Tim Wilson
3
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Craig Seeman] “really isn’t an NLE company anymore.”
Avid would disagree.
When people say things like “Avid makes more money off of storage,” they miss the simplest of equations: the value of Unity minus Media Composer = ZERO. Avid would sell ZERO Unity networks without Media Composer.
This may seem a trivial distinction, or merely semantic, but it’s not. It’s the one fundamental, inviolable truth in Avid’s world, and the only starting place for any discussion of what “Avid is” or “Avid means” at all.
Non-MC users could use Unity (it supports any clients you can think of), but never will. Without the workflow advantages Unity enables for Avid clients, hard to make a case why they should, either.
MC users have some reasons to use Unity, but hey, if you don’t need those advantages, they can choose other kinds of storage, and they do. There are companies with banners on this very page who’ve built their entire business on being non-Unity storage specifically designed for Avid editors in specific scenarios that Unity might previously have been the only option.
A small market, you say? Yes it is, but it’s obviously big enough to make a living in.
Unity users, though? 100% of them use Media Composer. ZERO percent of them DON’T use Media Composer.
Avid can’t sell their awesome Unity storage outside this market (for technology reasons that are worth talking about another day), so once Media Composer is no longer a compelling client, Unity is done.
The same is true for Avid consultation and services. Say you’re an enterprise scale customer who needs a wall-to-wall, end-to-end, multi-vendor, multi-platform solution with a customized workflow.
Avid broadcast sales consultants are actually really good at this, because Avid has never owned all the tools that, say, a newsroom needs to operate, so they HAVE to be good at the big picture if they want to make a sale at all…but honestly, if you’re not using Media Composer-derived software AT ALL, there are no advantages to Unity, and no ABILITY to use Interplay, and therefore, no reason to even LOOK at a bid from an Avid services consultant.
Bringing us back to our one, inviolable truth: without Media Composer, Avid has neither the storage nor the services to make any kind of future as “storage and services company” even vaguely feasible.
So Media Composer isn’t Avid’s biggest SOURCE of revenue, not by a long shot, and as noted before, hasn’t been for a while. But it’s the only REASON for ANY revenue, and will be forever.
That’s the definition of “an NLE company.” No NLE = no company.
In that sense, Avid may be the only “NLE company” around at all right now.
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[Shane Ross] “…and who seem giddy when things go bad for them…”
Apple FCPX or Not: The Schadenfreude.
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[Bill Davis] “This thread could not possibly be more “on topic.””
I hope I didn’t imply that this is off topic! It’s absolutely ON topic!
On any of a dozen different topics. 🙂 But certainly this one.
And while I stick by my point about Media Composer being the “most” present of NLEs with a presence, I certainly agree with you that X in particular has a presence. I think over time, it will have a greater presence than FCP did.
The problem with FCP is that it didn’t offer anything fundamentally different. It simply didn’t move the needle enough for people in this slice of the market to change what they were doing.
*IF* one is inclined to change — and I continue to believe that this is almost entirely a matter of psychological makeup, rather than age, objective evaluation of features, etc. — X is the one that’ll make people reassess their next move.
FCP was never ever ever gonna do that beyond a small handful of cases, MOST of which I think were driven by the “not Avid”-ness of the thing. X offers advantages that FCP never did, which is why FCP never got the traction in reality that many people here seem to think it did, and why I think X has a better shot.
Which is my characteristically long-winded way of agreeing with you that “if London, then Media Composer” doesn’t fly…but the assumption that Avid is in any way done or dying in places and jobs like this doesn’t fly either. Hence my language that it’s the “most” present of the ones (plural) that have a presence.
And agreeing with others on thread — there’s a reason why their website contains one sentence on the subject, and only in an interview reposted from another site. It’s not an issue in the context of the company’s creative approaches.
But here? Very much on topic. 🙂
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[Bill Davis] “Curious as to why you say that”
Without intending any judgments about the relative worth of any products or their appropriateness to the task, and as unpopular as it is to say, there’s simply not any debate about the most present of the NLEs to have a presence in this kind of post, in houses like this.
“We use Avid Media Composer. A few of the editors use Final Cut Pro, but our main system is Avid.”
This is from an interview with one of Final Cut’s 28 editors in 4 offices (London, NY, LA and Amsterdam), James Rosen, at Art of the Guillotine, and posted on Final Cut’s website.
Do note that that sentence is the ENTIRETY of the conversation on the subject, so even as I highly recommend reading it, don’t be disappointed if there’s not much in the way of actual debate. LOL
I recommend poking around their whole site, too. Terrific, terrific work, both in the many news stories about awards they’ve won, and on the profile pages for each of the editors.
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[Bill Davis] “historically, it’s a pretty stark combination of the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Happy Thanksgiving Or Not: The Debate!!!!
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[James Culbertson] “How about “Luddite Dinosaurs versus Editing Toy Fanboys”? …I mean, if you really want a debate forum.”
I think we’re getting warm. LOL
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Perhaps stated a little strongly LOL but this is “Sky is blue, Ziggy Stardust’s hair is red” level of indisputable, bedrock, scientific fact. No Time Base Corrector, no joy.
How’s this for joy. You can get one shipped for $100-ish from a number of reputable sellers on eBay. I did the search for you and sorted by price. You can pay a little more for one that’s a little less banged up, a little more professional componentry, but in any case, not gonna set you back too far.
Just make sure to have your BNC connectors ready to go, or find someone who can add some to your current cables.
Geezers like Bob and me learned about time base correction back in the 70s. A simple concept: all the interlacing of every piece of gear needs to be lined up. Simple, right? Sure is, which is why this stuff doesn’t cost a fortune.
This is definitely one of those things that most of the folks in COW circles had to wrap our heads around from the day we opened 20 years ago. A lot of dealers just included a time base corrector with all the other accessories like power strips. It was impossible to work without one, right up until I got out of the business in 2000…and as you’re discovering, for some folks, it’s still “go/no-go” level critical. No TBC? No go.
For sure, a lot of what we learned back in the day is not just irrelevant, but now just plain wrong….but not this. You need something to get all the fields on that interlaced equipment lined up, and this is how you do it.
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[Todd Terry] “Is there such a thing??
“As a matter of fact, here’s an article from just last month. Take a quick look and report back to the class. 🙂
I like that a number of these now integrate streaming options with OTA. Very cool.
FWIW, the computer ones work really well, especially if you have Google Chromecast. You need good bandwidth, but playing any browser tab, including a full-screen movie in a browser tab, on your TV is beyond painless now. Heck, it’s faster to set up than a new cable box.
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[John Rofrano] “Awesome. I voted to move the posts and even answered one of them (now that I found it). ;-)”
Ha! That’s awesome!
We actually added that feature to help move questions between the “main” and “basic” forums within a topic, but the needs around this topic are admittedly a bit more extensive.
There’s also no getting around that some people aren’t quite paying attention. Me, I wouldn’t ask a question about a product that isn’t referenced in the forum name AT ALL. It’s rare to get FCPX questions in the wrong FCPX forum — no kidding, just a couple a month — but it’s apparently MORE common for FCPX questions to wind up in the FCP forum! There’s not a thing we can do about that.
It’s actually even broader. We pretty regularly have people respond to a PRESS RELEASE with a tech support question, and sometimes only barely related. (New NVIDIA card just released? Supports a lot more polygons? Great, now why can’t I get Cinema 4D to display my textures correctly?) We try to catch as many of these as we can, but we appreciate all the help we can get from you guys.
Do note too that we have a little flag logo in the lower right of each post, with all the other little symbols and such. We sometimes get emails from folks complaining about a post or a poster, but I have a feeling sometimes that we could still use more guidance from you on this. If you see a post that needs attention for any reason — for example, abusive or inappropriate language — do us a favor and click that flag to let us know.
In the meantime, thanks to all of you for helping keep us on the rails!
Tim Wilson
Creative COW -
Luc Besson said that when he makes movies (specifically speaking of The Fifth Element), he WANTS people to be pissed off when they see his movies at 16:9, to say nothing of 4:3. He wants people to be SO outraged at how much of the picture they’re missing that they insist on the full aspect ratio he shot at….and to ensure they’re outraged, he packs the frame as full as he can, intentionally placing key elements outside the mask.
Me, my posts aren’t as good as The Fifth Element. LOL But I can live with somebody deciding to skip my whole post more easily than I can live with leaving part of it out. LOL
Otherwise, scroll on, punks. It’s the only exercise some of you are getting. You’re welcome.