[Craig Seeman]

[Andrew Kimery] “Would Adobe and/or Apple want to play ball with Avid and collaborate by giving access to deep hooks inside PPro and FCPX? If not, what would differentiate Avid’s shared storage offerings from Promax and EditShare?”

Actually you point very well to Avid’s potential Achilles heal. Avid can assist Adobe and Apple or one of Avid’s competitors will. Avid may have to decide whether it’s better for them to do R&D for other NLEs vs R&D for MC. Keep in mind that Avid simply can’t continue doing what they’re doing and, amongst other hardware sales, have to find ways to expand Isis sales. At this point their “differentiation” isn’t doing well enough for them, it would seem. In fact, working towards multi NLE support may fend of EditShare encroachment over time.

[Craig Seeman]

[Herb Sevush] “What would shock me speechless is if it offered those services while killing off MC.”

One of two things could happen in that regard. Avid allows MC to wither over time while it works with other NLEs to improve integration. Avid sells Media Composer to someone who wants to add an NLE and has the business model to profit from it. No they wouldn’t kill it immediately, they’d just create a framework so other NLEs can eventually do the same job as MC as far as integration is concerned. At that point they could EOL or sell MC.

Maybe not yet the best comparison but consider EditShare’s business model regarding integration. It’ll be interesting to see what really happens to Lightworks development over time regarding their efforts and/or open source.

[Craig Seeman]

[Chris Conlee] “neither company has a product that can take advantage of Isis like Media Composer”
[Chris Conlee] “I think Avid needs both to be successful and to differentiate themselves from the competition at a certain level.”

Avid doesn’t need Media Composer so much as a way to facilitate other NLEa to use Isis. They need to sell more Isis, not Media Composer.

I’m not sure how much R&D Avid puts into Media Composer but I could see, if the company did a shake up, of focusing resources on developing for other NLEs and allowing MC to fade. Avid makes money on hardware and they may want to focus on expanding their potential hardware sales without depending on MC and the development resources that uses.

[Craig Seeman]

[Herb Sevush] “What value does Unity/Isis have outside of it’s relationship
to Media Composer?”

I do think it’s important to understand who the “money making” technology is in that relationship.

I’m about to say something highly speculative but what should happen if Avid’s solution is to focus on Isis, it’s management utilities, services fees, and drop Media Composer and focus on working with other NLE developers with better integration. Neither Adobe or Apple have any kind of competing product.

[Craig Seeman]

[Patrick Murphy] “Are you really suggesting that Avid and Adobe could do the same without a significant negative impact on their value? “

Yes exactly. For years Premiere had very little significance at Adobe. For many it was the afterthought or just the conduit to their other video apps and Adobe is NOT specifically a video company. You might have a look at their server business.

Media Composer itself makes very little money for Avid. It has some importance because of its relationship it Unity/Isis . Avid long ago left behind being a predominantly turnkey NLE company.

Apple is very careful about the roles different programs play in their eco-system. Sometimes very small pieces of the economic pie play a big role because of their product interconnections. Consider why Apple bothered to make a new MacPro given how little revenue it generated by itself. I doubt these are “vanity” projects. I suspect they play a role in their marketing as well as halo affect as anyone using these products probably buys several other Apple products as well.

[Craig Seeman]

[Patrick Murphy] “Of course Avid and Adobe are not angels, but at least their business model is narrow enough to suggest some restraint in alienating their customer base. Apple on the other hand has no such inhibitions. They could drop FCPX tomorrow and the negative impact, if any, on their corporate health would be relatively small. “

You may want to re-examine the business models of Avid and Adobe. Media Composer and Symphony are a very small part of Avid’s revenues. They’re a hardware sales service and support company.

Adobe could drop Premiere and it would likely not cause anyone to shift away from Photoshop, After Effects, Illustrator, InDesign, their Server software.

Maybe you just perceive them as NLE companies but they’re not and in both cases it’s a small part of their business.

Apple is all about commodification and dependencies and FCPX keeps users in the Apple hardware and software services eco-system.

[Craig Seeman]

[TImothy Auld] “should I trust Apple for the next six months, let alone the next five years?”

My question back is that if you put your trust in any company you’re making a mistake.
I have very good reason not to trust Avid or Adobe either.
I do trust that Apple intends to use FCPX as part of a strategy to sell Macs.

My business model is to be nimble enough to change as companies change their directions. Long gone are the days where $100,000 plus systems getting abandoned wreaking financial havoc to a facility.

[Craig Seeman]

[Lillian Young] “I just thought of something, Craig. A lot of the tutorials I have watched are dated by year or version.

That may explain why I am aloof on some features despite all of the tutorials I’ve watched.
“

Apple’s been very aggressive with feature updates. Rippled is very good at coming out with updated tutorials. 10.1 requires a new tutorial purchase.

[Craig Seeman]

X is my primary but there are areas that Apple (including legacy) hasn’t been able to touch Avid.
Avid has great trim tools.

I understand Apple has always been pushing timeline trimming but sans a good trim window (and the FCP legacy trim window wasn’t as good as Avid’s) there has to be a good large view Two Up. Currently that only happens with the mouse (ugh!). I want a big two up with keyboard trimming and I want to see the number of frames trimmed on both sides.

The other is Dynamic trimming. Looping a section and being able to trim video and/or attached audio as it loops… and see a two up at the same time of course.

Of course Avid wins on collaborative workflow but, as time goes on, I think Apple (and Adobe) may catch up there. My hunch is this is where Lightworks (with EditShare) may be focusing. I haven’t used Lightworks but it might end up being my “track based” alternative if I were to need that.

So far, the only downside I have with trackless is that Roles really needs more improvements. While I was never a fan of the need to change track patches and the “track Tetris” need to shift things up (or down), I’d really do think targeting while one edits can help in some workflow rather than having to pre assign (or post assign after the edit). I’d like to be able to target “John VO” or “Jane VO” or “room tone” while editing with a keystroke.

[Craig Seeman]

[Lillian Young] ” I remain disappointed that Apple released a major update that can only be used on a new OS. “

This is certainly an interesting point to discuss. Given that Apple makes both the NLE and the OS and is primarily a hardware company, their business motive is to move you to new hardware. The OS went from inexpensive to free to completely remove the financial aspect of OS updates (from Apple’s perspective) for a facility.

As someone who used Avid for 10 years I can say one was equally hamstrung when they were slow to certify OS updates as other developers took advantage of new features or even just improved stability.

Generally, but with some notable exceptions, Apple developers know Apple’s push to OS updates and they’re fairly quick to move their products up.