Fade to Gray at Avid Technology
 

Barrons has an article about Avid's plight, and it doesn't sound good: http://online.barrons.com/article/SB...rrons&ru=yahoo

I'm not sure if you can view this without being a subscriber, so here are some highlights:

I got the whole article through this link...

http://online.barrons.com/article/SB...lenews_barrons

"It is really, increasingly, financial suicide to consider using Avid," when the same work can be done with Apple gear, [Emmy Award Winning Editor John Alpert] says."

YEEESH. Sounds pretty bleak, but.... I think Avid will survive in some form. 45% per cent of the post-production market and AVID's technology is going to sound pretty good to some buyer.

I hate Avid with every fiber of my being, 15 years of editing on Avid will do that to you. The only reason it still survives is the lack of pros on FCP.

Eh I don't think pro res is as good as dnx and the media management in Avid blows FCP out of the water. There are a lot of minor things that FCP has to get over that tend to land on the more high end side of things, like a terrible edit to tape feature and shotty performance on hour long projects and the ability to change settings in easy setup, audio and video settings, and in sequence settings is just a little too much and gets really crazy sometimes. I currently work at a facility with a Symphony Nitris, MC Adrenaline, and FCP 6 with Kona 3 and I must say the only thing I'm liking about Apple over Avid is Color and DVD Studio Pro. Color of course being FinalTouch HD I don't know if that is fair to say it's Apple. I use FCP at home and since I am still in college FCP is what I learn in school but I really think for things like onlining and media management FCP is beat without a doubt. I think Avid is fine since it is used outside of the USA heavily since Apple hasn't left the states too much yet and the fact that a lot of the big companies still use Avid and are too stubborn to change.

On a little side note I have also noticed that a lot of these newcomers (I am one since I'm only 20 years old) don't even know what the onlining step is which is very scary. I think the whole way Apple simplifies things like Easy setup lets these new "Editors" to become unaware of a real workflow used by real productions. I believe an article was posted previously that almost drew a parallel between FCP and inadequate editors.

One problem is that there is no proper Apple certified training scheme for FCP as there is for Avid, or if there is it's not as widely recognised as Avid training. You can apply for a job on Avid and be expected to show some Avid validated document to show you've been properly trained. I think they make a large amount of their income from that as much as from hardware/software.

There's a lot of people out there with pirate copies of FCP and a subscription to Lynda.com, as you say, not doing the proper training on workflow, etc. The same is true of Avid Xpress, only you can't pirate the training certificates.

Odd... it's the same teaser as the original poster's link, not the full article.

Odd indeed ... Well, I got to the full article by typing in "AVID" into google news search. The article comes up as the top story.

I just tried it again and it works.

Strange... I tried what you said... it works. Click on the link you originally posted... no go :) They're the same url! I don't get it

I believe that Barrons and Wall Street Journal are setup such that you can read the full article on the same day it was published via a link on their partner sites, but those links will only show a teaser the next day. However if you do a Google search such as "Barrons Avid" it somehow digs into the site to find the real article URL.

BTW, I found this comment interesting:

He is right, Color is an amazing tool and very powerful when combined with a kona and a mac pro. I use the symphony nitris daily for grading but I find it stops after primary grading even though it does have secondary corrections. Color lets you do a lot more "secondary" corrections like vignettes, tracking points, and has the FX tree. Although Avid has come out with the DS which is supposed to be different from normal Avids. I think with the new boxes Avid is coming out with might create a weird schism because it is a new thing to learn so why not learn FCP.

This might be a cultural difference, but here in the States having certification is more the exception than the norm. Unless it's a training position I don't think anyone would require you to be certified to apply for the position.

Apple offers certification in everything from OSX to xSan to Color.
http://training.apple.com/certification/

-A

In fact I know people in the biz who don't even have a degree in something. They were just really good and they do it. Certified doesn't make somebody talented. It just means they were shown how to use the software. Most of the companies I have worked for care more about talent and artistic skill then what tools I have used. The other stuff just looks good on a resume. It's all about the reel baby.

While I agree that Media Manager is the weakest element of FCP, Apple has made a lot of progress in a lot of areas. While I never use "Easy Setups", I do like that you can successfully mix media, codecs and frame rates on the same timeline. I also like that timelines do not need to be "setup" before you can drop clips on them (the auto conform feature is brilliant).

I'm currently editing a feature film on FCP 6 and I've experience zero performance issues. My MacPro is a quad-core with 8GB of RAM and it's handling my feature (using ProRes HQ) with ease. I'm very impressed with this. I was afraid that ProRes timeline performance would be like going back to cutting uncompressed SD on a Blue & White G3. Gladly I was wrong.

We can argue til we're blue in the face whether Avid is better than FCP. But I think it's wholly unfair to blame Apple and FCP for a bout of uneducated "editors". This is a cultural phenomenon more than a direct result because of a "relatively" inexpensive alternative to Avid. I could equally argue that Premiere Pro and Vegas are just as culpable to this cultural divide.

But let's face it. The days of "onlining" digital video are almost over (if not completely for some). So this pooh-pooh'ing over the "youngsters" seems a little silly to me. Again, this is just my opinion.

I'm finishing a feature film at night on FCP, I'm the lead editor on a major Cartoon Network television show using FCP, and finished a major Super Bowl commercial in January edited and finished completely in FCP, Color and Logic.

That says something to me.

Also, I'm a certified Apple Professional as well as certified on Media Composer. I have not touched an Avid in almost four years. And no, no one gives two shits about my certificates on interviews. LOL!!!

Guys,
I've been hearing of Avid's demise for a long time. First it was EMC2, then it was IMIX, then everyone said Media 100 was going to put Avid out of business. Now Apple. The last 2 quarters have been profitable for Avid and one or a couple of stock analysts with agendas to move a stock's volume and price up or down doesn't reflect the long term viability of Avid.

These guys are measuring only the professional nonlinear product line which is only one of Avid's divisions. Nobody talks about the forensics division or even Pinnacle, the #1 consumer edit software in the world. What about the Digidesign subsidary, and you guys are forgetting that Softimage 3d software is used on al kinds of applications. (Some animators I work with use XSI at the robotics lab at JSC) By the way, Avid makes a ton of money off of forensics software to govt. agencies. Avid goes in and sells millions of dollars of playout servers and database sytems with entire mission critical networks to major television networks world wide. So, the company is more diverse in its product offerings than people realize.

Frankly I found the article very slanted and one producer moving from Avid to FCP doesn't represent an entire movement.

And besides, one month you guys are talking about the demise of Apple Pro Apps and then the next month it is Avid. What is the point!! Don't you guys have enough to do??? Like editing??

I'll just keep on editing on both platforms. Cheers.

P.S. Version 3 Media Composer was released this week and it runs great...

Oops, I stand corrected. I was under the impression that that was Apple Trainer certification, but see I that's not the case.

while i was still in college, i did some business analysis for capstone class (management was my major) and our team had to do a presentation on AVID. their strongest suit is still the commercial NLE, the business unit that generates the most amount of $. softimage is suffering, they should have sold that off long ago, it isn't a part of their core business. pinnacle is bundled with a lot of products, but that doesn't mean consumers use it.

i think avid has to get rid of the business units that generating huge profit margins and concentrate on what they do best, innovate and stay ahead of everyone else.

as much as there is hype about avid's demise, it will be difficult to switch someone like CNN away from their platform. when you watch cnn headline news, all those clips are stored, managed and organized by avid products through and through. powerhouses like cnn won't let avid die that easily.

Avid is just enjoying the results of their longstanding arrogant and complacent attitude towards the market, in particular towards the smaller producer, which they have systematically alienated over the years through poor pricing and lack of response to customer needs. They finally seem to be waking up to this fact, and I sincerely hope that their 'new thinking' really does signal a genuine change of attitude towards the customer. It's still a great product, and although I can't really see it happening anytime in the near future, it would be a pity to see it go under because of poor corporate decision-making.

I wonder If I'm the only one who hopes Avid goes under.

Edit: It looks like at least one other person in this thread feels the same way.

[QUOTE=Eric Stemen;908448]I wonder If I'm the only one who hopes Avid goes under./QUOTE]

And that will benefit you how?

Eric,

Why would you or anyone wish that an American company go under where people lose jobs? It would impact thousands of people and their families. How could you wish this on anyone??? Is this supposed to be funny!!!!

I really believe that is the most selfish sentiment and statement I have seen on this forum. Even Apple hopes Avid succeeds somewhat. After all, a lot of Media Composers and Pro Tools intallations are on MAC.

I think this thread is totally stupid. If you want to track Avid's performance for stock reasons then wait until July 24th when they announce earnings. Otherwise this is stupid speculation, hearsay, and quite honestly of no use to anyone. I promise you Avid is not going out of business.

Sorry but this really hacks me off.

No it is not supposed to be funny, this is just the way I feel. Sorry to offend you. I have no problem if you think this is selfish, it is selfish, I can admit that.

To answer Bill's question, this would benefit me because eventually I would no longer have to use Avid, I don't find the program very intuitive, but to be fair I've only been using it for a little over a year.(Yes, you could respond by saying "then find someplace that does not use Avid")

Again, sorry to hack you off, but I stand by what I said.

If you would like I can name other American companies that I would like to go out of business, and give reasons.

Sorry for going off topic.

I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure your wish won't come true. Avid will be fine.

In the meantime if you have any questions or need tips on how to make Avid possibly work for you, feel free to ask over in the Avid section here at dvinfo. Myself and several other Avid editors trade tips and sometimes even vent about Avid. No program or company is perfect and I'll just leave it at that.

I've been editing on Avid for 15 years and can perhaps help you with any issues.

If not, then try another program that works for you. I also edit on FCP and have some experience on Premiere. No one program has all of the answers.

Sorry I made that post, and sorry for offending anyone. When posting I did not mean to offend. I was having a very bad day last night(I know this is no excuse). Thanks for handling your follow up post so nicely David, if I have questions that I can't find the answer to at work I will turn to the Avid forum.
Thanks again.

I really like some of the positive changes that Avid made w/ MC3.

It looks like they borrowed some of the practical features from Avid Liquid...
Increased GPU processing power
Mixed formats in timeline
Track inserts
Improved clip movement on timeline (select and drag)
Raster presets
TC window burn pluggin (realtime)

To view the MC3 features video (flash)... http://aimediaserver4.com/studiodail...475&height=316

And I know many Avid editors who've been working on the program for just as long and love the program.

http://www.avid.com/company/releases...pics_avid.html

This is just a sample of the type of mission critical systems installations Avid gets big bucks for that shows loyalty from the networks. This is the fifth Olympics for Avid.

Compare to the DTP market
 

I see the same cycle as when Quark Xpress dominated the DTP market in mid 90's. Most people I came in contact with who had to use Xpress at work were suffering with the software and the aggressive support. Then came InDesign and took a massive market share, and Quark had to start to change... here is from Wikipedia

Quark, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So... Avid will change, get friendly, add interoperability and become more user focused.
When we requested an "AVI uncompressed export" (or whatever that is called in Avid speak) from our Avid editor to bring the material to Vegas, his AVID system exported in 8-bit color, and deeper export was not possible (i.e 10/16/32 bit) on his system. That's just ridiculous.

The marketplace, and yes, the free market system, is self regulating, as long as there is healthy competition. Consumers hold more selective power than they realize, and are held powerless only because they won't co-operate with each other. Successful products are those that meet customer needs. Companies rise and fall as they realize their market base and get arrogant and ignore it. Companies respond to their mistakes or go out of business. Unless, of course, you're General Motors.

I think Magnus hit the most important point - competition is good for all of us. I use FCP and not Avid, but I like the fact that Apple has to compete with Avid as it drives them both to innovate and then respond with feature parity to the other's innovations.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Avid does read and export 10-bit color. And you can export using Avid's 1:1 format which is uncompressed. Granted it's a QT not AVI format, but Vegas can read QT's.

A lot of people seem to forget that Avid is much more than Avid as in editing and a bit expensive hardware, or as they put it them selves on their webpage...

Markets Served

Television Editing and Finishing
Film Editing
Industrial Post-production
Broadcast Production
Broadcast Graphics
Professional Audio Production and Post-production
Live Sound Mixing
Consumer Audio
Consumer Video
Corporate and Small Business Video Post-production
Media Asset Management, Networking and Storage
Music Notation and Composition

They do sound of all sorts with Digidesign and m-Audio, lot's of facilities use Apple for editing video, maybe color but do use Protools for sound. Avid also now lets FCP use unity as a storage pool, a system that's proven.

The Beijing Olympics showcase with NBC describes pretty good how big and powerfull avid installations can be. France24 is also worth a look. On the other hand here in Norway NRK(Norwegian broadcasting corp.) are developing their own FCP solution for most editorial work and Color for grading to connect to a large filebased archive(petabyte size), news and sports are primarily Quantel, and if i don't remember wrong there are a good mix of playout servers and other gear from for expample Probel there to. I think you will find this all over, competition, companies buy what fit their needs, not the media or shareholders of providers such as Avid or Apple. After all, the costumers them selves now what challanges need to be met and not the corporate guys a wall street...

Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm considering to let the next workstation of mine be a Macpro after being a windows person for 14 years(the last 4 in the world of edition), to edit in Media Composer and do color in...yep, Color.

This is interesting news, especially as Apple announces Final Cut Studio 3. I've been a Final Cut Pro user for 10 years now, and I'll probably never go over to Avid. When I taught film school, we tried to teach Avid but our students were always too confused.

But I know a lot of die hard Avid guys, and you still need to really know it to get any job that uses the system.

Heath

UPDATE 1-Avid posts wider-than-expected Q2 loss | Industries | Technology, Media & Telecommunications | Reuters

"The company reported a second-quarter net loss of $15.9 million..."

Yeah everyone is doing bad, but I wonder how FCS 3 sales will fare. How is Vegas Pro 9 selling? Etc.

Heath

AFAIK Apple doesn't have to report whether Pro Apps makes or loses money. It is funded by the sale of iPods.

Avid is in a tough spot and they may still have to shed some more layers to survive as a separate company. In fact, Apple had better pray that Avid survives on its own because someone like Panasonic could buy them and give them a lot more stability.

I've read that Apple has 1.3 million registered FCP users. How many are Pro Studio users, IDK.

But let's say that one quarter of them do the $299 upgrade to the latest version of FCPS. That's $150 million.

I don't believe pro apps is losing money for Apple.

The thing is, Apple has sold 1 million 3GS iPhones the first week it was released. That's 1 million customers who generate a monthly revenue stream through the cell phone contract and the apps store. What FCS makes is peanuts in comparison.

I'm glad Apple is seeing great financial and consumer success, but I just hope it doesn't continue to erode the professional side.

I was listening CNBC and they said the most profitable part of Apple's business is computer sales. The pro apps drives the sale of computers, so I doubt they look at just the profit from the software in and of itself.

Personally, I like that the ProApps I use for a living are owned and supported by one of the most stable, creative and profitable companies in American these days. Oddly, some people see that as a negative.

I would be very uncomfortable knowing that my editing platform is at the mercy of a financially unstable company. Yet, to some, that makes Avid more attractive. **scratches head**

Excellent point Robert. It is nice knowing that the company that makes our tools is stable and making a profit instead of bleeding money (Sony, Avid). Also, people are dissapointed with certain parts of this release, but FCP is a runaway hit. That puts Apple in a tough spot, you can't totally rework the GUI and workflow in one release because you risk alienating (thus choosing not to upgrade) a big part of your clientele. I want the interface to be more Vegas like (or Speedrazor for those of you out there that remember) but I don't think that will happen anytime soon since it is too different. As far as Blu-ray support, I feel that if Apple doesn't want to build in better support, there are other options out there. I can't say that I have any clients asking for it yet. Blu-ray doesn't mean anything for the broadcast world (as in going out to TV), and even corporate and event work is still mostly standard def DVD.

I just got my upgrade in the mail... off to install it!