Make that man a beta tester and listen to him Avid.

Larry Rubin:

I believe the primary focus should be on changes and new features that enhance the concepts of momentum and speed in the workflow, not hinder them. Simply put, that means achieving the shortest distance between point A and point B.

Here is a good example of the problem.  You are in more of a news situation (I get your TPC on FIOS and I enjoy some of the programming) where speed is extremely important.  I am in commercial editorial where speed is secondary to creative functionality.  If a great new feature slows me down a half second but gives me greater creative ability for my client, I want that.  Just raw speed is not my abiding principle in future "wants" from Avid. My design objectives are for greater creative control and offerings such as a revamped color corrector, re-vamped effects handling, better audio tools, etc.  So, who gets higher up on the list with the design team?  Tough call, because if you design for speed, you are pushing others aside and vice-versa. 

just my 2 cents

switthaus:

I am in commercial editorial where speed is secondary to creative functionality...Just raw speed is not my abiding principle in future "wants" from Avid. My design objectives are for greater creative control and offerings such as a revamped color corrector, re-vamped effects handling, better audio tools, etc.

Understood, and I also am in favor of greater creative functionality. But I do however, believe that greater creative functionality can be achieved without sacrificing momentum in a session, if the design process is very carefully thought through and the product not rushed to market prematurely.  

switthaus:

Tough call, because if you design for speed, you are pushing others aside and vice-versa. 

editorbelga:

Just my point of view. I don't care about UI colors and tricks, just performance and timesaving. (Background render would fit perfectly into that, but this is a thread about MC5, not about future requests.)

Amen again Wim. I love you man.

As I love your passion about MC5.

This is how real changes occur.

IF.

my tuppence:

been editing on Media Composer since 1991, every upgrade has been welcome, rather like opening a christmas present. Rarely were there any disappointments at all... till v5

smart tools is an abomination! 

clip colour choice overkill slows me down (7 colours is admittedly too few, but this palette of dozens of tiny little colour patches... groan...)

(This complaint deleted 'cos I was wrong)

having to deselect tracks (particularly A3) in filler is another slowdown

the change in ctrl- and apple- selection is hugely irritating

I don't cut much VFX so advanced keyframes only occasionally irritate, but they do irritate

the default black text on dark grey must have been thought up by a 25 year old designer with much better eyesight than I. Please let me set up global, user-based default settings.

another slowdown is in subclipping: the title of each new subclip isn't automatically highlighted for retitling. A very, very bad change!

As Larry and others have commented, the problem here is that programmers have redesigned a working, functioning interface. They have invested possibly thousands of Avid man-hours in all sorts of useless "improvements" in order to do what? to be more like Final Cut? why would anybody want that? it worked brilliantly and we were used to it. Get your fingers off it.

And as some have also commented, all this time and money should have been directed towards mattes, the title tool and colour correction (amongst other things)

btw the German Society for Film Editors in Munich recently held a one day seminar on v5 (thanks Julia!). Not ONE of the 16 editors taking part was a newcomer to v5. All had already worked with the software but were so confused by it that they needed to pay for a course to begin to understand it. Not to deepen our knowledge but to understand it! That was certainly a first for me.

RodneyinMunich:

I want to be able to delete more than one track from the timeline at a time (backspace did it in pre-v5)

Still seems to work for me...?!

I completely agree with RodneyinMunich.

There are more things to be change (rather than good interface till v4) for example AVCHD import...

ur right Job - obviously a result of my general confusion; I mean, on Friday it's minus 7 and I'm in deep snow, today it's 12 degrees plus and the sun is blasting down - who can remember which button to press in these sort of circumstances?

RodneyinMunich:

on Friday it's minus 7 and I'm in deep snow, today it's 12 degrees plus and the sun is blasting down

On Friday of last week is was colder in El Paso, Texas (southern United States) than it was in Anchorage, Alaska!

Hi Larry, Job, Scott, Madrid Spain, Confused over MC5 in Germany: I hope there would be at least one chair at the table for the utterly frustrated boutique post house users with 1 to 3 employees. I *MUST* speak up for them, as I am one ! There are many of us ! There are more of us than you might think. In markets such as, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City, Trois Riviers, Kanora, Thunder Bay, London, Ontario, Winnipeg, Lethbridge, Yellow Knife, and other smaller centres straight across Canada, we are cutting on the run in hotels, Donut shops, on the set of productions, during and after church services, many houses of worship, who are half of my customers alone, there is a whole market space treated as utterly invisible, who have NO VOICE, who do not post in this thread - AND THEY NEED TO BE HEARD !! To this group Avid I rate you as the following……

1. COMMUNICATION= F

2. CUSTOMER SERVICE = F

3. COMPETITIVE PRICING= F

HOW BIG IS THIS MARKET REALLY ?: In Canada it is at least 50 % I cannot comment on other countries.

….Just pondering while I'm rendering

Mark Job

ADDENDUM MARKET STUDY vs Design & Feature Set:

Do you folks have any idea how much audio-visual material the average church congregation turns out per year ? It's increadible ! Houses of Worship are a big, big, big, market ! One house of worship can produce as many as 30 to 50 Teaching Series on DVD per year alone ! This doesn't include compilations and material for the web, special seminars and symposiums with guest speakers and teachers. Big market my friends ! HUGE ! Yet, the average church is a small scale operation. Now this just reads like a contradiction, but it is not one. Everything needs to work right off of laptop PC's. This is what they use during the service. Some use desktop permanent installations as well. Increasingly, houses of worship are going MacBook Pro with FCS 7.x instead. With churches, delivery is almost always on DVD and Windows Media Video 9.

* I wish I was a better writer to be able to give you an even greater snap shot of the markets missed by Avid, and what our clients are like. But Avid doesn't care. Churches shoot everything with pro-sumer camcorders which shoot - Guess what they shoot ? HDV, SDHC (AVCHD).

Time for coffee number 6

Mark J.

Lemuriatv:

I completely agree with RodneyinMunich.

There are more things to be change (rather than good interface till v4) for example AVCHD import...

Better than a good AVCD import would be to have a true proxy editing system/method for HD material that is simple and straight forward...

" ... One house of worship can produce as many as ..."

I provide production & post production systems for s church in Zambia.  We're all Avid.  Also, I subscribe to "Church Production Magazine" and "Worship Facilities Magazine".  It's amazing how houses of worship have embraced the technology.

Mark Job:

I hope there would be at least one chair at the table for the utterly frustrated boutique post house users with 1 to 3 employees.

At least one of the lead designers used to be exactly such a boutique post house.