ve worked in large multi-user environments with FCP Legend and Avid, and a small multi-user environment with PPro and I could make an argument for, or against, any of them.
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[Ronny Courtens] “Hey Andrew,
We have implemented FCP X in quite a lot of facilities that do highly collaborative work. I’m going to publish some more stories in the coming two months, most of them dealing with collaborative editing using FCP X. One is about Endemol Shine Africa where they do sitcoms, reality and entertainment using only FCP X in a collaborative environment, another is about two Warner divisions who have switched to FCP X for reality productions. And you may have missed this one: https://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/articles/1687-final-cut-pro-x-in-enterprise...”
Thanks Ronny. I’m certainly looking forward to the forthcoming articles.
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Apologies, over the course of the day this morphed from a small post into a dissertation.
FOR GREG
[Greg Jones] “I think ‘Pro’ software is any software that can be used to make money, period. So whether one uses FCPX, IMovie, Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, Windows Movie Maker, etc. It can be considered ‘Pro’. Just my 2 cents.”Iv’e always seen it kinda the opposite. If you do something to make a living you are a ‘pro’ in that field by default. Tools though, are deliberately stratified in terms of quality, feature set and price but anyone is free to use them as they see fit (such as a pro using a consumer grade tool as part of their workflow). For example, I used to use iDVD to make DVDs for clients but I’d never consider iDVD a professional grade DVD authoring app. I was a pro using a consumer app because it fit my needs (later my needs changed and I bought DVD Studio Pro). I’ve walked by some amazing buskers drumming on buckets but I’m not going to put an orange, Home Depot bucket in the same category as a floor tom from Pearl. 😉
FOR MY MAIN MAN BILL D
[Bill Davis] “I was just responding to the description that Michael posted which seemed to show a single editor owning a bin, but other editors able to access the content for review and notes.That seems to me to represent one form of collaborative editing.”I just wanted to revisit this for a second. That certainly is one way to collaboratively edit, but Avid allows for complete fluidity where anyone with read/write access (as opposed to just read-only) can push and pull media, sequences, folders, bins, whatever from any project to any project.
The ability to ‘pull’ media into a project we are working in is normal and it’s how most people think of sharing/working collaboratively. I ask you for your current cut, you give it to me in some form (ex. as an XML) and I import it (I ‘pull’ it) into my project. Adobe has short cut this process a little bit by allowing me to go directly into your project and copy/pull out what I want via the Media Browser. This saves the intermediate step of me asking you to stop what you are doing and export something for me but sometimes it’s flakey and doesn’t work without a restart of one, or both, of the projects. FCP 7 allowed you to open up multiple projects at once but you had to be careful not to overwrite the other persons project and copying sequences from one project into another can cause media management problems down the line for certain workflows. With Avid everyone is already in the same project so if I want your latest cut I just open up your cuts bin. If I need something outside of my project I can either use the Open Bin command to open up a bin from another project or I can copy the folder/bin I need from one project to another via the Finder/Windows Explorer.
What is unique to Avid, AFAIK, is it gives you the ability to ‘push’ media into someone else’s project, not just pull media into your own project. If I have something in my project I want to give to you (new media, a current cut, etc.,) I can just copy/paste the folder/bin from my project to yours via the Finder and ‘poof’ it will show up in your project. If new GFX come in the AEs can just drag/drop an updated GFX bin into the target project’s folder, thus overwriting the existing GFX bin, and presto all the editors now have the new GFX in their project.
Being able to unobtrusively manipulate projects at the Finder level in a heavily collaborative environment is amazing. I came up as an AE which is a big reason why I’m so in love with this functionality from Avid. I didn’t have to ask editors to export things that I needed from them or to import things they needed from me. It can all just happen in the background as they are editing. When you have 3-4 editors working on an episode together plus AEs getting in new media on a daily basis plus story producers doing string outs there is a lot of collaborating and sharing on. Even something mundane like ingesting media can be made simpler by being able to work out of a single project. If you are working the night shift and have a ton of new media to ingest you’ll want to press into service any machine that can be plugged in (the most machines I’ve ever had ingesting concurrently is 12 or 13). With Avid I could capture everything into a single project where as of I was in another NLE I would’ve had to make a new project for each station and then consolidated all the media into a single project at the end of the night. Show stopping? No. Easier to just manage 1 project instead of 12? Yes.
FOR ROBIN
[Robin S. Kurz] ”
So better/superior collaborative editing or not, if no one wants to put up with the rest, there’s little good that that will do you.”And the inverse is also true. I know many people that like the background processing and metadata-centric tools in X but they didn’t want to put up with the rest… Like I said, it’s about maximizing the Pros and minimizing the Cons for your specific situation, and one man’s steak is another man’s cardboard. In the last 8-12 months I started seeing reality show jobs in LA looking for PPro editors so obviously there are people in that market that value PPros Pro’s more than Avid’s Pro’s. I don’t know any of them personally though so I don’t know what exactly went into their decision making.
[Robin S. Kurz] “We have a 12 machine FCP X suite btw, and if sharing is needed…”
I might be reading too much into your choice of the word “if”, but in the examples I’ve mentioned there is no “if sharing is needed”. Sharing and collaboration is a mandatory part of the workflow with editors and assistant editors (and sometimes story producers) sharing cuts, new media, etc., multiple times a day.
[Robin S. Kurz] “So really if a simple reload or a few more clicks are worth a 5-6 digit $ amount to you, I see no reason why FCP X shouldn’t be an (obvious) option for those scenarios. I have yet to hear anyone complain.”
I agree, at this point in time it should be considered as an option. Though I’ve yet to hear anyone try to roll out FCP X at a facility that does a lot of highly collaborative work like reality TV shows. 10yrs ago we had places like PieTown Productions and Bunim/Murray that were the canaries in the coal mines with FCP Legend when the common thought was that it was impossible to create a viable workflow around FCP in a demanding, multi-user environment like reality TV. If X exists somewhere like that I’d love to read about it. Hell, if it exists in LA I’d love to get a guided tour and spend a day learning all the in’s and out’s. A decade or so ago places dropped Avid (and it’s superior multi-editor abilities) for FCP but the astounding cost difference back then played a big factor in those decisions. Now many of those places have switched back to Avid (or switched to Avid for the first time) and the cost-per-seat difference is minimal compared to in the past.
[Robin S. Kurz] “Even if it could be even MORE convenient, as always, sure. We’ll see what the future brings.”
And everything will be getting better, more convenient, new features, etc., not just X.
FOR STEVE
[Steve Connor] ”
By one person in particular, who doesn’t post here anymore and possibly a couple of others who also aren’t regular visitors. This hasn’t been the tone of this forum for quite some time, do you think it might be time to let it go now?”I dunno… now I kinda want to find someone who’s been in love with Premiere since Version 1 and had to wait two and a half decades for Kirk Baxter to use it on Gone Girl in order to get external validation for their choice of NLE…
Maybe the guys behind Bandito Brothers, who have been using PPro since ’05 or so, should be calling out all the johnny-come-lately PPro users? I know Vashi Nedomansky has been using PPro for a long time (I think he even worked at Bandito Brothers) but I can’t call him a homer because I think he’s flat out said PPro used to suck.
In some what seriousness though, I think the truth is somewhere between Tim and Bill.
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[Herb Sevush] “So the evaluation was strictly Avid vs X, not Ppro vs X. I wonder what were those various reasons?”
The Swiss don’t like subscriptions?
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[Bill Davis] “I was just responding to the description that Michael posted which seemed to show a single editor owning a bin, but other editors able to access the content for review and notes.That seems to me to represent one form of collaborative editing. Obviously, since X doesn’t do that type of bin locking, the teams editing collaboratively must have developed another way to collaborate which satisfies their need to revision, review, re-edit and master their content. Because at the end of the day, the movies edited in X got turned over to post and onto the big screen the same way that AVID and Premiere Pro projects have.
“Ah, thanks for the additional info Bill. I agree that there are different ways to skin the cat yet still get at the same, or similar, functional end result. I know a while back someone posted a patent from Apple that seemed to suggest possible collaboration via something similar to compound clips to allow multiple editors to edit in the same timeline at the same time. Certainly an intriguing idea. Whatever Apple, Adobe, Blackmagic, and even Avid come up with to further collaborative editing I’m all for since that is a common workflow in my neck of the woods (even on smaller projects).
[Bill Davis] “It’s up to the facility folks to judge which approach has the option to drive the MOST productivity into the production process, and purchase accordingly.”
Totally agree. A good workflow is more than the sum of its parts and the trick in each situation is to get the most amount of Pros with the least amount of Cons. To go back to my previous example of the gig I’m doing now. Do I wish PPro was more like Avid in terms of multi-user collaboration? Yes. Do I wish I was working on Avid instead of PPro on this project? No. Looking at it as a whole PPro is a better fit for this gig than Avid.
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I’m going to preface this by saying I haven’t had a chance to read the article yet (hoping to have time at lunch today) so apologies if I’m missing pertinent info that was covered in the FCP.co piece.
[Michael Hancock] “It’s can be hard to understand just how powerful and efficient it is until you get a chance to see it in person or use it. And no other NLE, that I’m aware of, provides anything close to it.
“To add to this, the folders and bins that make up an Avid project are just as folders and bins in Finder/Windows Explorer (as opposed to a single ‘project file’ like with other NLEs) which means you can modify Avid projects (while people are working in them) just by moving folders and/or bins around at the desktop level. Very handy if you need to share bits and pieces, of even entire projects, with other people.
For example, most shows will have a ‘mother’ project run by the AEs and that’s where all the media for all the episodes gets ingested and lives. Then a project for each individual episode gets created and populated with just the media needed for that episode (this is the project all the editors assigned to that episode will work out of). Say some new, non-episode specific media comes in like a new GFX package. All the projects need this new GFX package and instead of having to open up each episode project one by one to add the new GFX you just copy and paste a single bin, containing the GFX, from the Mother project into each episode project. It’s super quick and you don’t have to interrupt any of the editors in order to do it. Or say one editor has a ‘toolkit’ bin (some go to SFX, custom FX, transitions, light leaks, film grain, etc.,) and wants to share it with everyone else. All they have to do is copy and paste that bin from their project into all the other projects and just like that everyone gets their own copy. Sure, all the editors could do the Open Bin command, navigate to the correct bin, open it and copy out what they need but doing it at the desktop level is much quicker and easier.
This ability to work ‘behind the scenes’ at the desktop level is really what sets Avid apart from all the other NLEs and makes sharing/collaborating inherently easy. Adobe, for example, has done a lot of work to allow you to use the Media Browser in PPro to ‘step into’ other PPro projects but it’s still cumbersome in comparison and it only goes oneway. I mean, I can pull assets from PPro Project A into PPro Project B but I cannot push assets from PPro Project B into PPro Project A.
As I recently mentioned in another thread I’m currently doing some AE work on a doc in PPro and I’m splitting the load between two Macs attached to some Promax shared storage. This is about as simple a shared storage setup can get (one user, two machines) yet part of my workflow is having to keep track of what I did in Project A on Mac 1 and what I did on Project B in Mac 2 so that everything ends up back in Project A without me accidentally skipping or repeating steps (I’m ingesting, organizing, prepping, and exporting about 30 days worth of multicam shoots). If I could work in one project in PPro like I could in Avid it would certainly streamline my process.
[Bill Davis] ” but it seems to allow multiple stakeholders to access and express their ideas about an evolving edit in progress without the need to hang the core of everything on a single machine on a single desktop and require everyone to work there.”
I’m not sure I follow Bill. The whole gist of a multi-editor environment is that everything is not on a single machine… unless by single machine you mean the shared storage server that everyone is plugged into. The way Avid’s projects are structured and they way it manages media (assuming you are allowing Avid to manage the media as opposed to connecting to it via AMA) also facilitates easy of use where editors aren’t working from the same storage pool. For example, a couple years ago I worked on a doc with another editor and he worked from home while I worked at the office. We had mirrored copies of the footage and we would email bins back and fourth to share cuts, new media, etc., I was the point person at the office so when new media came in I would ingest it then (assuming it wasn’t a ton of new media) I’d upload the MXFs from Avid and a bin to the other editor via Dropbox. The only media that was a bit of a pain were stills because the stills existed outside of Avid’s media pool so if we weren’t careful we’d have to do a re-link dance sometimes.
The functional equivalent could have been achieved with other NLEs but it would have involved more steps than just dragging & dropping via the Finder.
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Article already posted in the ‘teaser’ thread you started the other day. 😉 https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/335/87610
Haven’t had a chance to read it yet but no matter what’s written or who uses it, X, like anything else, will always have its detractors. And ‘pro’, being more of an opinion than fact, isn’t something that can be proven or disproven so there will always be a contingent that sees it, and those that use it, as less than worthy. Back around IBC I think someone in an editor group on FB posted about Walter Murch using PPro on his current project and a surprising number of people came out and were very disparaging towards Mr. Murch because of his choice. Never thought I’d see the day when other editors would dog pile like that on someone like Walter Murch, but there are a lot of outspoken keyboard warriors out there I guess.
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[Claudina Bravo] ” upgraded to the latest Premiere, V9.2 and I’m not longer able to duplicate the sequences by right clicking. I have to use the pull down menu (Edit-duplicate) to do it. Is it a bug?.
Is Anybody experiencing the same issue?
“I’ve had a similar problem since the 2014 version. Typically clearing in/out points in an open sequence or closing an open sequence will alleviate the problem.
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[Bobby Hall] ”
Thanks for the replies everyone. I would also like to just own the program and keep it forever without having to constantly pay for updates, but I guess that’s not really possible!”AFAIK the only NLE that has a ‘buy once, get free updates forever” policy is Apple.
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[Bobby Hall] “At some point the software would become non-upgradable, and I’m not sure if this matters or not. I just want to learn the program, edit some stuff on it, and be able to put on my resume that I can use Avid.”
The software becomes non-upgradeable 12 months after you buy it (unless you spend $299 to buy another annual maintenance contract). If you just want to edit some stuff with it so you can say you know how to use it I would just subscribe for a few months.