David Braswell
Forum Replies Created
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If you can, you should spend some time on a PC Avid and a Premiere system before making a decision. I would personally steer you away from Premiere Pro because of horrid personal experiences cutting long-form projects. I understand others may have had better luck, so I’m not trying to start a flame war here.
$2500 will only buy the Avid Media Composer software. You will still need an approved computer to run it on. One thing you should focus on is what resolutions you need to support. Will you cut DV only? Or are you thinking about SD, HDV, or HD resolutions. FCP and Premiere have a more open hardware architecture for moving SD/HD video in and out of the system. If you want to post anything besides DV in the Avid, you’ll need Avid hardware to enable/accelerate realtime effects, and to output to any monitor other than your computer’s LCD panel. Also consider whether you’ll need to crossgrade any existing creative software from Apple to Windows.
Finally, you say you’ve cut with and enjoy Avid. But you also seem to be heavily swayed by price. I don’t foresee any more major Avid price swings (although I’ve no inside knowledge one way or the other). But be aware this seems to be a “fluid” time for Avid as far as pricing gos. I wouldn’t necessarily commit to any purchase before NAB is over.
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“Also, place dissolves on begin/end of a clip if you want a fade.
Next you will start cursing on how those begin/end fades disappear when you move clips. It’s the avid way. Do not swim against the stream or you’ll get nuts.”So true, so true! Although you can add edits on either side of your clip (assuming no adjacent clips) and eXtract and overwrite without losing your dissolves. That’s also the Avid editor way! Muuaaahhaa!
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I’m not sure about Codec version compatibility, but the easiest way to ensure would be to download the latest from Avid and install on the editing system if you can. BTW, regarding my prior post about new codec fixing alpha channel problems. It doesn’t and I’m back to exporting alpha graphics as animation.
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FWIW, I have railed in this forum about the Meridien codec’s crappy alpha channels. Schmutz around the alpha channel like you’ve described sounds like what I’ve witnessed. Consequently I started using the Animation codec for my alpha’d graphics… straight alpha, no chaser, er.. premult.
That said, preliminary tests with the latest codecs (at least 2.80 installed) seem to have fixed the issue. If not, definitely try the Animation codec.
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A pox on the House of Hancock!
Just kidding 🙂 Thanks to Harcharan and you for clearing this up. As usual, if it sounds too good to be true… I do wish Avid would consider an upgrade of this nature (education –> commercial) that was lower priced and didn’t include the third-party apps. I’m no longer in school (having had to leave before graduating) but would seriously like to stay and grown within the Avid line of NLEs. Oh well… feed the piggy.
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Gabriel, my comments about more horsepower were based on conversations with my dealer and my own observations after upgrading at work. Here’s Avid’s own requirements for notebooks in PDF form… offhand, sounds like you may be in luck.
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Michael, Thanks! That’s the awesomest news I’ve had all day. Like many others I’ve had fun speculating about Avid’s next move. I’m encouraged that it looks like they’re not exactly abandoning the small-time users like me.
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I realize I’m late to this thread but I felt compelled to respond to this.
I’m also on a large, international web design list. That list absolutely forbids discussions of specific rates. The idea that peers and competitors should discuss rates and establish “a true industry level cost for certain areas” is generally frowned upon by the government, who have been known to prosecute those practices as price-fixing/gouging. I’m not a lawyer and please don’t think I’m accusing anyone of any shady dealings. But I see discussions of this nature all the time in the COW threads, and thought it worth mentioning since sometimes the appearance of impropriety is as damning as actual misconduct.
FWIW, weekend warriors and the uncle Fred’s of the world do make it dreadfully tough to get paid sometimes. But arriving at equitable rates that provide for you and your family and maintaining competitiveness takes a lot more backend work than knowing what everyone else is charging.
Peace
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If you own Genarts Sapphire plugins, I’d play with the Film Effect. You don’t have to go for that super glossy, saturated look. Rather, work with the glow, glow width, and grain blur settings. Barring Sapphire, you can try glow in Boris or AE.
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Pluses for MC… animatte, paint, editable motion effects, top and tail, 2-line info display in source/record windows, movable TC bar, more supported formats… sure I missed something.
Minuses… you will need more computer, period.
It’s still a no-brainer to me. Unfortunately I own the educational version of Xpress Pro and there’s still a considerable gap to upgrade.