OT: Avid getting it together.... or falling apart?

farss wrote on 8/2/2009, 7:06 AM

Liquid was never really an Avid product, just something they bought to have a dabble. A bit sad to see it go, when Liquid first came along the high end versions looked kind of promising. Avids biggest problem I suspect would be generating an onging income stream. Those who buy their products are in the industry for the long haul, their stuff just works and keeps on working for a very long time.

Lots of shakeups in the industry, that started to happen before the current financial correction. Problem I see is 90% of product sold never makes a return for those who buy it.

As for SCS, it's a very small company, cutbacks would be almost impossible. Rather they seem to have the opposite problem. Their geography makes it hard for them to attract new staff. Most of the original crew are still there which is good in one way and bad in another. Fresh blood brings new ideas.

At a guess I'd say Vegas is not their biggest money maker, Acid and what goes with it (loop libraries) would generate more revenue than Vegas. I don't see them going anywhere, anytime soon. They're no threat to anyone but they'll hopefully hold their market share. Biggest problem I see for all the players is the market is shrinking, more rationalisation seems inevitable.

Bob.

TheHappyFriar wrote on 8/2/2009, 10:13 AM

i wouldn't say SCS's location is a bad thing. It's not like they're the only software company in town. I'd say the biggest bad thing for them is that they don't make software 99% of computer users know about, so who would say "man, I want to work for THAT company!" when, odds are, they'll never see something by them. ;)

PerroneFord wrote on 8/2/2009, 11:37 AM

If they stay on top of the RED on PC movement, that could change quickly. They need to sort out some things, but RED on Vegas is making people happy right now it seems. If SCS can get a viable OMF output to go with the very nice DPX output, they are going to make some real inroads for indies. It was nice to see Corrado cut on Vegas, but the audio issues were tough. Smooth that out and a new market will open. A solid EDL/CDL collaboration would be nice too.

Honestly, I think Vegas is going to have to choose between being a solid product for indie filmmakers or broadcast folks. And honestly, I think the indie market is a much better way to go. Less inertia to overcome, no maddening corporate ties, more flexibility. In a time with Apple is dropping the ball left and right, This could be the time for Vegas to get hot.

Biggest things missing from my view:

1. OMF. I know it's a tough deal, but a LOT of indie folks are going to hand off the audio to ProTools folks for finishing. Just the way it is. Embrace it and earn the money from editor sales even if you can't get them to finish in your sound app.

2. Find a way to make .mov work on the timeline. People want to work with their ProRes/DNxHD/J2k files. You've got it going with R3D. Make it work with the 10bit .mov files and you'll win a ton of hearts. The .AVI container simply forces everyone to Cineform. Cineform is great, but it shouldn't be the ONLY viable option in your editor.

3. Play nicely with AVID. The MXF thing really is a pain. If their new Metafuze product really does what it's claimed it will do, you NEED to be able to read those. Imagine the joy of an indie who cuts his movie in Vegas, does well at the festivals, get's distribution, and can suddenly hand the entire thing off to a large house with a Nitris or Symphony. It provides access to a LOT of folks who can't shell out $2500 for MC.

4. And this is a biggie... PLEASE FIND A WAY TO SUPPORT the GPU. People are doing more and more grading, effects, etc. in their computers. I have a $1500 graphics card in my editing machine that sits idle while in Vegas. It's the only major NLE that cannot take advantage of ANY GPU. Jump in bed with Nvidia or ATI (Nvidia seems the smart choice on the PC platform) and help us out.

5. Buy a Titler. I know ProType is there. We all do. But it's not what it needs to be. Developing one from scratch makes no sense from a labor perspective, but it's an important piece for a lot of your market.

I know SCS is probably chest deep in improving stability and fixing 9.x bugs right now. And some of these things are MAJOR projects. But each one represents a huge leap forward in usability and marketability for Vegas. Look at what native R3D has done and that's a TINY market. I've been thinking of jumping to Avid for nearly 2 years now. Vegas 9 has kept that from happening. It's not perfect, but its a huge step in the right direction.

Sebaz wrote on 8/2/2009, 12:17 PM

And this is a biggie... PLEASE FIND A WAY TO SUPPORT the GPU. People are doing more and more grading, effects, etc. in their computers. I have a $1500 graphics card in my editing machine that sits idle while in Vegas. It's the only major NLE that cannot take advantage of ANY GPU. Jump in bed with Nvidia or ATI (Nvidia seems the smart choice on the PC platform) and help us out.

Agreed, but SCS has a lot more work to do on many things. I've never used AVID, but I've had Final Cut Pro and now I have Premiere CS4 along with Vegas Pro 8. Vegas has the best editing interface of the three, followed by FCP and then PPro. But it has shortcomings in design, and some nasty bugs. If this was the old company that didn't belong to Sony the corporation I would understand better, but Sony has to make a huge investment in this company they own and bring in more personnel to get rids of the bugs quickly and then to do a major review of what are Vegas' shortcomings in design, such as what's better and easier to do in FCP and PPro than in Vegas, and bring that into Vegas, that way you have the best possible product. Some things are so much better and faster in Vegas, but not everything. So once they fix the nasty bugs and bring in the advantages of the other NLEs to it, and they start an aggressive marketing campaign to promote these changes, then the PRO world can start taking it seriously.

winrockpost wrote on 8/2/2009, 1:30 PM

under the sony banner is when the bugs got nasty

sheri wrote on 8/2/2009, 1:38 PM

Granted, I am a prosumer who has some paid gigs under my belt, but I had been eagerly awaiting the "next gen" product from Avid/Pinnacle. I really like Studio 12, and still use it for quick and dirty work. However I was feeling constrained with the lack of more video tracks. I had invested in Vegas Pro 8 about a year ago and was completing some projects while learning the program. But after I was reading over on the Liquid & Studio boards about employees leaving/being let go, and getting an overall feeling of users "losing faith" I decided to upgrade to Vegas 9 and focus my time and energy learning it. I think we all get caught up in the "grass being greener on the other side" type of hype, but it comes to a point, when you're investing your hard earned money in these programs AND plug-ins that you need to focus on learning and using what you have to it's full potential. At least that is what I decided, FWIW.

blink3times wrote on 8/2/2009, 2:08 PM

"Granted, I am a prosumer who has some paid gigs under my belt, but I had been eagerly awaiting the "next gen" product from Avid/Pinnacle."

Well there are a few Liquid die-hards over there putting all their eggs into the NexGen basket which I believe to be a bit of a mistake. In Jan's so-called "keynote" speech he specifically hinted to liquid users at the last meeting that those who were serious about editing need to think about moving on to MC. The owners of VideoGuys.com also have thrown their opinion into the ring (not that they have any inside info..... but they do converse with Avid directly on many occasions) and that opinion is that NexGen will be a disappointment to those who are used to "Liquid" power.

But I think (at this stage anyway) the Pinnacle side of Avid as well as this NexGen have become too unstable to depend on for those who use video to put bread on the table

Now.... do SCS and Vegas have some issues? Sure... without a doubt. There are a few things they're really going to have to get serious about and one just off the top of my head is the preview. They've taken Video For Windows just about as far as they possibly can and they really need to come into THIS century with preview speed/quality. Some other things too.... but at the end of the day Vegas is stable and so is SCS.... they show no signs thus far of drying up and going away.

DrLumen wrote on 8/2/2009, 8:22 PM

IMHO, Pinnacle should have been euthanized years ago.

[r]Evolution wrote on 8/3/2009, 1:35 AM

AVID is Getting it Together by Falling Apart.
They tried w/ Liquid to enter into the 'Little Man's Land'... but Liquid was not AVID, nor did it fit the infrastructure, look, or have the following in 'Little Man's Land' that AVID needed/wanted, so they killed it. Not really gaining any users but Eating Up one of their competitors.
They then re-ignited Media Composer. Which now at version 3.5 is a lot better than what I recall. I have not had to pull media from across a network yet with 3.5 but before our AVID MC's couldn't see media on the Network so we couldn't share a MEDIA Drive for B-Roll, JumpBacks, and such. Each MC had to have its own RAID attached. We needed another AVID $oftware to be able to work across a Network.
3.5 is pretty solid, cheaper, and software only so you don't have to have any special hardware or Dongle to run it. We would have problems with the Dongle and 'Firebird' & 'Thunderbird' errors and computers weren't as fast. I like its speed now plus you can truly take your MC project and open it on the same system and do all the same stuff as the most expensive Hollywood movies.