has anyone tried Avid Xpress DV 3.5 ?

mitteg wrote on 9/15/2002, 1:36 PM
I used to work with Adobe Premiere until I discovered VV and I realized that Premiere sucks. VV is just amazing but the only drawback is that nobody knows it. For this reason I'm learning Avid Xpress DV 3.5. I have heard that Avid Xpress is a great software, better than all the rest, but honestly I feel more comfortable with VV. Avid Xpress requires 10 steps to do a thing while VV does the same thing in 2 steps. The interface is not intuitive, it doesn't have velocity envelopes and the VV slow motion is far better. Avid has only 8 video tracks, woww, how can that be possible ? Yes, I know that Avid has a lot of plugins but the program itself has nothing special. I know little about Avid Xpress so I would like to know if my first impressions are right or not ? Has anyone tried Avid ? What do you think of that software ?

Thanks a lot !

Robert.

Comments

John_Beech wrote on 9/15/2002, 2:49 PM
A company marketing a product such as Xpress DV 3.5 has no apologies to make to anybody. Being 'firstest with the mostest' conveys many advantages - while naturally enough, leaving them open to criticism and potshots at how they do things. I, for example, find the idea of editing clips anywhere but in the timeline an incredibly cumbersome way of doing the job, but thousands upon thousands find it heavenly. Being Avid is a critical advantage of XDV3.5's method to achieving sales as folks who use Avid already are a tough sell for 'any' sales team hence, XDV3.5 is a slam dunk for the crew from Tewksbury.

Their editing metaphor caused me to pass over XDV3.5 and similarly, when I looked at dpsVelocity, the weakness caused by lack of picons to identify video clips on the timeline became a deal breaker. Other packages, which initially looked attractive, similarly fell by the wayside when the audio side of VV came into play.

Audio strength was 'the' singular reason I went with VV while because it was weak in some areas, and average in others (as compared to the rest of the wannabe software NLE vendors - including both Avid and Apple's FCP - remember the "software-NLE" is a only now entering the realm of the practical as CPUs get more powerful) the audio tools were incomparable!

In my opinion, an editor who is for hire 'needs' the ability to work the "Avid-way" more than any other skill as not only are they the market leader, but entirely from the reasonable perspective that when you arrive at the facilty, you will commonly encounter Avid in the edit bay . . . and you have to be proficient in the tool or you get handed your head for wasting time (money). Thus, if you are looking to break into that rat race, then get XPDV3.5 as you will learn the rudiments of the Avid way.

The question for you is, whom do you work for? I ask because experienced editors (who frequently work the Avid way) are looking at precisely that issue - how to get away from the ratrace, i.e. from working for somebody else . . . and when they realize they are not trapped into NLE decisons made by the old-guard (in fairness, their needs are frequently different), they become the very customers folks like SoFo 'can' attract.

What let the audio side of the force steer me to VV (sorry, I couldn't resist)? Over the years I've come to the realization video is often the visual support of the audio story. Look at it this way, can you divine why I use Sony PD150s for 99% of footage shot, yet you won't find the expected cheapy wireless gear and instead find Lectrosonic diversity mics, Sennheiser shotguns, and Electrovoice interview sticks?

Leave the room during a program and follow most of it as long as you can hear it. Turn down the volume to the tube whiulst watching a program to answer the phone and see how quickly your spice demands the captions!

Another way to look at it is give me a tape where the video went to hell but the audio is good and see how quickly I piece together a save using b-roll. Give me great pictures and poor audio and suddenly there's way more work involved in saving it in post (and cost of course). Hence, ask yourself, which is more important?

Of course market leaders didn't get that way through pure blind luck, so watch Premier, FCP, XDV, Edition, and the many others adjust and add critical audio tools to their offerings. In the meantime, the real question is, who has a better foundation to build upon? I bet my mouth with my wallet and went with SoFo.

I'm betting they improve project management weakness, titling weakness, etc. more quickly and nimbly than the big guys - who probably need more meetings and market studies to achieve the results (the features) the sales team need them to address.

In the end, editors aren't stupid and the advantages of VV are here now.

John Beech
Control_Z wrote on 9/15/2002, 9:13 PM
We've got a copy here but nobody uses it anymore. Just too darned difficult to do the slightest thing.

And if Premiere wasn't the only thing that worked with our hardware I bet it would see little use as well.
David_Kuznicki wrote on 9/15/2002, 9:43 PM
John... well put!

However, there is a little trouble in paradise. And that trouble is, indeed, the installed Avid user base. It's not just Avid, of course, it's also Media 100 (and I'm VERY curious about their new, software DV pack, but that's another arguement for another time...)

I guess you have to consider my POV-- I'm a 25 year old kid, still working through college, slugging it out in the Engineering department of a local PBS station. Nothing to write home about, but I do wish to be employable.

That's where Avid (in this case, ExpressDV 3.0) comes in.

I have both Avid and VV (2.0, as I haven't the money right now for the upgrade), installed at home. Avid (and Sonic Foundry) both believe in educational pricing, so the Avid was a steal. It ran me around $500. Why did I buy it? Because when I move to a commercial station, a bigger market, whatever, I'd like to be able to say that I have some Avid experience. Mind you, no, it's not on a Media Composer, a Symphony, or whatever other over-priced version is the 'big deal' then. But that's OK... XpressDV is a start. And there in lies the real problem...

Vegas is a far superior program. The audio tools, indeed, are much more functional. The editing is faster and easier. Hell, between Acid, Sound Forge and Vegas, I cannot imagine a scenerio, professional or educational, that would cause me to consider Avid, Pro Tools (which is NOT all it's cracked up to be), or whatever.

Except for the fact that I have to have the resume fodder, too. People may be learning that they are not necessarily constrained to Avid or a Media 100... but not enough people have realized it yet. Will they one day? Hopefully. Because I'm tired of telling people that I did something in XpressDV, watching them nod their heads and walk away, and not knowing that Sonic Foundry was behind it. I don't think it's right, of course, but I'd like to be taken seriously. It's a fine line.

Bottom line? You can probably pick up a copy of Xpress 2 or 3 now that 3.5 is out (supposedly the color correction IS that good, but CPU heavy) for a substantial mark down. Pick it up and work with them both. Head down to a local community college and enroll in a 1 credit hour course, pick up Xpress at the educational version, then dump the course. Whatever. Enjoy the fact that Avid has a strong user base, and you can work with After Effects quite a bit easier. But you'll always find yourself using VV at the end of the day, I promise.

Now, if only the rest of the world realized that...
bapski wrote on 9/16/2002, 2:53 AM
i tried once but never got to figure out how to let it detect my DVCAM.. never got to record with it! says "no input signal"

Tyler.Durden wrote on 9/16/2002, 8:55 AM
From the DV.com Magazine, October issue (Quoted without permission), Frank Capria:

From the review of XDV 3.5...

"Xpress3.5 still lacks some of my favorite features of higher-end Avid systems including Replace edit, JKL trimming, and rolling titles in the Title-Tool. It also lacks FCP's better compositing modes and tools. These shortcomings and the inability to output realtime effects through the firewire port is all that prevents xpressDV from achieving a perfect 5.0 score - something that DV has yet to mete out."

And later...in DV mag "Postmodern Post":

"Here's a story that demands a happy ending: Sonic Foundry's Vegas Video is the sweetest $500 NLE imaginable with audio features that simply blow the competition away. It also runs on almost any PC not covered with cobwebs, unlike most of today's NLEs that tear through computing cycles like a Ford Excursion does a gallon of gas."


Regards, MPH
John_Beech wrote on 9/16/2002, 2:59 PM
mitteg wrote on 9/16/2002, 3:41 PM
Thanks everybody for your points of view: John Beech, David Kuznicki, Martyh and others. I really really like Vegas Video. I wish it would have better titling tool or more plugins available and such things, but VV really rocks.

Sonic Foundry, go on improving VV !

Robert.
HPV wrote on 9/17/2002, 12:12 AM
I wish it would have better titling tool or more plugins available and such things, but VV really rocks.
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Curious what things you find weak in titling ? Same for filters ? I'm flat out blowen away with the depth of styles, control, quality in both of these toolsets in Vegas.

Craig H.
David_Kuznicki wrote on 9/17/2002, 3:18 AM
Actually, I've had the same problem with Vegas, although the going opinion seems to be that I'm using Vegas 2, not 3. I've found the titling options to be limited, and ultimately of questionable quality (especially over a singularly colored background). The quality issue, at least according to this forum, seems to be that the quality of the MS codec (as 2.0 doesn't have the Vegas codec), not of the program itself.

As for the options, I can't help but think that Vegas 3 has more options available. I find myself, at least for the moment, doing the titles in After Effects, of all things & importing them uncompressed. Perhaps THAT'S something for Vegas 4-- a stronger titler!
HPV wrote on 9/17/2002, 11:37 AM
For anyone else using Vegas 2, you can get a better titler (Same as Vegas 3) by downloading the Video Factory 2 demo. You'll now have two "Sonic Foundry Text" lines in the plug-ins window. You'll know when you load the new one. The only feature that doesn't work in this setup is the sync cursor. But you can move the cursor on the timeline and the text window stays open.
Creative use of filters includes multi filters, filters as transitions and filters and transitions together. One I just did that looked great was to apply the push transition to only the end of the first event so it moved up and off the screen. Second event spins on via pan/crop. I also did a few that had the squeeze transition affect both events. This made event two pan/crop spin grow and slide in from the bottom.

Craig H.