| I agree with Philip - FCP dominates in the lower end. Up here in Canada, some medium and even some larger budget TV has been done on Final Cut in the past couple of years. Most editors I speak to though are frustrated with Apple's slow speed to upgrade their product, or lack thereof, in the past couple of years - they all prefer cutting on avid, but prefer the anemities working with Final Cut.
Avid's stock is certainly not a desirable one - trading at a fraction of what it was valued a few years ago, although they are in good company!
Good for Digi for reacting to its customers for now. Several years ago, we were an Audiovision house, and following similar experiences with digi as what Thomas experienced, we jumped ship to Fairlight. We have since returned to digi for various reasons, but I wonder where digi is headed. Its HD card is long in the tooth, the expansion slot is ludicrous. We had considered going with the CC1 of Fairlight, but Toronto is a digi town.
Still, when I look at a Fairlight system. I wonder why I can get a single CC1 card with the power of 8 Accel cards, AND HD video running off the SAME single host computer - no worries about processng power and the totally ridiculous system usage window. We are on an Icon now and I quite like it, but I wonder if Digi is trying initiate a path where its customers can enjoy some of the same processing power that the Fairlight customers enjoy. That begs the question as to how much the architecture of the system must change and the inevitable cost analysis to write code that keeps legacy users in the fold.
I am not saying that digi should abandon older platforms, but wonder if their commitment to them is slowing down their upgrade plans - a difficult balancing act indeed. |