Scott Thomas
4
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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That’s kind of my point. Avid has acquired many great technologies over the years.
The Avid DS (Softimage) is the best example. It’s an editing system with a proper node based compositing system. A DS editor I know was at a forum with Avid to discuss the system. When issues were brought up, they were told that known bugs were not going to be fixed because they didn’t have the budget.
Owners of older DS hardware were given little incentive to upgrade to the latest hardware.
The story I’ve been told has a story line that pited the DS developers with the Tewkesbury developers with an us-or-them ultimatum.
From what I hear, there is little to no development going on with DS. The original developers have been let go. They moved the Nitrus hardware over to the Symphony.
Unless things have greatly changed, I don’t see Final Cut having any future at Avid if it were to be purchased by them.
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Post Box… If I remember correctly, that thing looked like a cinder-block. 🙂
Seriously, I’ve put some thought into the idea if Final Cut were to simply disappear. We’ve seen it happen to dozens of systems. I realized that it wouldn’t affect me in the short-term. I do have a certain amount of pride of watching FCP grow, and being able to recommend it as a platform to build editing solutions for the company I work for, and seeing post production companies develop around it. There is also the matter of the ecosystem that has sprung up around it. I would hope that Apple keeps them dear to their hearts. They helped make it happen. What I’ve seen in Edius system deployment is the advocation of hardware solutions that do not fit the needs of the client. Granted, this was a third-party outside of Thomson, but the prescribed hardware was Canopus (Thomson) and while we made it work, it wasn’t right for the job. Seeing how Thomson has used its acquisitions gives me great pause in what I imagine in a sale of Apple’s pro applications to them.
But on the other hand, my Final Cut Studio 2 upgrade, that I purchased on the evening of the announcement at NAB (I still wear my pass to the event behind my employee badge) will continue to work. I’m even considering an upgrade to my RAID system to make it better.
I said elsewhere that I think Autodesk is a better suitor. They killed their entry-level edit* years ago, and they still don’t have a good PC based compositing application yet. (No, after several years, I still don’t like Combustion. I bought it, upgraded it, and have never been satisfied with it’s performance)
I still think Avid is behind the rumors. I’m still waiting to see what Avid does with Softimage DS, Matador and Elastic Reality. Didn’t I mention something about “Not Invented Here Syndrome”?
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Two things come to mind; The supposed Chinese proverb, “May you live in interesting times.” and “be careful what you wish for.”
Avid’s track record is a serious case of NIH, or “Not Invented Here Syndrome”. Avid bought Softimage DS from Microsoft. Avid took a great system and ignored it. The story I heard was that the Tewkesbury engineers had a fit over DS. An “us or them” battle erupted.
Adobe would be a better candidate, but they just finished porting Premiere over to OSX Intel. Why would they want FCP?
I really doubt Apple is shopping around the ProApps, but I think if (and I do mean a big IF) Apple sells the ProApps to anyone, it would be Autodesk.
My personal feelings are that the rumors of Apple selling their ProApp division were probably started by Avid.
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It’s just typical in this industry. It’s probably the same in every other industry. Last year I was helping to shop around for a production switcher. I go to the Sony booth and they have a new switcher. Real nice, and they tell me that Grass Valley’s Kalypso will be EOL soon. I then go to the Grass both and ask about the EOL status of the Kalypso. They want to know who told me that. I already knew it was the same rumor from the year before, but it’s still good to get the reaction.
That’s one of the nice things about NAB. You can confront people and ask questions that don’t have an answer on the website or ad-slick. If you come prepared, you can properly set your BS detector and get good information. 🙂
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We are running a 3rd party’s (non-Thomson) newsroom ingest/editing/playback system that uses Edius as it’s editing software. Every day I hear someone ask why they didn’t go FCP or Avid.
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I highly doubt the rumor of the sale of the ProApps, especially to “Thompson” as it’s spelled “Thomson”.
To me, this sounds like a rumor circulated by Avid to make themselves appear to be a more sound choice.
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I used Pacifist last week and it fixed our problem. I wish I had known about this utility earlier.
Our news re-opens take about four hours to render!
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I get it. You’re making a joke! That old adding a lower case “i” to everything never gets old.
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I’ve heard a couple of different reasons for Avid’s purchase of Pinnacle. One reason was to get the distribution channel of consumer products. Basically, the shelf space at your local Best Buy. The other reason was for the server technology that Pinnacle had. The MediaStream has a strong pedigree and has a lot of customers.
I’ve not heard that Liquid was a factor in the purchase. It was meant to be an Avid competitor even before Pinnacle bought it. I think Sony was also selling a version of it at one time.
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I’ve used both AJA and BlackMagic in my graphics department. I’m usually not taxing the hardware with editing. Most of the time we’re working in Photoshop or After Effects. I currently have the Decklink HD Extreme in my G5 systems. I’ve not needed any support for these cards. They work fine for Final Cut in HD or SD. I do notice that they don’t like to play my After Effects HD comps in real time. It’s a sub $1000 card, so I assume that’s a basic limitation. One reason I picked the BlackMagic card was that it had plugin support for grabbing frames through Photoshop.
I speced a Kona3 for the new HD edit system we installed this summer. It’s running fine with no issues.
I think both products are good, but it depends on your situation. The Kona’s, from my understanding, have more hardware support for Final Cut. Especially the Kona 3.