It's like taking a direct flight vs. a bunch of connections because it's cheaper.  Avid can do more real time streams, more real time effects, mix more codecs and can accurately edit into a master.  FCP is challenged on each of those items in differing degrees.  I suppose you could charge less for FCP but run up more hours compared to Avid but what's your time (or sleep) worth?  The DX hardware isn't all that much more expensive than the Kona or BMD cards when you consider the number of streams you can get out in realtime, especially considering that you can mix codecs without having to render the whole timeline.

hbrock:

It's like taking a direct flight vs. a bunch of connections because it's cheaper.  Avid can do more real time streams, more real time effects, mix more codecs and can accurately edit into a master.  FCP is challenged on each of those items in differing degrees.  I suppose you could charge less for FCP but run up more hours compared to Avid but what's your time (or sleep) worth?  The DX hardware isn't all that much more expensive than the Kona or BMD cards when you consider the number of streams you can get out in realtime, especially considering that you can mix codecs without having to render the whole timeline.

I know that, and you know that, but most of the people I talk to (editors and others) don't. All they see is that Avid's HD 'Break Out Box' is $6000 or so, and the AJA IoHD is only $3000, or a Blackmagic HD card is just $1000. Avid needs to get more aggressive about saying just what makes the DNA hardware different, because from the outside looking in it's not especially obvious, or at least certainly isn't spelled out in a dollars and cents kind of way.

But at the same time, I do think the market would react positively to a slightly lower price (put the Mojo DX near the IoHD and the Nitris DX relative to that).

Kenton.VanNatten:

The BMD/AJA boxes do not do any form of HD codec processing - they are AFAIK, I/O boxes.

How many streams of real-time HD playback can you get with a BMD/AJA box connected to FCP?  I've heard 6 at DNx145 is possible with NitrisDX.

The AJA IoHD has native ProRes support, but I believe that's really only a benefit for capture and is pretty much required to get the full HD support with a FW800 interface.

The Blackmagic MultiBridge is a more impressive product, using a PCIe interface and with various realtime scaling and conversion options, but I still don't think it offers any improvements in realtime performance.

The Avid DX products are definitely more impressive and productive, but I don't think that fact makes it to the decision makers, or not 'loud' enough anyway.

I really hope Avid's new approach really leads to a boost in Avid suites in HD production, because I'm really not loving HD work in FCP.

Sycophant:

Avid needs to get more aggressive about saying just what makes the DNA hardware different, because from the outside looking in it's not especially obvious, or at least certainly isn't spelled out in a dollars and cents kind of way.

Avid needs to get more aggressive about saying what the DNA hardware actually does. I recall more than one conversation on these forums debating what the hardware is actually capable of (I/O types, hardware processing, etc).  If the very people who use Avid (i.e. the forumgoers here) don't have enough info to get a sense of what the hardware is capable of, how does anyone expect a non-Avid user to get the grasp of it?