In the past few, crazy weeks I packaged 6 episodes for a national series, all of which I NEVER would have been able to achieve with ANYTHING ELSE BUT MC. Trimming, sync locks on/off, capturing from 6-year-old tapes, cranking through subtitles... those are just a few of the reasons why nothing is as feature-packed as Media Composer, for an editor. I'm even willing to look past the extremely outdated compositing workflow, the painfully outdated Title Tool, and the realization that Marquee isn't that great of a titler either...

To be clear, I don't have the need for -- to quote an earlier post -- "open FX plugin capability, true 4K resolution, and RAW processing" in the least bit. I need solid XDCAM workflow to 1080i, which MC delivers.

HOWEVER, I also teach up-and-coming students of editing, who truly don't understand the value of these seemingly minor things in MC that I simply can't live without. And they won't understand until they've become editors under tight deadlines ... who are also concerned about the quality they deliver.

DSLR, OpenFX, 4K, RAW, RED... they are all buzz words -- to me they are, anyway -- but to my students they represent the future. They are NECESSARY to have in your arsenal if you want to be a "good editor." Nevermind the bad lighting and the poor story telling... IT'S. FOUR. K!! Besides that, many have developed such routinely inefficient editing habits ('razor-blading' everything!!) that they've actually become GOOD AT IT. Maybe they won't end up at a TV network or movie studio, but I'm sure they could 'get by' at most freelance gigs.

This really is a battle for hearts and minds, and I truly hope MC 8.x delivers. Right now, it's LATE to deliver -- and my school probably won't be able to install it in time for the Fall semester in any case -- AND to top it all off, I won't have it for my day to day work either! Bummer.

There's probably nothing anyone can say to change your views but you really shouldn't use Douglas as your guide.  Really - you shouldn't.

Douglas has been more than a Moderator and Tutor for many of us and the reason I have stayed with Avid since the Liquid Edition days ... Douglas has always been a friend - Really

 

 

wkumingo:

Nevermind the bad lighting and the poor story telling... IT'S. FOUR. K!!

When I first read about cameras being released with 4K, I thought the same thing. OH, just another marketing gimmick, another buzz word to throw around, another way to make my harware obsolete. And my biggest argument against 4K was that there really are very few venues, or even customers clamoring for 4k. Well, I'm not too proud to say I was wrong.

For anyone who has been at the edit bay, and tried to stabilize footage, or recompose the shot taken by some errant boob behind the camera, or tried to zoom in where the footage could use a closeup, you know how HD will fall apart with even the slightest of zooms. I'm here to tell you that 4K footage solves all these problems in a way that's actually a new paradigm. We can decry that the original perfection should come straight from the camera. But, the reality is that it doesn't. The ability to deliver HD footage, and framing, panning, and zooming can be done in post, without suffering a visible resolution loss is truly a new way of working. And, as an editor, I love it.

The fact is that Media Composer's "Frameflex" is not ready for prime time. The ease at which some other competing NLE's will injest UHD, then pan and zoom keyframeable frames, is no less than EZ.

So, before anyone tells me that 4K is just a buzz word, let me reply by saying it's a useful and productive capability that's already being used by a lot of editors.Like it or not, it's here. And Avid is late to the party.

mattman:

Avid blew it with the loose the ability to upgrade if you don't pay yearly deal.  Give me a reason to upgrade, don't hold my ability to upgrade hostage.

Yeah, I feel like a hostage.  I've spent thousands of dollars for MC and later Symphony over the years, upgrading on a fairly regular basis...but upgrading when it was the right time for me.    Now Avid forces me to pay a yearly fee or I loose my ability to upgrade at a reasonable price and have to buy a new license (at full price) all over again.   A more fair approach--one that values and respects Avid's loyal customer base--would be an upgrade policy that takes into account the length of time a user has had their Avid license.   For example, if a loyal Avid user has been upgrading regularly for 10 years, give them at least a couple of years to upgrade without loosing their ability to do so.   And this nonsense about calling the annual fee a "support contract" is just putting a spin on a policy that forces us to buy something we don't necessarily want or need.  

cuervo:

So, before anyone tells me that 4K is just a buzz word, let me reply by saying it's a useful and productive capability that's already being used by a lot of editors.Like it or not, it's here. And Avid is late to the party.

Not only is Avid late to the 4K party.   Avid's new upgrade policy is like the party crasher who doesn't bring any drinks or snacks to the party but mooches the food and guzzles everyone else's beer!

cuervo:

I'm delivering 4k, 60p processed with a wide set of reasonably priced OFX, color corrected with some pretty slick correction tools in RAW(CinemaDNG) format.

 

i would like to see some of your 4K 60p work. I am curious about those films. 

And the other question i have. You are doing the complete compositing in Avid, too? 

I ususally anticipate the 4K and work in a lower resulution while i am editing to have the best performance. 

when i composite the video/film i go to the final resolution. If i encounter a proplem i change this in the 

compositing software.....

why would you need the 4K resolution in editing? Are there special effects that need the resolution? 

Maybe its just me but i still prefere the "offline" > "online" process.... 

 

and even if i could do 4K. I would rather work on proxies. I like the independence of my laptop. I develope the idea

with this very limited device and execute the final with a sever system that can handle the amount of data that is hitting us with 4K. 

how about the others ? Is 4K really the most imortant Keyfeature? This is more the discussion that display developer are talking about .....

 

Peter....

Right now, the 60p footage is pretty limited and I have had only one occasion to use it for slomo. I can definitely see where 60p would be beneficial for sports acquisition, however.

To answer your question about compositing...no. And that's why I complain. I'm working more and more in FCPX for my 4k footage, since frameflex is very problemmatic. Injesting 4k footage in a proxy file, working in an HD timeline and either compressing the UHD footage to HD(50% scale) or panning and zooming at 100%, a 1920x1080 window in the UHD footage. So, it's not the 4k resolution so much as the 4k frame size(maybe that's the same thing)Then exporting the final HD footage. FCPX makes offline/onlining very painless.

You know, I can appreciate the MC legacy with timecode, tape(reel) name and duration, but, it's an outdated workflow that makes offline/online workflows extremely cumbersome. have you looked at the hoops one has to jump thru to roundtrip to Resolve? Scott Freeman had to write a 4 page procedure tutotial to describe how to successfully get files to relink in Avid. Not a user friendly workflow, at all.

It's true that 4k workflow is taxing my system. Working on a MacbookPro with external RAID SSD's speed the process a great deal, but, I have to be very careful with how many layers of FX I apply, even with a proxy.I'm not limited by thruput, but, rather by GPU processing memory. Another late to the party feature of MC is the lack of GPU(re:CUDA) support.

I have no hesitation to praise the depth of the editing tools MC provides. Certainly a more mature NLE than any other product out there. This is why I remain loyal (so far) to Avid. I'm not jumping ship because I'm unhappy with what MC does offer. It's only that I'm being forced out because MC can't provide the tools other NLE's already provide and that customers are starting to ask for.

So, wow, let me try to summarize why I'm unhappy, and no one at Avid seems to hear:

1-No true 4k processing

2-No GPU (CUDA) support

3-Very expensive plugin architecture. AVX is unique only to Avid

4-No 60P support

5-No RAW (CinemaDNG) support

6-Unfriendly offline/online workflow

7-and for all these features, if I drop a years paid subscription, I'm sent to the back of the line...despite the fact that I've invested a small fortune in Symphony/Media Composer over the years since v3, religiously paying for every upgrade, I'm treated like a poor cousin.(witht the exception of Marianna and this forum, which has been stellar)

8-oh, did I mention outdated CC tools?

 

hmmm.....something's wrong with this picture. You know, I really feel like I need to offer an apology to everyone for my constant banging of my drum about Avid's shortcomings. There's so much good that MC offers, or i wouldn't hang in there. I've offered up criticism, not for the sake of trashing Tewksbury, but, in an attempt to wake them up to my realities. If they lose my business, it's only because I was forced out.

wkumingo:

all of which I NEVER would have been able to achieve with ANYTHING ELSE BUT MC. Trimming, sync locks on/off, capturing from 6-year-old tapes, cranking through subtitles... those are just a few of the reasons why nothing is as feature-packed as Media Composer, for an editor.

So, why should you buy anything else?
I mean, literally, why should an editor buy anything else?  This of course includes anything else from Avid, as well.

This is the crux of it all.  Avid has failed to provide a compelling enough reason for editors to upgrade Media Composer (this is beyond argument, because we wouldn't be having this conversation if it were not the case).  

Media Composer owners/users already have a very capable NLE platform that they use each day to earn a living.  So, if editors are going to upgrade, it will be for new features... particularly if these new features are being driven by client/industry demand.  Who has the new features?  Avid's competitors.

 

 

DFW Hokie:

wkumingo:

all of which I NEVER would have been able to achieve with ANYTHING ELSE BUT MC. Trimming, sync locks on/off, capturing from 6-year-old tapes, cranking through subtitles... those are just a few of the reasons why nothing is as feature-packed as Media Composer, for an editor.

So, why should you buy anything else?
I mean, literally, why should an editor buy anything else?  This of course includes anything else from Avid, as well.

This is the crux of it all.  Avid has failed to provide a compelling enough reason for editors to upgrade Media Composer (this is beyond argument, because we wouldn't be having this conversation if it were not the case).  

Media Composer owners/users already have a very capable NLE platform that they use each day to earn a living.  So, if editors are going to upgrade, it will be for new features... particularly if these new features are being driven by client/industry demand.  Who has the new features?  Avid's competitors.

 

 

Just curious to know have you tried any other NLE to compare and see if there was something that would give you the same ease of workflow? Not trying to be a smart ass or anything Im just wondering how many MC users attempted to use another NLE for a reasonable amount of time and compare it to MC. On another thread were a different NLE was talked about I asked if anyone could attempt the same editing compositing workflow in MC to compare the methods to. NO one really took the challenge. Im not that advanced in MC to even try I must be honest. But the whole idea for me was to compare workflow, innovations etc that some say is missing in MC. As for Douglas I think we all can agree that he has been very instrumental in helping newbies with learning and adapting to how MC works. We can just look at the tutorial threads pinned at the top of the forum. MC can be the best app in the world but without some guidance and explanation many of us wouldn't have stuck around to find out..

For me, it's not about which NLE is better in 2014.  I made an investment decision for Avid Media Composer in 2010, and all of my video editing investments since then have been dictated by this decision.  Because Avid has done such a poor job of improving their product, most of my investment dollars have gone to effects packages and such.  True, this makes Avid Media Composer "sticky" for me, but it doesn't pry any more capital out of my pocket and into Avid's.

That's the point I'm trying to make.  Being the best NLE (which increasing numbers of customers are disputing, by the way) is no longer going to pay the bills for Avid.  Advancements in the NLE are the only answer to Avid's woes.  Now that they have jettisoned the Production Suite, there's nothing to hide behind anymore.

 

 

DFW Hokie:

Avid's.

That's the point I'm trying to make.  Being the best NLE (which increasing numbers of customers are disputing, by the way) is no longer going to pay the bills for Avid.  Advancements in the NLE are the only answer to Avid's woes.  Now that they have jettisoned the Production Suite, there's nothing to hide behind anymore.

That's the point I'm making. Considering the rather daunting list of things they need to bring up to date, I'm rather concerned whether it's even possible, at this stage.

cuervo:

hmmm.....something's wrong with this picture. You know, I really feel like I need to offer an apology to everyone for my constant banging of my drum about Avid's shortcomings. There's so much good that MC offers, or i wouldn't hang in there. I've offered up criticism, not for the sake of trashing Tewksbury, but, in an attempt to wake them up to my realities. If they lose my business, it's only because I was forced out.

Cuervo

Dont stop beating beating those drums! There are many of us who feel the same way!

Saylur:

Cuervo

Dont stop beating beating those drums! There are many of us who feel the same way!

Thanx, Mike. Sometimes i think I should forsake the cinema/editor gig and go for being a DIT.....maybe there's more $$ in it.

DFW Hokie:

This is the crux of it all.  Avid has failed to provide a compelling enough reason for editors to upgrade Media Composer (this is beyond argument, because we wouldn't be having this conversation if it were not the case).  

Media Composer owners/users already have a very capable NLE platform that they use each day to earn a living.  So, if editors are going to upgrade, it will be for new features... particularly if these new features are being driven by client/industry demand.  Who has the new features?  Avid's competitors.

 

I don't think its accurate or fair to extrapolate the posts here for the whole world. I know of far more editors and Post houses that don't engage in formus at all, have no opinion here and are blissfully using older Avids and upgrading to newer Avids.

The user base of non vocal users must outweight those present here, and on other forums, by a significant factor.

Forums tend, by their nature, to give a negative slat as it's the place people can come and moan and complain. Often with good reason. We just lose sight of the hundreds of other editors doing their work and bestowing the virtues of Avid on their clients.

Not that Avid should lose sight of the task ahead but also not to be swamped in forum groans.

Pat,

I 100% agree that my thoughts do not extrapolate to the editing world at large.  1 0 0 %.  In fact, they likely run counter to in many respects.

But, I thought it was a matter of public record that Avid's revenues from upgrades have fallen woefully short of targets?