Oliver
Knowing what a few other companies are doing in this area i hope for Avids sake you are wrong on the length of time for it to happen.
Anyway back to the Symphony debate.
Avid have seen the future and will be focused on that big historic change in business model that the cloud offers so in the meantime rather than trying to defend Symph pricing and history tells us they must know they cannot carry on with that type of thinking that cripples its main product that is MC.
I think the central issue is why does Avid feel that it can/should create a new way of editing online over the next five to ten years but did not feel it can/should bring Symphony and DS finishing toolsets up speed durring the previous five to ten years?
It's a matter of priorities and allocation of limited resources. Finishing users continue to get the message from Avid, "He's Just Not That into You."
I also think that there is the very real possibility of the dumbing down of the MC/Symph interface to make it look and operate more like the web-based UI.
"When I spent 60k on a discreet edit digisuite system 10 years ago someone came up to me to offer fcp 2, I said it was a scam too." -Ric
Bobby The world has changed as you know over the last 10 years and Avid will need to change its business model to stay in business over the next 10 years.
Look at how many people seem to be complaining about MC 5.5 yet MC has never been better in features and value for money.
And i think i am right in thinking an Avid DS is now probably cheaper than a Symphony if you build the DS system yourself!
Things are not perfect but the problem these days in post production is not down to the tools but the decline in its status as a business to be in.
I guess the new Final Cut Pro may now help get Symphony CC into Media Composer sooner rather than later.
Wow wouldn't it be great to imagine a cloud based extension to MC / Symphony.
A web based GUI that has similar edit tools (but only the relevant subset) that allows access to proxy versions of media being worked on back at a post house.
Media could be ingested or linked anywhere in the world and proxy versions created in the cloud.
Avid Sequences or even bins could be shared between actual systems and the cloud GUI.
Locally the cloud client could allow exporting locally from the proxies to various review formats.
Much like Forbidden Technologies forescene product which is a great idea but crippled by a proprietry GUI and no way of sharing seq info between it and any other systems.
If Avid also opened the door to FCP sequence in and out it would rock.
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To be honest, I'd rather Avid fulfill the ten year bocklog of imaginings posted here and on other lists and wiki's first.
NICKB: Oliver - Knowing what a few other companies are doing in this area i hope for Avids sake you are wrong on the length of time for it to happen.
Oliver - Knowing what a few other companies are doing in this area i hope for Avids sake you are wrong on the length of time for it to happen.
Just to be clear - I have no advanced knowledge in this regard and my 5-10 year timeframe is purely a number tossed out. More web-infrastructure-related than Avid-related. I think Avid is trying to prepare the product appropriate for where the industry is logically headed, but this technology may trickle into being in other ways first.
- Oliver
NICKB:I guess the new Final Cut Pro may now help get Symphony CC into Media Composer sooner rather than later.
and not one comment from Avid so far. is that the new AVID?
So many shows will benefit from one editing/finishing/color box. . .
AndrewAction:For me Cloud is a great description of the process "pure vapour". Similar to natures own process with this form of "ownership" your money simply evaporates before your eyes.
Haha, well said! Obviously you can see the future thinking moving towards web based server technology but it comes from people with a different business agenda than Film and TV production. More urgently for Symphony to be a true finishing tool beyond HD broadcast it needs to have true resolution independence somewhat like DS and dare I say FCP. Secondary CC and Universal mastering is nothing than cannot be achieved on MC with workarounds. The cache of the Symphony name for high end is fading and does not justify higher rates except for the specialist talent driving it.
As it is I think Symphony can only be regarded as becoming the MC turnkey integrated option for those clients still prefering this model, forcing you into DX hardware, for which there was quite a lot of development costs still to write-off.
We work in TV and Broadcast as well as commercials and independents and the work-flows are already very different to those of 10 years ago. We do more "cloud" based stuff all the time with offline work and dub work files being transfered over the net.
Somebody will be the first with an elegant solution that allows collaborative creative remote working and the tools they support will have a head start on the more standalone (or facility shop) setup.
The customers and creatives are the ones seeing the internet opening up their choices they are already expecting it to be happening in traditional post.
OliverPeters:I still don't believe that Avid has properly evaluated FCP's threat to Media Composer. I think the designers understand it, but I'm not sure it changes the roadmap.
You are so right, Oliver. There is still a layer of old guard at Avid that cannot take the blinders off and I think they try to convince senior management that everything is OK. I think Kirk and Gary need to stop going to LA for user meetings and such. That's an Avid market just because of the kind of work that is produced, and it gives them a warped view of the total communications market.
What they should be doing is going to the smaller market Avid User-Group meetings. Let them see what we see in our markets: that its damn hard to find an Avid suite to 4-wall for an edit. That my clients like Magic Bullet Looks and Colorista more than me bringing a job to a Avid product for Color Correction. It's almost more valuable to have FCP skills as a freelancer than it is to have Avid skills. At the very least every freelancer should know both. Let them see how many post houses have totally ditched Avid. Let them look at the universities, outside of NYU and USC, and see what they are being taught. Take a look at how the Apple brand moves all the way from the iPad to FCP. Then they may see the true nature of the threat FCS poses to its traditional markets. Or to look at it from another direction: You do not see the above happening in reverse for Avid.
Scott Witthaus
Owner/Editor/Post Production Supervisor 1708 Editorial
http://vimeopro.com/1708editorial/1708-editorial
AndrewAction: It has always puzzled me why (with Symphony and DS all being registered turnkey systems) Avid has not used these private databases to gather suggestions for improvements from owners and to keep these users informed about the direction of their developments. (monthly email) These clients being required to sign a simple non disclosure when purchasing a system (if they wanted to be kept in the loop) would IMO allow Avid to stay within their own interpretation of the corporate law concerning public ally releasing advanced product information they usually hide behind.
It has always puzzled me why (with Symphony and DS all being registered turnkey systems) Avid has not used these private databases to gather suggestions for improvements from owners and to keep these users informed about the direction of their developments. (monthly email) These clients being required to sign a simple non disclosure when purchasing a system (if they wanted to be kept in the loop) would IMO allow Avid to stay within their own interpretation of the corporate law concerning public ally releasing advanced product information they usually hide behind.
Andrew,
This is something that has puzzled me since the early days I used Avid and registration on any MC meridian, Adrenaline and Symphony was obligatory! Why that user database was never used for marketing purposes.... it beats me...
Even today exchange programs for Adrenaline/Nitris Classic to Nitris DX did not reach me by mail while I have 5 Adrenaline's registred with Avid.
Besides the Prores/DNxHD FCP/MC support from other manufacturers isn't the basic point of this thread Avid NOT informing its user base how it can evolve wit Avid's products?
Jeroen van Eekeres
Technical director, Broadcast support engineer, Avid ACSR.
Always have a backup of your projects....Always!!!! Yes Always!!!!
A.V.I.D....... Another Version In Development
www.mediaoffline.com
Lightworks have just published a Roadmap
http://lightworksbeta.com/roadmap
Something like this would be great for symphony.
Lightworks is FREE software. Which means, no Sarbanes-Oxley restrictions on predictions for the future.
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