[Tim Wilson]

[Michael Gissing] “All that for the price of one 2 gig of SCSI drive from the late eighties.”

My first 27GB RAID, which was approximately the size and volume of a small airplane, set me back $15,000 — which was dealer cost. This was when ProMAX was also a distributor, and Charles McConathy said, “Yeah, but I don’t actually like my south Florida dealer. Since I can’t get rid of him before you need the drives, I’ll give it to you for his cost.”

Just another reason why those of us who started with ProMAX in 1994 still feel so strongly about them.

(BTW, no Wikipedia entry for Promax or Charles? Somebody fix this.)

Anyway, I just got a 16GB USB key, shaped like an ACTUAL KEY, for FREE with the purchase of a bus-powered USB 3 2TB drive for $149. Unbelievable.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

[Tim Wilson]

[Michael Gissing] “And what was the price of MC1?”

A lot less than you’d think. I couldn’t find a reference that I felt was reliable for v.1, but by 1993, Models 210 (unbundled) and 220 (with Mac IIci) were $15,000 and $24,900 respectively.

They started getting expensive once you added hardware. (Offline film at the resolutions that Film Composer originally supported was computing intensive — hence the brute force of the Mac IIci and its 6 slots — but not THAT intensive.)

Things got interesting around 1995, when Media 100’s Vincent and Avid’s ABVB (Avid Broadcast Video Board) started duking it out: $30K vs. $90K.

Duke it out they did, with dueling lawsuits. The first shot was fired by Media 100, whose suit was dismissed with prejudice. I don’t remember what happened with the Avid suit.

I also don’t remember what the complete configuration of the ABVB Media Composer looked like (surely a breakout box, yes? Where did the configured workstations/storage come in?), but by the time I decked my Media 100 out with a computer, a modest amount of RAM and a small array (27GB – 18 for video and the 9 for music, graphics, etc), I was in for around $50,000.

By 1999, Avid dropped the ABVB to $49-ish if I’m remembering right….

…but to get to your original question, you could have gotten a Mac IIci, a Targa 2000 card and Adobe Premiere for around $20,000, which indeed I did — not far off of the Avid price.

Of course part of the reason for that expensive Premiere system was paying $5000 for 8MB (that’s MEGABYTES) of RAM. I kept the 8 SIMMs as holiday ornaments for years, and in a baggie in a drawer for years after that. I couldn’t bear to throw away $5000 worth of ANYTHING.

And yes, you’re doing the math correctly. $70,000 on editing gear in a 3-year period…not counting cameras and decks. This was in the days of “affordable” Beta SP – a $10,000 camera, $12K for a Canon zoom, $10K for a UVW-1800 deck, plus monitors, mics, batteries, a couple of VERY cheap lights, etc. — another $40,000. That’s $110,000+ in 2 years.

The COW’s predecessor community, The WWUG, was comprised of thousands of a-holes like me who took out second mortgages to get started in this business — including Ronald Lindeboom, who actually lit the whole thing up because he needed help to avoid losing the farm. There was nowhere else offering this level of life-and-death help, so he started The WWUG to get that help for his own business.

So yeah, we thought of Avid as expensive, and our $50,000 NLE setups as dirt cheap.

Goodness knows I could be remembering some of this wrong, and definitely writing far more than is necessary, but those were amazing days, and it’s nearing midnight, and I’d just as soon be rambling on about this as take the dog out to pee one more time before bed.

I’d love for some of you other geezers to correct me and fill in the blanks. These stories are too good for me to have forgotten as much as I have.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

[Tim Wilson]

I was kidding about computers and editing. Plenty of us are old enough to STILL have spent more of our careers editing NOT on computers than on computers. That’s me for sure.

It’s interesting to see how the values of these kinds of things change. Look at trailers for classic films. They’re 4 and 5 minutes long, and often had entire scenes. Nothing very edit-y about them…..

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

[Tim Wilson]

And Oliver, re: the magnetic timeline, the happiest day of my Avid newbie editing life was when I figured out how to turn that damn thing off! LOL

[Tim Wilson]

Besides, there were no editors to edit it yet because they hadn’t actually released Media Composer.

Showing yet again that the egg always comes before the chicken. This video lays the egg. Chickens followed, eventually coming home to roost.

[Tim Wilson]

[Craig Seeman] “But that might be because no one else can find the “contact us” on their website”

You’re kidding, right? I went to the product pages for the Z1, the 8560 mobile workstation, the Z820, the Dreamcolor Monitor — every one of them had both the toll-free US number AND a Contact Us link at the very top of the page. Maybe you didn’t see them because you’re used to looking at the BOTTOM of the page like at Apple.com. 🙂

Dude, at the Contact Us link at the top of the page, they even have the extensions listed (pre-sales, tech support, etc) so you don’t have to crawl through voice-direction hell. There’s even LIVE CHAT available during business hours. Listed right at the top of every product page.

It’s not a pretty site, but I don’t see what else they can do about making it easier to contact them in so many different ways. Did I mention live chat?

As for Apple not listening re: computers, I don’t see what else THEY can do to make it more clear. They’ve been saying it since at least 1985 that they don’t. That’s when Steve openly mocked IBM because they DID listen to their customers. Said it showed a lack of pride in their work — and Steve was nothing if not proud of his work. As he put it in 2008 in Forbes, why ask customers for input when they can’t see what’s around the corner?

(I’ve linked to these stories before and can dig ’em up if you need ’em. Or read Isaacson.)

Plenty of listening coming from the Pro Apps team, for a long time.

Computers: no, no, no, no. Apple has tried to make this clear, using actual English words. No.

Not that it’s fair to Apple, Timmy or anyone else to still equate Apple with Steve and his values — but how far and how fast do you expect Apple to abandon a winning strategy?

So, my late Friday typical rhetorical exaggeration messing around, I’m still right in the generals, if not entirely every specific…although this time I’m right about the specifics too.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

[Tim Wilson]

[Robert Brown] “I don’t think the new Mac Pro is coming but it is breathing really hard.”

Post of the week.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

[Tim Wilson]

[Craig Seeman] “[Tim Wilson] “including at good old user groups. ”

I remember seeing you present for Boris. Too bad the Sony FS700 wasn’t around then because you’d really have to be recorded at 240fps so you could be played back at normal speed 😉

Haha! I slowed down a lot, but became a lot more evil. LOL

My worst year was almost 200 days away from home. I eventually got down to almost no travel for Boris before Avid revved me back up — among the many reasons I’m happy to be off the corporate hamster wheel.

But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love the actual presentations. I really really did. I also took some pride that a reel of my presentations played in the Avid lobby for nearly two years after I was gone. Or so I’m told. When I was gone, I was gone. LOL

(And for all that corporate life wasn’t a good fit for me as me, the folks at Avid were incredibly kind and supportive of me. As for that matter were the people I knew at Apple. I had a lot of fun working the Apple booth at NAB in 2003, and nothing but good things to say about the Apple peeps I met.)

[Tim Wilson] “but these post-show road events are where it’s at for many, many vendors.”

It seems that Apple is just starting up these appearances again. Others have posted that they didn’t see Apple at the ones preceding on the west coast. I think it’s a good sign that Apple may heading down this road (show) again. I can’t remember the last time I saw a table with Apple employee next to an Avid and Adobe table.”

I rolled out Boris RED 3 at the same time that Apple was rolling out FCP 3, and Brian Meaney and I did a number of presentations at the same meetings, including Boston and LA.

But now that you mention it, it really was mostly the upper east coast that I saw the Apple guys, one based in NYC, the other in the countryside. I’d mention their names because they deserve it, but they probably don’t deserve being associated with me anymore. LOL

As a corporate dude, roadshows were some of my favorite things. I didn’t have to be a solo demo monkey for 15 or minutes, only to wait three or four times that long through raffles (you know who you are, UG peeps). Instead, I got to be part of a good-sized team from the company I was with, and from each of the other companies, and quite often, catering! Woo-hoo! I really got to TALK with people in ways that were simply impossible in a booth, and I learned a lot from the other vendors myself.

Really, truly, whoever comes near your town, GO. Even if it’s not your A1 vendor, you’ll meet peers, highly capable company people, and often get a chance to see other products you’re interested in as part of table demos.

So, more props to Apple’s NY team, and I’d really love to see Apple do more of these.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

[Tim Wilson]

[Craig Seeman] “Yet I saw them at the local Blackmagic show along with Adobe and Avid. It did shock me.”

Ah, see now, road shows, Apple has always done those exactly right — a couple of guys, making a big impact on people who are there for BUSINESS. I did many, many of these with Apple guys over the years, and think the world of the Apple people I worked with.

I can’t think of anything I’ve said about Apple that I’d take back, but I certainly regret if anything I’ve said reflects poorly on those folks. Some of the sharpest people I’ve ever met, and zeroed in on this market like few people I’ve met anywhere.

Since you mentioned New York, I’ll mention that I’m especially fond of the Apple guys there. I worked with them quite regularly, including at good old user groups.

The thing is, NAB has its virtues, but these post-show road events are where it’s at for many, many vendors. I recommend pretty much every one of them. 🙂

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

[Tim Wilson]

[Craig Seeman] “Can you think of a reason to use a mass advertising medium like TV”

Exactly my point. It makes no sense at all, any more than it makes sense for Apple to go to trade shows. We’d gotten off on a bit of a tangent about Apple needing, or not needing, to build brand recognition. I side with the folks who say that we lot (or more accurately, YOU lot…nothing personal) aren’t adding anything to Apple’s brand value.

Nor for that matter does anything but iPhone and iPad advertising. Those are the mass market products, they should be getting all the attention. That’s just smart.

So apologies for taking the most weisenheimer-ish aspect of the thread into the weeds.

Tim Wilson
Associate Publisher, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou