TCurren:

PS: If Universal is a regular requirement in your workflow, it is worth the extra $500.

But we already had Universal mastering BEFORE the upgrade. Universal mastering and secondary color correction were really the only features that set Symphony apart from MC. I haven't had it installed yet, so I can't be 100% sure, but as far as I can tell, there have been no improvements made to either one in this upgrade.

Brickwad:

But we already had Universal mastering BEFORE the upgrade. Universal mastering and secondary color correction were really the only features that set Symphony apart from MC. I haven't had it installed yet, so I can't be 100% sure, but as far as I can tell, there have been no improvements made to either one in this upgrade.

Universal Mastering and Secondary CC aren't the only differences. SN has source, program and relational color correction along with a much more powerful color corrector. When I'm on a MC I always miss Channels, Master Clip Relation corrections and the Spot Effect. I rely on these features extensively.

I'm not disagrreeing with you Brickwad, the fact that the upgrade is 500 more for the Symphony without any value added over MC in the actual upgrade is why I send "Bend over."

Genarts does this also with their Sapphire plugins. They charge oyu more for Symphony even though it is the exact same plugin. It falls uunder the "what the market will bear" heading. I can understand charging more for DS or Discreet plugins as that is separate R&D costs being sold to a smaller market. But MC & Symphony are the same code with certain features enabled or disabled. In fact, just less out of Sapphire for Symphony as none of the RT filters work in RT on Symphony but do on MC.

BobRusso:

Universal Mastering and Secondary CC aren't the only differences. SN has source, program and relational color correction along with a much more powerful color corrector.

My mistake. My point, however, is that as far as I can tell there are no improvements in the features that set Symphony apart from MC, nor are there any new Symphony only features. So why the extra $500 - because we must be able to afford it since we were able to afford Symphony to begin with? To be honest, I already paid the extra grand for a support contract, and probably will again when it's time to renew, so this upgrade pricing doesn't really affect me. Price gouging pi**es me off. And charging more for the same thing simply because you can get it is nothing more than price gouging, IMHO.

BobRusso:

Universal Mastering and Secondary CC aren't the only differences. SN has source, program and relational color correction along with a much more powerful color corrector. When I'm on a MC I always miss Channels, Master Clip Relation corrections and the Spot Effect. I rely on these features extensively.

Bob, I think the frustration stems from the fact that calls for Symphony-specific improvements have been acknowledged for quite some time but still haven't been acted upon.

As you know, Blackmagic just bought da Vinci. There's a feeling it's going to be deja vous all over again. A company with less experience than Avid exploiting a market space that Avid should be dominating. Apple and Adobe did this with the pro-sumer NLE. They did it again with the Red camera. BM is going to try to do this in the finishing space (as is Apple's Color).

There is so much brilliance in Avid's solutions. But for all the excellent work, the company seems to keep on misreading the market. With so much industry experience in-house, it's baffling.

Everyone here wants Avid to do well. And I'm sure Symphony users who can afford $500 for an upgrade can afford $1,000, but it's the fact that Symphony is not being improved specifically to gain ground in the finishing world that is a sore spot.

I use MC but I've had the opportunity to try out Symphony's source side color correction features. They are excellent, genius. But Symphony users feel that the program is resting on its laurels as a finishing system instead of being further developed.

What features are added and how much they cost is way above my pay-grade. I only wanted to point out that the features between MC and SN are significant.

BobbyMurcerFan:

Everyone here wants Avid to do well. And I'm sure Symphony users who can afford $500 for an upgrade can afford $1,000, but it's the fact that Symphony is not being improved specifically to gain ground in the finishing world that is a sore spot.

I agree. I'm not looking for a lower price, I want an updated and better finishing product.

I think we should be able to buy/upgrade to Symphony software only. Since Symphony Nitris DX the hardware has no relevace to the software. It's an I/O box only. So everyone can still use the old hardwares depend on the material. Nitirs/ Nitiris  DX for HD and Adrenalin/Mojo for SD Material. This way the software only will be much cheaper and the upgrades as well. It's only natural that from now on hardwares will be almost insignificant because most of the professional cameras today are tapeless. We need a professional out SD Component/SDI  and HD SDI  for the professional monitor and that's that. we can get it from AJA as well.

Symphony is a turnkey system only, and it comes with Nitris DX (never heard of a Symphony-Mojo DX combo), as You can see from my posts above I can't even have an online MC soft to Symphony upgrade price, and perhaps such an upgrade does not exist. Forget about 3rd party hardware as of now, we all hope for Aja support (like DS), but that's another story...

luca.mg:

never heard of a Symphony-Mojo DX combo

You are right. But few years ago we couldn't dream of MC software only. It came with Meridian or later Adrenalin hardware and cost about 40k. As others wrote here MC and Symphony are the same software, and since the Nitris DX hardware Symphony doesn't really need hardware. As I said before it is only an I/O box. If MC can be software only so can Symphony I'm sure.  I think Avid and all of us will benefit from it. Avid will sell a lot lot more softwares and we will have cheaper Symphony.   Not?

YOP:

 As others wrote here MC and Symphony are the same software, and since the Nitris DX hardware Symphony doesn't really need hardware. As I said before it is only an I/O box.

Really? Who told you that? MC & Symphony are indeed very similar and, if you like, MC is a "chopped" down version of Symphony but Symphony needs the DX box (or "classic" Nitris) to function - it won't run without it. Synphony will not run with Mojo Dx. The Symphony / Nitris combination amounts to far more than simply an I/O box and a piece of software.

But of course the price is still silly.

Neil J:

The Symphony / Nitris combination amounts to far more than simply an I/O box and a piece of software

I know that the calssic Nitris had a lot more than I/O, but

Do you know of any advatages of the DX hardware?

Look at this

Avid DS Turnkey System Specifications

Avid DS is a tightly integrated, turnkey system comprised of the following components:

• Hewlett Packard Workstation Z800 
• 2.93 GHz dual quad-core Intel® Xeon® processor
• 6GB DDR SDRAM 
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 4800 OpenGL graphics accelerator card 
• AJA 2Ke Dual link I/O card with K3 breakout box 

As you can see no Nitris classic or DX is with Avid DS anymore.

So if Avid DS can so Symphony sure can.

While MC and Symphony share the same code, DS is a different software from the ground up.

The discussion about third party I/O has been going on for quite some time in the Avid community when the DX boxes came out, and brought to the attention of the management even in the chat with Avid forum if I recall; I was really expecting for a breakthrough with the last release of the software as the company claims more listening to its customers now than ever before. My best guess is that if the company doesn't come to terms with more openness it will kill itself: this is the age of open source, I do not mean that Avid should release its source code to the public domain, but at least releasing drivers for its hardware could be a smart move; not only Symphony/MC could and should work with third party hardware, but Avid I/O devices could and should work with non Avid NLEs and graphic programs, the same as Avid shared storage solutions now working with FinalCut. Yes indeed, I'd welcome a Symphony software, but third party hardware compatibility is number one in my wishlist.

Version 4.02 is *DEFINITELY NOT* what Symphony users wanted or expected !!! 

None of the new features listed seem to warrant a major version number change. This new release could very well have been numbered 3.6. 

Version 4 should have offered some improvements to Symphony-specific features, for example integrated CC masks, real time scopes or at the very least a resizable CC interface (much needed for adjusting curves).

For crying out loud, you still can't even CC a simple key separate from the background without bending over backwards !!!

The Symphony CC hasn't been updated much since the meridien days, and this is a cry and shame...

We would gladly have paid for a new release with an improved CC, but we'll skip this version and hope that Avid shapes up before the next Symphony release.

Once again:

Version 4.02 is *DEFINITELY NOT* what Symphony users wanted or expected !!! 

Hi Terry,

I did want to chime in to clarify that Sapphire costs the same for Media Composer and Symphony- $2800. We don't charge any difference in price between the two. We did several years ago when you bought the plug-ins but since 2004 the new license and upgrade prices have been the same.

best,

todd