funckdren:

From Kenton:

Mac Option = PC ALT
Mac CMD = PC CTRL

Mac Control = PC nothing.  Why can't Macs take advantage of the Control modifier? 

Also to me, the argument to provide a better user experience for the "mousers" et al is completely subjective and I'll give you two examples of tools as to why.  Photoshop and After Effects.

In Photoshop, if I want to type some text, I can hit the T and the Text Tool opens.  In AE, I have to hit CMD+T because hitting T brings up the Opacity parameter.  Also, in AE if you want to advance to previous or next keyframes you hit J or K.  And snapping to a point is done by holding SHIFT.

My point here is that you don't find me lobbying Adobe to change those key functions because I realize as I work in AE or Photoshop that these are different apps and any mouse movements, key presses and any other user input is guaranteed to vary between them. 

Why can't those that are coming to Media Composer realize the same thing?  Or more importantly, why do we (long time users) have to lose certain functionalities so that a new user can switch from a competing product with no concessions on their part?  Avid was not my first NLE and when I started using it, I had to learn how it worked.  All of us long time users have had to learn how Avid works at some point and so it is not impossible to learn. The reasoning given for these changes make me feel as if MC is being modified to suit those that say that it's too  hard to learn because it is not the same as FCP or Premiere or whatever.  I like using Avid because it's not the same as using FCP or Premiere. 

Larry Rubin:

jveekeres:

fcapria:

we have not given logical explanations is neither accurate, nor fair.

Dear Frank,

Would you be so kind to share with us a link to that explanation, either on this forum on anywhere else for that matter

We're still waiting for that link, Frank.

.... "crickets chirping"

Randall L Rike:

"crickets chirping"

May be they catched the worong train, or we are waiting in the wrong platform and Avid languishing somewhere in between.

After this much time, one can only be left to believe that no such link exists.

While I respect the rules on this forum in general and always try to keep them in mind, this time I'm going to break the rule that forbids speculation and take the risk of being moderated. I think Franks lack of responding justifies it only in this case. If any of the moderators thinks otherwise.. please delete my post.

It is no secret. Avid is working on a web based NLE. It was even demonstrated to some at NAB and also reported on this forum.

http://community.avid.com/forums/p/82487/462217.aspx#462217

This being known one of the issues Avid faces is to make all key combination that now have a role in MC also possible in web browsers like explorer. Is that possible? Any web developers out here?

And now comes the speculation part.

I believe Avid is trying to have the best of 2 worlds, current MC and future "online MC", in one application. One UI for all OS systems and all Web browsers. And what we are experiencing today, being the smart tool and the control key changes, is Avid taking its first steps on this path. The underlying idea, online editing, must be pursued with such great enthusiasm by Avid/Frank that compromises are made resulting in functionality loss and a number of bugs due to compromises in the testing path.

End of speculation part.

Maybe more important is of course the market pressure for lower cost, innovation etc... Avid's survival is at steak as the numbers show Avid is still having trouble in making big profits. So it could be that it's not the enthusiasm but the market, being us, that is to blame also.

True or not, while I understand the difficult position Frank/Avid maybe in, I do not understand how calling users that complain about functionality loss and bugs "unfair" will help. I do not understand how referring to explanations without telling us where to find those will help. All I know is that most of my colleagues in Holland and Greece are rolling back from MC5 to MC4, except those using RED. Now that can't be the desired path can it?

jveekeres:

the numbers show Avid is still having trouble in making big profits.

Any profit, acutally.  Net GAAP numbers for the nine months of  2010 show a net loss of $36 million.  However things are trending in the right direction for Avid.  Lets hope this continues.  http://www.avid.com/US/press-room/Avid-Announces-Third-Quarter-2010-Results

jveekeres:

I believe Avid is trying to have the best of 2 worlds, current MC and future "online MC", in one application.

Part of Avid's issue is that they are still stuck in the "offline-online" thought process.  You offline on an MC system, then online on Symphony.  While there is room for a high end box in the Avid product line, Symphony is not it.  It should be merged with MC to give a pure "edit-finish" system, with focused development and marketing ("Avid Media Composer XX featuring the famous Symphony Color Correction Suite" would make a nice future marketing headline.    ).  Sadly, I seem to recall recent word from Avid seems to indicate that "unique features" will be developed for Symphony thereby making the old style thinking (offline-online-separate systems) more prominent.  Avid claims "we still sell Symphonies" to justify it's existence, but I would bet that they would sell more than enough combined systems to make up any loss from merging the products.  MHO, of course!

jveekeres:

All I know is that most of my colleagues in Holland and Greece are rolling back from MC5 to MC4, except those using RED. Now that can't be the desired path can it

Most of the commercial (spot edit houses)  shops I freelance at these days have gone over to FCP.  Avid is not even a thought for short-form at these places.  If I insist on cutting on a MC, I gotta bring my own!   Not sure how Avid will get this customer base back, unless Apple gives up on the professional industry.  And even then, it may not be enough.

switthaus:

Most of the commercial (spot edit houses)  shops I freelance at these days have gone over to FCP.  Avid is not even a thought for short-form at these places.

Yeah this is the trend I see -- and my opinion in any case -- as someone who has worked with both. Quick in/out, budget jobs, multi-format and also some mp3s and somebody's vacation pictures and maybe a PDF or something, just funneled in to that FCP timeline (you can drop things in right from the finder), hacked together and spit out. FCP is an embodiment of certain aspects of Apple's computing style, which is to say extreme flexibility if not necessarily the most streamlined or efficient.

It saddens me to see Avid playing catch up to that, as I think there are opportunities to redefine the game; but it's a question of vision.

switthaus:

Most of the commercial (spot edit houses)  shops I freelance at these days have gone over to FCP.

Maybe it will be nice to hear that I see a different trend at the other side of the Atlantic ocean when it comes to MC4.

Scott, what worries me the most is Franks response, or lack of it, in this thread.  Even with keeping the SEC rules in mind I believe the lack of response is part of the problem. I keep having the feeling that the tone in Tewksbury is that in an "Avid world" all seems fine with MC5 and it's better not to listen to the sounds outside the "Avid world" that it is not. Call those sounds "unfair".

I believe it is this attitude that, next to other aspects of course, helped FCP and the situation that you describe to be as it is now.

jveekeres:

I keep having the feeling that the tone in Tewksbury is that in an "Avid world" all seems fine with MC5 and it's better not to listen to the sounds outside the "Avid world" that it is not

This is a long standing problem at Avid that goes way back beyond V5.  There has been this "corporate arrogance" that Avid was #1 and there is no competition....until FCP and others handed Avid it's hat in terms of garnering new editors and marketshare.  I believe what you are seeing is some residual of that attitude.

jveekeres:

Maybe it will be nice to hear that I see a different trend at the other side of the Atlantic ocean when it comes to MC4.

Problem here for Avid is that no new revenue is generated by a wholesale rollback to V4 by it's user group.

regards - scott

I think the underlying problem here is that, in the final analysis, it doesn't matter where Avid wants it product to go, it only matters where the paying customer wants to take it based on how it fits (or fails to fit) the customer's needs. This is where, IMO, Frank and the design team are missing the mark.

Hey Larry - 

It would be interesting to see how many of the "Feature Requests" on this Community Forum actually have been implemented.  I know it takes a while for many of them to make it through the chain of command, but it might be some interesting research.

There's no need for a link. It's in this thread -- back on June 29. While you may disagree with the direction chosen, it does explain the reasoning.

http://community.avid.com/forums/t/85356.aspx?PageIndex=4

Larry Rubin:

it only matters where the paying customer wants to take it based on how it fits (or fails to fit) the customer's needs. This is where, IMO, Frank and the design team are missing the mark.

While I agree, it does depend on what "the mark" means. From the paying customer side it's about needs, From Avids side it's about (long term) profit. But Avid, also hindered by SEC rules, does not want to explain what "the mark" is to its users. Also not for current features regardless if they function optimally or not.

From the user perspective, at least mine, this creates 2 problems.

1) Not knowing "the mark" creates doubt in whether I should follow the "MC5 path" and accept the bugs as an unavoidable aspect of innovation. This conflicts with my perspective of continuity. Result is rolling back to MC4 and wait for a 99.99% functional version of MC5.

2) Not knowing the mark creates doubt in my "long term" investment path. Avid stated it would release a new version every 6 months. That did not mean a patch every 1-2 month(s) and I think the end of the bug fixes are not in sight. So when to expect MC 5.5 or 6 and will we go through the same situation again? We haven't even got a final version of MC4 that includes all patches. Will that be the same for MC5? So update now or wait? Confidence in my investment is the problem here.

Put on top of that the fact that in shared environments you have no choice but to update the whole system to guarantee compatibility and the choice whether to follow Avid is becoming very difficult.

Dear Frank,

It explains that a single standard was needed. Why a single standard is needed now remains a question to me. That does not mean I agree or disagree with a single standard.

Were there users that had problems with the non standard behaviour on the mac side?