JeronCoolman wrote:

If Avid truely has a responsibility to the professionals who want a reliable-working-out-of-the-box system, then they should sell and support computers that are configured with their software to professionals; not just the software.

They do, it's called Media Composer and Symphony and it costs 20K-90K. Xpress DV was created specifically to be software only until they introduced the Mojo option with Xpres Pro.

Plus you can go through a number of re-sellers to buy a supported system with the software. If you go the home built route (which I have done for the last 5 years) then you need to anticipate that there will be problems and you alone are responsible for trouble-shooting and research.

Scott Carnegie wrote:

Plus you can go through a number of re-sellers to buy a supported system with the software. If you go the home built route (which I have done for the last 5 years) then you need to anticipate that there will be problems and you alone are responsible for trouble-shooting and research.

Q.F.T - In Xpress Pro Land, going through a re-seller really is the best way to go.

Xpress Pro is the only Windows software I've ever run that was not supported by the company that wrote and published it on what Avid calls its "Mininum PC System Specifications for Avid Xpress Pro" bullet list.

ALL other applications I've ever run from a simple text editor, to games, to SQL Server, to the competing NLEs publish a System Requirements list like Avid's "Mininum PC System Specifications for Avid Xpress Pro" and support their customers that have machines that meet those specs; home-built or not.

JeronCoolman wrote:

ALL other applications I've ever run from a simple text editor, to games, to SQL Server, to the competing NLEs publish a System Requirements list like Avid's "Mininum PC System Specifications for Avid Xpress Pro" and support their customers that have machines that meet those specs; home-built or not.

You do have a point, but when you buy Xpress Pro and put it on a home built system you do it knowing that support will be limited. If you go with a re-seller you will get support from them for longer than that no doubt.

My point is you need to be intelligent about it. Yes, Avid could do more to offically qualify certain sounds cards and support frankenstein systems, but you should come in knowing what you're buying and knowing what you're entitled to so complaining about it after the fact I think is unreasonable; you need to be smart about it

Also, Avid encourages use of these forums for Xpress Pro support. There are Avid employees that monitor the forums (the moderators are not always employees) and follow up on issues wether that person has official support or not.

You are right Scott, you do need to be intelligent about it and do your research when purchasing anything; software, hardware, car, coffee machine...

I making these comments because Avid's policy of supported hardware and supporting it is abnormal compared to the rest of the software industry. They get away with it because of their reputation. Eventually other competing products will provide the same functionality and people will choose them over Avid purely because of these policies.

I'm glad Avid employees monitor these forums, which is why I continue to push issues like this so they are aware of them. If people don't discuss them then Avid will not be aware of them. If I didn't think Avid monitored these forums, I wouldn't be writing this right now

I would love to see some statistics that show a ratio of "frankenstein systems" compared to "non-frankenstein systems" that people use in Windows-land. Not necessarily in Avid community, but just in all PCs that people own and use. I'll bet the number of "frankenstein systems" that are out there compared to Dell-X is higher than Avid thinks (or I think for what that matters).

Where I am glad Avid employees monitor these boards and occasionally help fix problems, that is very different than providing official support where they feel more of an obligation to help rather than just helping out of the kindness of their heart where they choose to. Avid encourages these forums for support because it is the only avenue most people have.

Heck, I'm one of the "third class" citizens that own the Xpress Pro Toolkit HD still waiting to hear if I'm allowed to download the updates for the programs I received when I purchased the toolkit. Maybe they'll announce it at NAB...  

JeronCoolman wrote:

I making these comments because Avid's policy of supported hardware and supporting it is abnormal compared to the rest of the software industry. They get away with it because of their reputation. Eventually other competing products will provide the same functionality and people will choose them over Avid purely because of these policies. <snip>

In general this is true.  But, compare Avid to their closest competitor...Apple.  Well, it's not so abnormal at all since Apple software only works on Apple computers.  Other companies are like this also...Discreet for one.  Outside of I think Combustion and 3DS, their software is sold with their machines.  Kind of like Symphony, DS, and those old SGI boxes.

Sigerson, the competition you are talking about sell the computers as well. Heck Apple even produces the operating system as well. Avid doesn't offer PCs for sale to run Xpress Pro.

In my quote, I was talking about software in general not just NLEs. If you want to just talk about NLEs, though, then we need to compare them to NLE vendors that don't offer to sell the computers that the software will run on, like Adobe.

Avid says, "buy only these handful of computers, brand x and model y, from this other company if you want support from us on our software package." The other software vendors don't do that, they either support the software running on machines that have components from a bullet list of supported hardware, or they offer the computers that will run the software as well. 

That is the abnormalality I'm talking about.

Bottom line; Avid posts their specs, you can adhere to them or choose to ignore them, the choice and therefor accountability is yours. Buying the correct video card for example is a no-brainer, just get the right card. Get a soundblaster card, it'll work. Get an approved laptop, it'll work.

High-end 3D and video editing systems are specific as to what systems they can run on. What does Final Cut Pro run on? What does Softimage run on? What does Discreet Lustre run on? What does Symphony Nitris run on? The manufacturers specify, go read their websites if you don't beleive me. Having a video system run on every machine with every graphics card is not the norm as you suggest, you'll see that mostly in lower-end products, and I don't consider Xpress Pro lower end. 

Look at the system specs in my profile, I run a home built machine that doesn't use an approved video card. I bought a Soundblaster card to make my system work because the mobo had on-board RealTek HD, and it didn't work, and it was my fault for not checking to see if it would work before I spent $1000+ on my system.

Scott Carnegie wrote:

Look at the system specs in my profile, I run a home built machine that doesn't use an approved video card. I bought a Soundblaster card to make my system work because the mobo had on-board RealTek HD, and it didn't work, and it was my fault for not checking to see if it would work before I spent $1000+ on my system.

I'm running a homegrown system as well and it works great. Avid doesn't have a list of supported audio hardware, so some of the blame has to go to them for not providing any official information on audio hardware. How can you blame yourself entirely for the non-working audio hardware? Again the lack of mention of any supported audio hardware might make the consumer think that any audio hardware should work because it was a point not worth mentioning.

I don't think I'm stating my synopsis very well...

My point is, when a software company sells software that is only supported on "Model Y of Brand X" computer, that software company typically ALSO either manufactures or at least sells that computer as well as the software. They don't have the policy that Avid has with Xpress Pro, "Buy Model Y of Brand X from some other company if you want support".

Furthermore, when a company produces a list of supported hardware components like Avid's Mininum Hardware Requirements bullet list. It offers some sort of support policy for their software on hardware that meets those requirements, not like Avid's policy of "Here is a list of un-supported hardware components that our software may or may not run on, if you want to try to run our software without support".

I'm not talking about doing your research or not, you should do that no matter what you buy. I'm talking about Avid's policy on supporting Xpress Pro not following the typical paradigm consumers expect from a software company.

FCP runs on Macintoshes sold by Apple, the same company that sells the software sells the supported hardware that it runs on.

Symphony Nitris runs on hardware sold by Avid, the same company that sells the software, sells the supported hardware that it runs on. Sidenote: Does Avid offer a bulleted list of Minimum Hardware Requirements for someone to build his or her own "frankenstein" Nitris system?

I don't see any hardware requirements or prices for Discreet Lustre on Audodesk's web site so I can't comment on it. I would guess it isn't a $1600 pro-sumer product though.

Softimage has a bulleted list of supported hardware and software (OS basically) AND Softimage will support ANY machine "frankenstein" or not that meets those specs. No where do I see a Softimage list that says, "We only support our software running on Model Y of Brand X".

Part of the reason I am even discussing this is because I wonder why these forums suffer from an almost DAILY post that states something like, "I'm building a machine that meets Avid's bulleted list of hardware from the software spec page, does this look ok?" or "My machine meets the specs on Avid's web site, why doesn't Xpress Pro run?"

Only to be meet with a resounding, "Buy an approved system or you should have bought an approved system."

I don't see posts of that nature so prevalent in any other forums for any other software. It is a problem, for what ever reason, e.g. lack of intelligence or due dillegence on the consumer, or lack of hardware testing on Avid; that could and probably should be addressed for the better of the consumer and the better of Avid's sales.

If I were a professional editor or owned a post-production shop that wanted to buy 1 or more Xpress Pro workstations, I would definitely want to be able to go to Avid and buy everying on one P.O., machines, software and support policy. When I received delivery, I would want to open up the boxes, fire up the machines and know that an Avid tech installed everything and tested it on the machine. (Which is why I think your best bet is to go with a 3rd party integrator, but that introduces problems of its own...)

There has to be some sort of market for Avid selling Xpress Pro following this business model. I'm not saying eliminate what they have now, just enhance it by doing something like this and maybe buy some ATI graphics cards, sound cards and AMD machines to do some testing and "official qualifying" or more hardware than what is on the aging supported hardware list.

For the record, I am glad that I was able to build my own system and get it running with Xpress Pro. I wouldn't have bought it if I couldn't. Using Xpress Pro is a hobby for me, just like building computers. I'm in it for the experience, not for sustenance.

Hey Jeron, I don't disagree with you, I just take the position that with a home-built system the onus is on the user to build a system that will run the softwae according to the manufacturers specs, while many people are trying to get around that. Xpress Pro does come fully installed and supported if you use a re-seller, but they can make mistakes. If one plans on using the system for everyday business, not so much a hobby, then a re-seller is the way to go IMO.

I agree, there should be a statement on sound cards on the specs site. By doing a quick search on this forum a person would find that Soundblaster works and the RealTek HD has a lot of problems, something I didn't anticipate when I built my new system with the RealTek system sound, no ones fault but my own.

BTW, I like what you said on this link

http://www.avid.com/community/ArchivedForums/Forum38/HTML/016198.html

"The first rule when building your own workstation for any of Avid's software products is, DON'T DO IT. "

EHS wrote:

Hey Guys, I just want to tell you, that I finally got Avid Xpress Pro HD 5.2.1 to work! If you use the Realtek High Definition Audio Card, please update the driver of your sound card and reboot your system. I can promise that i will work definitely! I just created that thread because me and other Realtek sound card users had the same problems... Well guys.. Here is the FINAL SOLUTION! Thank you for all your supports!

Hi EHS. One simple, but silly question: how did you upgrade your driver (step by step).

Thanks

It will work !

Baklap:

Make sure you have the appropiate drivers installed for the card. We use the Relatek HD card on several laptops with 5.2.1 no problem.. so there must be some problem on a deeper level.