Who is Sergey Brin?

Mrs. Brin's son ;)

Michael

And who says the forums aren't a virtual fountain of information...

GusC:

Who is Sergey Brin?

Google him.

If Avid put the development dollars into DS it could become the product that Autodesk / Discreet is trying to make as they join smoke and flame togeather.

DS has good editing.  It has a strong basic, node based compositing structure.

The fundamentals are very strong.  The problem is that development was stopped in any advanced way about 5-7 years ago.

The genes are present for great product.  Avid?

Jef

I am still very new to this world, but from what I've read and heard, DS is the hands down best editing and finishing system out there bar none, even without being majorly upgraded for the past five years.

Avid should stop sitting on this gem and start polishing it, IMHO.

I wish Avid knew how difficult it is to find and/or become a skilled DS artist, and what a problem that is to a facility owner.  The training software is 2 or 3 revs old.  And just try and find a DS training course (Montreal, NYC and Dubai -once every three months!)

Also, the DS courses on ALEX are old as well.

Would an 8.4 training version require that much engineering?

There should be an easier way to get up to speed on software as cool as DS.  It shouldn't cost an eager editor, or the facility that hires him $3-4k to learn the system.  (If nothing else, there should be more basic training available online.)

This has resulted in a freelance pool in Salt Lake City that is comprised of almost 1 DS editor.  (Yes, that is correct.)  -Hey, any DS editors out there like to ski?  Call me.  

-Jd

I took the DS courses. I also took the Avid Media Composer courses. I took MC courses from Future Media Concepts in NYC and they were really expensive for a freelance editor to afford. And then, it hit me.

When you take the courses on the Media Composer or Symphony or DS, you get an overview of the capabilities of the machine. You don't get the kind of tight training that is related to your particular needs. In other words, after you've been "Avid Certified" (because you have taken coursework) you're ready to be an assistant editor (maybe, if you paid attention).

Now, I don't want to take anything away from the Avid-certified classes. They do provide the student with a complete (as far as Avid is able to demonstrate within that context) overview of the capabilities of their equipment and you will learn something. But in many cases, what is needed is an apprenticeship that lasts for several weeks to several months, depending on how frequently one uses one's Avid and depending on the varieties of workflows that typically come in. 

I am particularly indebted to Sean Stall out of Ardsley, NY who offered an apprenticeship while I was at one company in desperate need of creating and then verifying a rather complex workflow that involved pulling material off of an ISIS server with a Newscutter XL, transcoding it to MXF, importing the material to DS and creating unique and interesting effects that could be re-used for very, very rapid turnaround to air.

Sean's techniques took me from getting lost in trees to fast, repeatable creation in a manner that allows the DS to mimic many of the capabilities of Adobe's After Effects as well as very quickly editing material to place inside containers. He demonstrated how to set up caches to save rendering time and how to very quickly make adjustments to please producers. Sean has been working with DS since it was just beginning to be a viable tool and before Avid purchased it.

I would love to travel the country editing but I have a family that ties me down. It is my recommendation that, if you are facing the kind of situation Mr. Brewer faces, the right way to handle the issue is to import someone like Sean for about a week to refine workflows and teach new techniques and then to pass that knowledge, as well as the general knowledge one knows all ready on to an assistant editor. 

And, frankly, that works for any tool, including those made by Apple, Discreet, Avid, Grass Valley and so on. 

The same thing Avid needs to know about all their software... Hire some engineers and actually keep your software up with the times!   It seems like Avid likes to go around buying companies and as soon as they make a new acquisition, development on that product grinds to a halt with only bug fixes and minimal support for new formats.  It's all duct-tape and bubble gum once Avid gets hold of new IP.  Take the 3D DVE in DS... what an outdated, unstable, useless mess that is... obviously hasn't changed in some time.  It's great for cheese-ball 3D text but as soon as I need any reliable and robust 3D compositing, I jump into After Effects (or call the graphics guys who use 3DSmax. There are so many examples of "neglectware" all over Avid's software.  Thank god DS was awesome to begin with when Avid bought it.

pilotmanmarc:

 It seems like Avid likes to go around buying companies and as soon as they make a new acquisition, development on that product grinds to a halt with only bug fixes and minimal support for new formats.

This is not an Avid-specific thing. Corporate acquisition seems to be the game that is being played now. And it tends to be done at the expense of development. A perfect example of this is Symantec, which originally made very good products for PCs and eventually Macintosh computers and then decided that acquisition equals innovation.

If you currently use any Symantec tool on your system I, personally, recommend you remove it in favor of an application that actually works and doesn't mangle your system. Symantec's stock (SYMC) appeared to peak in 2004 at or around $31 per share and is below $20 presently at $16.82. Not exactly a stock I'd want to buy.

So if Avid plans to do the same, it may not be a recommended route for success. The only "innovation" Symantec has done in the last five years was to purchase other companies.

I'd mention that Avid's tools need to "play better with others." And the first step would be to get Avid's tools to play better with Avid's tools. There are issues I have had in exporting material from DS to ProTools for sweetening. One thing I've run into is a seeming incompatibility ProTools has with OMF files from DS in a frame rate other than 29.97 or 25. I realize there are solutions to this issue but they require the purchase of more software for ProTools.

Bring your "New Thinking" tour to Nashville.  We have one of the largest concentration of DS's in the world.... Thanks to Bill Hite at Marshall Graphics.  I promise, you will leave with all your questions answered!