wmcole:

It is quite clear that no one has a grasp on any logical, objective, sane reason for DX pricing, so there is no point in arguing it anymore. 

I'm outta here...

C'mon man,

It's in black and white throughout this thread. Some of us have a very sane reason - it actualy saves us money in the long run.

Let me ask you this: is it sane that a P2 camcorder is $48K? How can that be when I can go to Circuit city and buy an AVCHD camcorder for $799? Why should I shell out 5K for a monitor when Best buy has even bigger TV's for $999? It's because the difference in these products is light years. I hate clichés, but the simple truth is you get what you pay for.

Let's wait a while and see how this "new thinking" plays out. Who knows? Avid just might make a believer out of you yet!

Peace,

Everyone expected avid to listen and least come out with a product

similar to the aja I-O HD box.

Hopefullly avid can back finally backup there products and offer

3 yr warranty like everyone else does.

(guys don't hire an editor that's always rendering in FCP, he doesn't know the

software.

Mike

MIkeFilm:

(guys don't hire an editor that's always rendering in FCP, he doesn't know the

software.

Mike

Mike:

I somewhat agree on this.  While FCP drives me crazy with constant renders in places I don't believe I should have too (and other odd issues that we have all discussed to death), I just finished a 720p project yesterday (FCP) with 9 layers of footage and effects and all played realtime with no issues of render everytime I did something.  Sure, I had to render things, particularly for playout, but don't I have to do this on my Avid as well?  Of course I do!  It's not like you don't ever have to render in Avid. I'm not here to bash either software, nor argue this one renders faster, etc., but I use both and you learn to work in the timeline with all of the options that provide you the best "realtime" experience with the least amount of renders (green/yellow, dynamic RT, draft modes, etc).   I mean dear lord, think about the third party apps-especially back in the day, i.e. Ultimatte and how many hours I spent watching a chroma key render.  Yikes, I'm glad I don't have to explain that to clients anymore!

DShulkin:

Sure, I had to render things, particularly for playout, but don't I have to do this on my Avid as well?  Of course I do!

Not as much anymore. 6 layers of HD in realtime play out to the deck.

The Nitris DX looks like a really nice box, and it sounds like Avid has done a lot of work under the hood on MC3.  

I guess I was looking for Avid to really blow me away with either dramatically improved pricing on the BOBs, or some really cool new software features.  In my opinion, they came up short on both those.

Everybody has an area they want improved (CC, title tool, audio etc.), mine is effects.  I use AE a lot, and I don't expect MC to be AE.  However, the lack of oversize image import, native transfer modes and mediocre DVE, as well as the archaic effects stacking / nesting, is really painful to me.

Most of my work is short form (3-5 min), and moderately effects intensive. Six streams on NDX would be great - if they were blue dot effects!  I just moved from Meridien, and its amazing to see how little the software has evolved - basically HD capability and faster CPUs.

Some people here might say I'm the perfect candidate for FCP.  I could probably live through media mangler and disappearing renders more easily than others.  There are so many shops in the Chicago area doing this same kind of work on MC.  Why isn't Avid more interested in keeping them?

They are and more work is being done to improve the areas you highlight. Avid's focus for the last year or two has been getting the performance back into place. Now that this  is done, I expect we will se more advancements in other areas.

BLKDOG:

They are and more work is being done to improve the areas you highlight. Avid's focus for the last year or two has been getting the performance back into place. Now that this  is done, I expect we will se more advancements in other areas.

I've only been posting on these forums for a short amount of time, but if you've ever come across any of the threads I post in, I always, ALWAYS, try to sneak in a complaint about the way Avid handles effects.  Maybe it's just that I hope someone in a position that can change things hear me, or that I can get others on here to complain loudly enough with me...who knows.  But I've come to the conclusion that things like these will never change.  I talked about this in another thread briefly, but I'll re-iterate it here.  The reason things won't every change is because of Avid's backwords/forward compatibility.

I can't imagine that Avid would ever change things significantly in the realm of things like effects handling because then you couldn't open old projects in newer versions or newer projects in older versions.  My absolute hope is that Avid would just change it's effects so that it handles like After Effects, Premiere, Final Cut, etc....as in you add as many effects to a clip as you want, and they render in the order that you have them placed on the clip.  All parameters would have their own keyframes (as in everything is "advanced keyframes").  You can easily move the order of the effects around.  Each clip already comes with default parameters of size, position, crop, opacity, rotation.  When you bring in something with an alpha channel, the whole process is transparent (no pun intended), as in not having to deal with a "matte key effect" that can accidentally be deleted.  Trust me, I could go on and on...

Avid is so interested in keeping legacy everything and seems so afraid to change anything (interface, title tool, effects...), that I can't see them changing things so much as just throwing more new stuff on top of old stuff.

Here's hoping that the "new" Avid doesn't continue with this trend and isn't afraid to shake these type of things up a bit.

Actually, if you have any history with Avid at all, you'd know that that isn't as true as you think. For instance, there were many compatibility issues between abvb systems and the first meridians. As a matter of fact, you can't open any Avid project after 7.2 on an Avid  that ran software prior to that.

Even when the DNA line was launched, matte keys and titles created in an Adrenaline would not open in a Meridian system. There are many effects in the current Avids that are not available in the meridians. Meridians still cannot capture DV resolutions natively.

So while  it  is true  that Avid attempts to make their software as cross compatible as possible,  there is precedent for  change.

“You have opened a project with effects that were created on an earlier version of Media Composer.  Would you like to promote those effects to the Advanced Effects Editor now?”

That should be an excellent start for the programmers.  

Feels good to contribute.   :)

BLKDOG:

Actually, if you have any history with Avid at all, you'd know that that isn't as true as you think. For instance, there were many compatibility issues between abvb systems and the first meridians. As a matter of fact, you can't open any Avid project after 7.2 on an Avid  that ran software prior to that.

Even when the DNA line was launched, matte keys and titles created in an Adrenaline would not open in a Meridian system. There are many effects in the current Avids that are not available in the meridians. Meridians still cannot capture DV resolutions natively.

So while  it  is true  that Avid attempts to make their software as cross compatible as possible,  there is precedent for  change.

Well I must say, that's at least a little encouraging to hear.

BLKDOG:

ntermini:

I really shouldn't complain, because it's more days of work for me

Exactly. More days for you and more days of editorial out of the budget. So, exactly where is the savings to any sensible business? If I can save two days off of every budget in editorial, the difference in the price of my Avid gear is paid of in one month of work. I think THAT is the reality that is beginning to sink in with each FCP experience.

I work in a medium sized production and post facility in metro Atlanta. Before I started working here I came from an all Avid shop and had very little experience with FCP however I had plenty of friends and colleagues that sore by it. To quote one friend of mine, “After a couple of months not only will you not miss Avid, you won’t use anything else.”

            Well it’s been well over a year since I have been using FCP as a senior editor at my current position. I know it and understand it to the point that I have setup and installed 4 new edit suits here at my place of employ. We use FCP for everything from short speed channel teases to long form sports and entertainment shows. It’s a capable, flexible, fully featured app that for the most part gets the job done. Yet there is not a week that goes by that I don’t want to drop kick it out of a 10 story window.

            There are days I restart a project to find my renders and sometimes even my media gone. My favorite is when I have a project with a crap load of graphics and lower thirds that end up missing after a restart, mysteriously replaced by something else, or if I delete a graphic its render ghost is still there. If you share systems with multiple editors you must constantly check your settings. It’s like checking for ticks.

            FCP 6 now has the ability to mix resolutions in the timeline. One of my coworkers who had started a series of 20 long form shows thought this was a god send. The shows had been ISO’d on HDV but line recorded to DVCProHD. So, for some of the early shows he cut in HDV iso’s to fix problems with the DVCProHD Line cut. I assumed at the time that FCP was like Avid or Canopus. As long as you were going out HDsdi you did not have to render. However we noticed quality issues in the final output of one show and realized we did in fact have to render the timeline. THE TWO HOUR TIMELINE WITH 50/50 DVCPRO AND HDV!!! 8 FRICK’N HOURS!! He had cut 5 shows this way before we purchased a Sony HVR1500 deck that would allow us to capture HDV tape as DVCProHD. Add this to the usual suspects of missing renders and menu driven mousey editing.

            Luckily our clients usually don’t sit in on our edits so it’s easy for us to hide some of the short comings of our post production workflow. I’m glad because I don’t think I could explain the intricacies of FCP render process to people that give me footage for broad cast on set top DVD’s. “Ok your edit is finished. Come back in 8 hours and I will have a tape for you. Maybe.” Of course we can’t really charge 8 hours for rendering so we have to eat it. 8 X $200.00 X 5. We actually had to delay the start of another project booked for that suit a couple of days to accommodate the added render time.

            Every one should use the tools they prefer. FCP is a great tool for what it is and when used the way apple prefers you to, Single codec, careful media management, keeping an eye on your settings – FCP is actually a pretty good system for the money. However the hours you loose here and there start to add up over time when your time is money. I have never almost missed a deadline due to the normal operations of Avid products. Sometimes using FCP on large complicated projects I would be lucky to leave most days at 7:00pm just trying to stay on schedule and meet benchmarks. So an Avid system built around the new DX hardware would take 3 or 4 billable jobs to pay for itself. That would be worth it for me just so I could leave most days at a decent hour. For the record I do plan on purchasing the Mojo DX or the Nitris DX for my home system. CTG Atlanta is having an event next month to give hands on demos of the new products and I will make my decision then.

            One more thing. A lot of people here have already condemned the new Avid products as being to expensive. I would ask that every one reserve judgment on these products until you actually use them yourself. Only then can you really judge weather or not these new products can really benefit you or your workflow. To use the popular car analogy, I once said I would never spend $40,000 for a Cadillac, until I dove one.

The advanced keyframes are an example of Avid changing the effects model. AVX 2 is another example. Who knows what they have mapped for further AVX levels.

the reality is, the whole code base is long in the tooth. In the long game, Avid needs to rewrite the code from the ground up. They have the patents for all the cool technology and database management, so they could keep the functionality we love and add the rest to it. When I asked the previous CEO why they hadn't done that, he said they estimated it would cost them 150 Million dollars. How do you justify that expense?

So it looks like they are taking a more conservative approach and rebuilding sections at a time. 

Upgarde pricing HAS been announced.

Xpro to MC $495 now with free u/g to 3.0.

Those that have a support contract:  standard upgrade price ($995 last I checked.)

Those whose support contract has lapsed or who do not have a support contract: 25%  penalty for late renewal, plus service contract for one year, plus standard upagrad pricing.  Last I checked a service contract was $2,000 per year.  1.25*2,000+995= $3495 for software that a new user can get for $2495. 

Go figure.

You are right about the MC upgrade price but not support. That program is not yet in place.

However, Major upgrade to MC = $995. Major upgrade to FCS = $1299.

Full 24/7 support with FREE Major software upgrades from Avid used to equal $2000 (Who knows what  it will be) so, with today's prices that $1000 a year for 24/7 phone support. A drop in the bucket. Also, if there is more than one fee-based upgrade, it's even cheaper.

How much does 24/7 support cost from Apple...oh yeah there is no support from Apple, Sony Adobe or the rest.

So, even if you choose to use the free support here, your upgrade to Avid  software is STILL cheaper than the competition.

If an Avid Nitris  is $12000  spread over 3 years that is $4000 per year or $333 a month $83 a week or around $2 per hour based on a 40hr working week, so working at 50% capacity the Nitris box costs less than $5 per hour 

In the UK we pay $10 for a gallon of Gas which makes me think i need a Nitris powered car :-)