AVID Shuts out some old Hardware

[marclop]

I saw this and thought to share it with you guys. AVID Shuts Out Legacy Hardware With Pro Tools 8.0.3 | MixBlog

Best regards,
Marco

[TVPostSound]

EOSS (End of Software Support) Announcements - Digi User Conference

Digidesign has recanted this over a month ago.
These guys are misinformed.





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[Steven1145]

Basically meaning that they got their ass chewed by unhappy users who, unsurprisingly, did'nt really feel like getting screwed...

[Thomas W. Bethe]

I purchased Sound Designer II system from Digidesign about a month before they decided to pull the plug on the unit. One day I owned a Digidesign product and the next day is was a legacy product with no support. I called Digi and talked to a tech rep and he put me through to the national sales manager who, I guess, had been fielding a lot of calls from pissed consumers. He told me to buy a Pro Tools system and all my problems would be solved. I asked him if there was some type of trade in program seeing as I had just purchased SDII for a lot of money and it was now an orphan and he said no. I asked if I could get a discount on a Pro Tools system and he said no. He then told me that eventually Pro Tools would "rule the recording and post production world" and I should get on the bandwagon soon. He also told me that there were studios in California that were turning over $3500 per week with their ProTools rigs and I should not complain when the company drops a product that has reached " the end of its life cycle" After that phone call I never had a Digidesign piece of equipment in my studio after I sold off the SDII.

Nothing with Digidesign surprises me. They are too smug and too big and some one soon is going to come out with a product that is going to revolutionize the industry and they are going to be left holding the bag. As far as I am concerned it cannot happen too soon.

[The MPCist]

Well, it's good that Digi is listening to us users. Their postphoning the EOSS on Mix/Mbox is a good gesture that should be applauded.

[TVPostSound]

Their postphoning the EOSS on Mix/Mbox is a good gesture that should be applauded.

Only MIX systems. MBox is out.











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[Jay-]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

AVID is losing big time against Apple's Final Cut Pro which has become the defacto standard in video editing. I guess what goes around comes around.
.

Where do you spin up this info?
In the end its not about the cookie cutters its about the cookies.

[philper]

I am not a PT lover by any means, but I was impressed that they did this and did it so quickly--that is a real change from the old Digidesign, for my money. My experience with them was like Mr. Bethel's in about the same time period: arrogant, unhelpful, too expensive, and in those days not good sounding or very easy to use (remember 1 level of undo?). They seem to have learned some customer service lessons, so good for all the PT drivers.

Philip Perkins

[Henchman]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

Now the company is "reorganizing" due to the fact that AVID is losing big time against Apple's Final Cut Pro which has become the defacto standard in video editing. I guess what goes around comes around.

That's news to me.
I still see Avids everywhere.

[charles maynes]

Originally Posted by TVPostSound

Only MIX systems. MBox is out.











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It is not Mix systems- it is Mix peripherals- namely 888/24's and ADAT i/o-
Mix cards are no longer supported....

[musikwerks]

Originally Posted by Henchman

That's news to me.
I still see Avids everywhere.

Me too. I own 4 of them and will be ordering more in the near future. Avid is not going anywhere.

A lot of facilities that ditched all their Avid's for FCP systems in the early days are now doing the same thing in reverse. At least that's what I see here.

Avid is the editing standard. Every competitor has copied or emulated it to some degree.

[BIGBANGBUZZ]

Originally Posted by musikwerks

Me too. I own 4 of them and will be ordering more in the near future. Avid is not going anywhere.

A lot of facilities that ditched all their Avid's for FCP systems in the early days are now doing the same thing in reverse. At least that's what I see here.

Avid is the editing standard. Every competitor has copied or emulated it to some degree.

I still believe Avid is the pinnacle, however outside the US I I think you will find 20 FCP's set-ups to 1 Avid.
Hopefully Avid can regain it's market share.

[TVPostSound]

It is not Mix systems- it is Mix peripherals- namely 888/24's and ADAT i/o-
Mix cards are no longer supported....

You are correct, if PPC is not supported, how can Mix cards!!! Duh on me!!

[philper]

Originally Posted by BIGBANGBUZZ

I still believe Avid is the pinnacle, however outside the US I I think you will find 20 FCP's set-ups to 1 Avid.
Hopefully Avid can regain it's market share.

The only place I see Avids anymore are in larger facilities that do TV or feature film work.
Everyone else is FCP. I tend to do projects for smaller companies and individuals, and that market is 99.9% FCP.

Philip Perkins

[TVPostSound]

The only place I see Avids anymore are in larger facilities that do TV or feature film work.
Everyone else is FCP. I tend to do projects for smaller companies and individuals, and that market is 99.9% FCP.

Unbelievably, Magical Elves, (the company that does Top Chef, and others I mix) doing all reality, has 25 Avid offline bays, and 2 Avid online bays.
7 more offline bays coming soon (all Avid).

They are aware of all the FCP pitfalls.




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[minor_glitch]

Originally Posted by BIGBANGBUZZ

I still believe Avid is the pinnacle, however outside the US I I think you will find 20 FCP's set-ups to 1 Avid.
Hopefully Avid can regain it's market share.

Well up here in Canada it seems that Final Cut has become the 'poor man's Avid'. A lot of documentaries and indie films are being cut in Final Cut, but from the ad agencies and post-prod studios I've been to it seems that Avid is still by far the standard.

But yeah like 'philper' said Avid=big budget, FCP=small budget. (for now...)

Just count how many movies you've seen this year that have an Avid logo at the end of the credits!

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

...I called Digi and talked to a tech rep and he put me through to the national sales manager who, I guess, had been fielding a lot of calls from pissed consumers...

I'm pretty sure that would have been the gentleman who recently left Avid to join Apple.

[musikwerks]

Originally Posted by TVPostSound

Unbelievably, Magical Elves, (the company that does Top Chef, and others I mix) doing all reality, has 25 Avid offline bays, and 2 Avid online bays.
7 more offline bays coming soon (all Avid).

They are aware of all the FCP pitfalls.

Here in Australia it's the same way. The big facilities like Fremantle and Granada etc have 30+ Avid suites per site. The smaller operators go the FCP route as it's easier to get into to start with. I went FCP when I went out on my own purely because of it's affordability. As soon as I could I got back to Avid. Haven't touched my FCP rig since and it's been about 2 years now.

One thing FCP just didn't do well at all was shared/SAN storage. Avid and the Unity system nailed this long ago. I'd say that's the key reason Avid is so widely used in large facilities. I believe that there are FCP solutions now that work well for shared storage and Avid has also qualified their Unity system for use with FCP so that must help.

[Jay-]

I used to get a lot of cocky rude attitudes from FCP graduates.

[philper]

Originally Posted by TVPostSound

Unbelievably, Magical Elves, (the company that does Top Chef, and others I mix) doing all reality, has 25 Avid offline bays, and 2 Avid online bays.
7 more offline bays coming soon (all Avid).

They are aware of all the FCP pitfalls.
.

This is what I mean. TOP CHEF is a fairly big show, being produced in a "rolling" fashion with new episodes being completed during the season while earlier ones are shown. The companies I've worked for doing shows like this ("HouseCalls", "Diet Doctor", "Art of the Athlete", "PROPS" etc etc) were done on a smaller version of Magical Elves setup--ie networked Avids. ALL the other stuff to come through here, whether series or oneoff, has been from FCP.

Philip Perkins

[TVPostSound]

Right, that's a main reaso, Avid Unity, all rooms (except the Nitris DX) work off the Unity.
Basically they are all "dumb" terminals. But Avid has this nailed.

Even if FCP is qualified for Unity, it still makes more sense to use MC software with a Mojo (seated on a Unity) for offline work.

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Originally Posted by Jay-

Where do you spin up this info?
In the end its not about the cookie cutters its about the cookies.

Back as far as 2008 Avid was having problems. They were losing market share and more and more studios were turning over to FCP. There have been numerous postings on forums that Avid is still in trouble. I have taken down my statement since I cannot back it up with an industry announcements. Sorry for the confusion.

Digidesign did not show up at the 2009 AES convention with no word as to why. There has been a lot of speculation that they are having financial problems or they are getting ready to announce new products that were not ready for the October 2009 AES convention. There is much information that they are going to change the name of the company and there is speculation that Digidesign maybe spun off as a separate company or division. This information is from many different websites but there is no official announcement. I am adopting a wait and see posture.

Again sorry for the confusion.

[postprosound]

Originally Posted by Thomas W. Bethe

Back as far as 2008 Avid was having problems. They were losing market share and more and more studios were turning over to FCP. There have been numerous postings on forums that Avid is still in trouble. I have taken down my statement since I cannot back it up with an industry announcements. Sorry for the confusion.

Digidesign. the parent company of AVID, did not show up at the 2009 AES convention with no word as to why. There has been a lot of speculation that they are having financial problems or they are getting ready to announce new products that were not ready for the October 2009 AES convention. There is much information that they are going to change the name of the company and there is speculation that AVID maybe spun off as a separate company or division. This information is from many different websites but there is no official announcement. I am adopting a wait and see posture.

Again sorry for the confusion.

I really question the intel that avid is going to spin off from digidesign. since AVID is the parent company of Digi, not what you said. All companies are going through bit of downturn with the recent great recession.
I think one would be very obtuse to think that Avid has not lost some ground to FCP over the last few years. But, i also think that it is unfair to compare the two systems to each other. I think the linch pin for me was when FC used the term 'transitions' to all of the hokey cross-page-turn-disolve-color-sweep effects, and completely blowing past the simple cut. Seriously? every cut has to be a desolve or a wipe? That's a transition? Effects take the place of good editing skills?
And don't even get me started on media management, and working with other post departments.....

[Bob Olhsson]

Suggesting FCP has displaced Avid in market share is just like saying the Teac 3340 displaced Ampex, 3M and Studer in the early '70s. It's a comparison of apples vs. oranges. What happened is that there was a big decline in high-end productions that forced big facilities to close and left many editors seeking low budget work they could do at home using final cut. Understandably large facilities have not been investing in new editing systems since their existing HD Avids could already do everything required.

Digidesign did explain that they decided to not spend several hundred thousand dollars on an AES presence because they had nothing new to introduce. The also indicated they intend to do a lot more local workshops than they have in the past. I believe Shure actually had the biggest booth at AES so Digidesign was by no means the only manufacturer to scale their AES presence way back.

[robcap]

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.

[musikwerks]

Originally Posted by postprosound

I really question the intel that avid is going to spin off from digidesign. since AVID is the parent company of Digi, not what you said....

Correct. Avid is the parent company. Always has been.

Originally Posted by postprosound

And don't even get me started on media management, and working with other post departments.....

soooo true!

Avid/Digi's decision not to represent at AES was a smart one in the current economic climate. Nothing new to show? Why go? Save the money and keep paying the bills. I don't think you should view their absence as a sign of weakness but more as a sign of smarter management.

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by musikwerks

...Avid is the parent company. Always has been...

Actually it hasn't always been. Thomas's experience was pretty typical of pre-Avid Digidesign and they left a very bad taste in many people's mouths. The sale to Avid made quite an improvement and I think the recent top management changes have made them considerably more friendly.

[musikwerks]

I stand corrected.

[philper]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Suggesting FCP has displaced Avid in market share is just like saying the Teac 3340 displaced Ampex, 3M and Studer in the early '70s. It's a comparison of apples vs. oranges. What happened is that there was a big decline in high-end productions that forced big facilities to close and left many editors seeking low budget work they could do at home using final cut. Understandably large facilities have not been investing in new editing systems since their existing HD Avids could already do everything required.

Digidesign did explain that they decided to not spend several hundred thousand dollars on an AES presence because they had nothing new to introduce. The also indicated they intend to do a lot more local workshops than they have in the past. I believe Shure actually had the biggest booth at AES so Digidesign was by no means the only manufacturer to scale their AES presence way back.

This is not an accurate comparison at all in the world of either TV or feature film editing. Anymore FCP is not to Avid as the 3340 was to a high-end Studer deck at all--you should check more carefully into what FCP 7 can do given high-end hardware, and who is using it for what. There are at least two professional editorial service companies that I know of that have abandoned Avid for FCP, for various reasons. This is in addition to the crowds of smaller outfits, corporate facilities and even a good many episodic TV shows that have switched. I think there is still a good argument for using Avid for big editorial systems, but there are many examples of similarly large systems being built around FCP too.

I thought that maybe Digidesign not going to AES was kind of like Apple not going to Mac World: they felt they didn't need to anymore since they have other means of interfacing with their customers....

Philip Perkins

[Thomas W. Bethe]

Many people on this forum know a heck of a lot more about this than I do. But I think times they are a changin...what was the defacto standard may not be that anymore. Lots of people who are doing professional level editing are no longer employed by large corporations and are doing the editing in a bay in their houses or using a small storefront facility and cannot afford an AVID setup.

A couple of years ago my mentor got into video. He has an amazing facility that basically did audio for commercials but he saw the handwriting on the wall and realized that if he was going to continue to be profitable he needed to get into video. He had 8 audio post studios all equipped with Fairlight consoles and he turned 5 of them into video post rooms and left three as audio only rooms. When he originally made the decision to go into video he went the AVID route but soon started to regret his decision. Lots of problems, high maintenance and upgrade costs and the system could not do what he wanted it to do so he switched over to Final Cut Studio and has been turning out amazing work ever since. He does a lot of work for large high end clients like McDonalds and they have been super impressed with both the quality of his work and the timeliness of the projects he has done for them.

When we made the decision to get into video, about the same time, we went the Sony Vegas route since we were mostly PC based but soon switched platforms and went with FCP and we too have been very pleased with the quality of the product and the ease in which it lets us turn out multiple projects in a short amount of time. My creative director loves FCP and he is the one that has to turn out the projects on a day to day basis.

Today many TV shows are cut on FCP and it is getting used more and more by the motion picture studios for cutting major motion pictures. This has always been the area that AVIDs excel in. I found this article interesting Cut to the chase and this one avid vs FCP and The Editblog » Avid vs. FCP also this forum Final Cut Pro vs. Avid??? - dvcreators.network forums

I guess the AVID vs FCP debate will go on for eons.

The bottom line is work with what you are comfortable with and does a good job for you day in and day out and the most important MAKES YOU MONEY!