Hi Mark,

Laptopeditor:

Prosumer - A Wedding Videographer, for example. These folks do not work in broadcast, but they do receive compensation for their work just like those in broadcast.

 

I think you're doing wedding videographers a disservice by calling them prosumer.  There are lots of people who don't work in broadcast who are still professionals.  Corporate video is the most prominent example I can think of.  Is a wedding photographer less of a professional because he's shooting a wedding and not a national car ad?

Laptopeditor:

Solopost:

In regards to HDV {implementation in XPro} - no argument, but that is far from disregarding the application as professional.

...Not in our opinion.

I know you had a lot of problems with HDV and DVD authoring, but there are plenty of places that use Xpress Pro to do broadcast work to this day that haven't had any of the problems you've had.  I think they'd have a different opinion as to whether Xpress Pro is professional software or not, and your one example (or even all of the posts from people on here who had trouble with HDV or DVD capabilities) probably wouldn't sway them.

good luck,
Carl

JVR:

I

Laptopeditor:

...In our local Montreal market. Most of the professional post houses went away because so many clients and companies who used to come to us for professional video post, have now purchased their own systems and pay an employee to do all their work in house.

 

 

 

Aren’t they called editors?

 

 

 

 ...No. Employees who do the task of editing for a much cheaper price to make the companhy's bottom line look better, but these folks are not experienced editors.

 

Laptopeditor:

Employees who do the task of editing for a much cheaper price to make the company's bottom line look better, but these folks are not experienced editors.

 

Gotta agree with that. I've lost count how many times as a freelancer I've been called in to salvage and repair a complete and total mess some "staffer" had the audacity to call editing. But they never learn. They just continue to do it again and again and again, spending far more money than they really need to to get the job done right the first time. Go figure.

camoscato:

there are plenty of places that use Xpress Pro to do broadcast work to this day that haven't had any of the problems you've had.

I make my living creating commercials for broadcast. I made a TON of money with Xpress Pro as well as Media Composer. So Mark, am I not a professional? Is Xpress Pro not a professional product? As has been stated many times on these forums - Avid, FCP, Premiere, etc. are only tools. What you do with those tools is what makes the difference. I own a hammer, screwdriver, even an electric drill. I am not, nor would I ever claim to be, a professional carpenter.

Peace

Solopost:

Again, Avid's fault? They never asked the consumer to 'come and get it'.

 

Yes...What ?!! What the heck do you think it was FREE for ?????????? Well, of course Uncle Harry the consumer man is going to come and get it !

Solopost:

Avid aimed for their market of editors/future editors and, inadverently, another market heared about it and decided to buy.

...Correct. Point well taken.

Solopost:

No - cars are marketed to those educated to drive.

...Oh yeah ? Then why do they always emphasize how fast the car can go, or almost always show the car being driven fast with small little type at the bottom which says something like, "Professional driver. Do not attempt ?" This is marketing to allure the consumer and it creates certain expectations which inevitably leads to road rage, death, serious injury, etc. Should folks compalin to the car makers about how they're marketing their product ? Yes I think they should because speeding is dangerous ! There are laws to protect consumers and companies who are legally held to advertising guidelines for a reason.

Solopost:

Did you just dismiss your own stance? You are blaming the buyers ineptitude to research their product on Avid for marketing to them - when Avid never marketed to the consumer level.

....No I did not. I am simply pointing out that the responsibility resides on both sides. I am not sure I can accept your premise that Avid never marketed to consumers with offerings such as Avid Free DV, Avid XDV, or Avid Xpress Pro.

Solopost:

Again... if your perspective of Avid is that it is for "lower end prosumer and consumer users".. then you are all good to have that. But that's your perspective - I think you are going to hit a losing argument if you point is that Avid marketed to the hobbyist or enthusiast.

 ....No ! I've never written that. I'm not arguing that Avid is for consumer users. I'm arguing that Avid made Schizophrenic marketing decisions which has drawn in many consumer level desktop video editors such as Steeldestroyer, who started this thread. Now Avid has these people who are slowly and painfully making the transition to a professional editing approach from Uncle Harry Desktop Consumer Land because they were lured into what they thought was a simple editor. So were they wrong ? Are they just a pack of dummies who didn't do their homework, thus it's their fault ? Did Avid never market to such people in the first place ? I think this is a little easy to think but not true at all. This maybe true for some, but does not explain the fact that there are a hell of a lot of people who participate in these forums who were and still are amature editors who use Avid XDV, Avid Liguid, Avid Xpress Pro.

....Avid lowered its prices. Yes and I'm glad they did so. I think Avid's decision to discontinue AXP was a sound and wise move for a company in transition to make. Avid deserves a lot of credit here for realizing their errors and re-directing their resources in a more positive direction-focusing on what they do best-making professional editing solutions.

Solopost:

If the consumer, inadvertently saw this, thought 'i'll buy that' and found out it was difficult to use - that's their own fault.. not Avid.

....You're almost there my friend. Now you're getting it. Once the price gets low enough, then the mongrol hoards will come flooding in. Avid will make tons and tons of cash, but these folks will sure make these threads interesting.

Peace

camoscato:

There are lots of people who don't work in broadcast who are still professionals.  Corporate video is the most prominent example I can think of.  Is a wedding photographer less of a professional because he's shooting a wedding and not a national car ad?

 

....Oh man don't go there ! I wasn't trying to debate the professional merits of one vs the other. I was only trying to define for solopost what I was talking about when I wrote about the prosumer and consumer markets. In fact we do a lot of Corporate Videos ourselves. In fact one corporate video client is actually our biggest customer. This client comes back to us several times a year for on going contracts and we have served them since 2005. We consider wedding videographers to be prosumers in our local market. We consider corporate video contracts to be professional clients.

camoscato:

I know you had a lot of problems with HDV and DVD authoring, but there are plenty of places that use Xpress Pro to do broadcast work to this day that haven't had any of the problems you've had. 

...Good for them. We are happy for them. There are also a ton of folks who have had a great deal of trouble with AXP with HDV and DVD authoring on these threads. It is interesting to note that these folks had exactly the same difficulties with HDV and DVD we had.

Laptopeditor:

...because they were lured into what they thought was a simple editor.

 

Over the past 15 years, I can't remember any advertising on the part of Avid that touted the system as being either simple or easy. Or do you mean that people assumed it would be easy because it was being made cheaper?  Or were these the typical empty promises so often made by resellers who will tell you anything you want to hear to make the sale?

Larry Rubin:

Laptopeditor:

Employees who do the task of editing for a much cheaper price to make the company's bottom line look better, but these folks are not experienced editors.

 

Gotta agree with that. I've lost count how many times as a freelancer I've been called in to salvage and repair a complete and total mess some "staffer" had the audacity to call editing. But they never learn. They just continue to do it again and again and again, spending far more money than they really need to to get the job done right the first time. Go figure.

....Hi Larry. I think this is so because we are living and working in what is primarily a consumer market driven by price, rather than by quality. 

 

Laptopeditor:

I think this is so because we are living and working in what is primarily a consumer market driven by price, rather than by quality. 

 

Yes absolutely, because more and more it's the bean counters who are making critical business decisions that they are totally and wholely unqualified to make. Why? Because their only concern is to bring in the lowest bottom line on everything. Quality to cost comparisons be damned. Short term smart, but long term stupid thinking. They wind up spending more money in the long run to do the work over than they would have to get it done right in the first place by paying a little more than the bottom line offer.

Larry Rubin:

Or do you mean that people assumed it would be easy because it was being made cheaper? 

 

...Yes. Exactly. They thought they were purchasing Adobe Premiere for Windows.

Larry Rubin:

Or were these the typical empty promises so often made by resellers who will tell you anything you want to hear to make the sale?

....Yes. This is also a large factor in many folks being led down the garden path, as we say. I also have to confess a personal stupidity here. We trusted our Avid reseller (And we were given no reason not to trust them) that AXP would meet our professional needs. Well, it didn't. We should of got more financing and gone straight for Media Composer and be done with it.

....There were several reasons we decided on AXP. Another reason was the online product demo of AXP on the Avid website at that time. AXP was shown with The Avid Studio Toolkit installed but no where in that demo was it EVER stated that you had to purchase the ASTK to have the level of functionality shown in the online demo. We understood this product's level of functionality based on the information gathered straight from the makers of the product, but we were wrong ! We should have done more research !

....To add insult to injury, the product simply did not function in the HDV format they way we desperately needed to serve our clients. But all is well now. We're working with Media Composer Everything works 100% perfectly.

Larry Rubin:

They wind up spending more money in the long run to do the work over than they would have to get it done right in the first place by paying a little more than the bottom line offer.

 

...Yeah, and in our market they will drop you like a hot potatoe for a bid difference of $50.00 !

 

Larry Rubin:

Laptopeditor:

I think this is so because we are living and working in what is primarily a consumer market driven by price, rather than by quality. 

 

Yes absolutely, because more and more it's the bean counters who are making critical business decisions that they are totally and wholely unqualified to make. Why? Because their only concern is to bring in the lowest bottom line on everything. Quality to cost comparisons be damned. Short term smart, but long term stupid thinking. They wind up spending more money in the long run to do the work over than they would have to get it done right in the first place by paying a little more than the bottom line offer.

I do not know any bean counter, but I am shure they are not educated economists. Everone who studied economy or business administration knows there are two sides of the coin, the cost and benefits.

What I think of is this. If a firm lets cheap unqualified staff do the video editing, there is a reason. One is that they do not expect the benefits of using an educated editor is large enougth to hire them. Another one is that the educated editors may not communicate the benefits to use them.

I notice this at my curren work (I work as an economist at a public transit company and help my wife who is an educated editor with her company at speare time), then the marketing or information department need some easy illustrations with sort life time, they take the photo by them self (there are some quite good hobby photographers there, including me!). We can call it, bread an butter photos. But for publications with longer lifetime, they use professional photographers.

I think it is the same for companies who use lots of videos. They may do the bread and butter by them self and the more important works is done by professional. By the other side, an experienct news editor may do the bread and butter work much cheaper and faster than the inhouse editor. But again, it is about communicating our advantage.

Just some thougt about this problem.

Laptopeditor -

I just have to chime in here and say you're way off on how Avid Xpress Pro and DV were marketed.  They were in NO WAY marketed towards consumers.  Setting a price point is NOT marketing.  Avid did not take out ads in Best Buy papers.  They did not advertise on TV.  You didn't hear about it on the radio.  Etc.

You're putting to much stock into what a consumer is.  Anybody willing to spend over $1500 on editing software is not in the "consumer" arena anymore.  When I first graduated from school years ago, I was telling my cousin about how we learned to edit on Avid because I thought he thought it would be really cool.  He had no idea what in the heck Avid was.  Never heard of it.  I think that if you conducted an on the street poll of a hundred "regular Joe's", not one single person will be able to tell you what Avid is or will ever have heard of them.  If a consumer wanted to edit their home movies, then they would use iMovie that came with their Mac, Windows movie maker that came with their PC, or at the most spend $50 to $100 on editing software that you would find off the shelf at Best Buy or Circuit City.  They wouldn't spend $800 on Premiere Pro, $1300 on Final Cut Pro, and certainly wouldn't spend $1600 on Xpress Pro.

The prosumer is a different story.  They are making money off of this (in the case of Wedding videos and such), and therefore most likely are not going to rely on the likes of Windows Movie Maker.  They are the ones that are going to research enough to find the more "professional products" and learn more about the products.  The reason these type of products exist is because it offers more than the previous "consumer" products I talked about, without having to invest in tens of thousands of dollars in hardware or turnkey solutions.  If Avid ever meant Xpress Pro to be for everyday consumers, I guarantee you they would be on the shelf in a store where consumers could buy them and where they would be advertised....NOT somewhere that the consumer would have to actually know what it is in the first place in order to be able to find it.

As for Avid Free, it was indeed used to get people used to the avid interface so that they would buy into Avid in the future.  If you think it was "marketed" towards consumers (which it certainly wasn't), then consumers have even less right to complain.  Avid Free was not drag and drop.  And so if these consumers used Avid Free, experienced the interface, and still bought an Avid system after that, they knew exactly what they were getting already!  If they didn't buy and are just complaining about not liking the way avid works in their Free version, well then guess what....IT WAS FREE.  They didn't spend any money on it.  If they don't like it, they don't have to use it.

Laptopeditor:

We trusted our Avid reseller (And we were given no reason not to trust them) that AXP would meet our professional needs.

 

OK, I curious. When they said it "would meet our (your) professional needs" did they elaborate with any specific claims that turned out not to be true, other than stability of product?  I always like to keep track of the snake oil being used out there!

Laptopeditor:

Larry Rubin:

Or do you mean that people assumed it would be easy because it was being made cheaper? 

 

...Yes. Exactly. They thought they were purchasing Adobe Premiere for Windows.

Price should NOT play a role in any of this.  This is not Avid's fault.  What is Avid supposed to do?  Raise the price of their product simply so that a "consumer" or whatever else won't get confused?  Sorry, that's not Avid's responsibility...and I sure as hell don't want to pay more just so that these "consumers" don't "accidentally" buy something they shouldn't have bought in the first place.