BTW, I'm not inferring that AVID is in anyway an inferior product.  I love it.  The engineers are great. The business side of the company....  not so much.

Job ter Burg:

It's not for the customers or end users, it's for Avid. And it is is fine, I guess, since we want Avid to thrive and have the necessary resources to keep/make Avid products great.

Exactly. Like Job I, and I assume most of us, want Avid to thrive and if subcription licensing helps with that I only welcome it. And lets for the sake of the argument assume that subscription licensing is serving its purpose and that it had a significant impact on increasing Avid's profits. Rejoice!

But from where I am sitting I don't see a company adding new policies, products and features to improve our mutual interests. Instead I see a company that has also started removing options to benefit its interest only. And I wouldn't get upset if Avid would be open and honest about this. Compromises must often be made. Instead, when the new options like subscription or the LTM policy are introduced, the communication coming from Avid will only mention how Avid thinks these additions are benificial to us without sharing the complete picture.

And as time progresses and the user base, especially the long term users, starts asking questions, seeing where this is going, the response in this thread is 'we' asked for it because:

Chris Bové:

everything about creating and maintaining the app for perpetuals costs more in actual costs as well as increased cognitive load. So, since standard subscriptions cost less for Avid to create and maintain than standard perpetuals, we're able to push that savings onto the costs for customers. 

So because the user base would like to see the price come down, and something has to give, it is 'ok' to start removing perpetual licenses. But does that mean it is also 'ok' to not put the resources in place to produce

- a reliable online licensing server infrastructure in place in combination with Avid Link. (pre cloud licensing)?

- a functional titler+ on Mac?

- normally performing dynamic relink/check in/check out in Media composer in an Interplay environment?

- stable nexis core and client versions?

- a complete mediacentral bundle including all products (Avid Graphics, Capture,...) meeting the version requirements of the LTM policy?

(I'm sure other forum members and I can think of a few more).

Chris, Like Job I think highly of you and many more people at Avid. But the way I read your response is:

It's not our desire for more profit but your wishes and those of the market to make our products cheaper that justifies our: 'This will have to do for now' development policy. And because you might not like it, we will put a licensing program, LTM policy and EOS dates in place to limit your choices and force you onto our latest versions. Ready for production or not.

Chris/Avid. All I want is for Avid to give us our choices back to upgrade our systems and those of our customers on the basis of 'ready for production' fuctional enhancements and not because of a licensing scheme, LTM policy, EOS date or any other method to enforce us on the latest versions. Alternatively, if economic pressure forces you to limit the supported versions and backwards compatibility (matrix), you better put the resources in place to get each new product and feature 99,9% bug free on day 1 of its introduction. 

Like Job said:

Job ter Burg:

Stop gaslighting us

Here's another company that walked back the termination of their perpetual products, after severe backlash.

https://www.waves.com/news/perpetual-waves-licenses-are-back?utm_source=wnletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=waves-update-plan-available-march-2023

There's more than Big Broadcast in this world, ans SaaS ain't for everyone. It's not _the_ market that wants to move to SaaS. Maybe a part of it. But until someone can show me otherwise, I perceive it as a shareholder- and accounting-centric desire.

Job ter Burg:

There's more than Big Broadcast in this world

Trust me, Big Broadcast doesn't want SaaS any more than any other individual. The diversity amongst countries, cultures, (economic) laws, infrastructure and most of all individual companies is too big to justify a one 'size fits all' subscription, cloud, web based, etc... approach.

Targetting your products to your most profitable userbase makes perfect sense and loosing some customers as a result can be part of the process, but trying to force your existing perpetual customers worldwide into something that primarily benefits your cashflow, cost reduction and profit (also at the cost of quality), in other words your:

Job ter Burg:

shareholder- and accounting-centric desire

and presenting that as benificial to all of your worldwide customers shows that you started mindlessly believing and adopting your own marketing without looking at the ramifications and implications.

When somebody relies on a product or service for the survival of his business (or him/herself) he might think twice about using the 'cheap, cutting corners' option and be willing to spend on a long term reliable option. Trying to take away these kind of choices for your customers says a lot about the motivations.  

Job ter Burg:

The 239/yr ("Standard") subscription does not include shared bins/project support, whereas perpetual does

Excuse me If I digress from the original topic. But I would like to ask about this shared bin support. Do you mean live sharing between two people opening the same project? Or do you mean that, alas media composer first, project sharing is not allowed between different computers? I hope I am explaining correctly. 

I entered this forum looking for info about the new Avid learning affiliate program. I think it is wonderful to give free licenses to students. It seemed too good to be true, and I am wondering if there’s any caveat, for example with sharing projects between them, or with university pcs. 

I'm talking about one project being used by two or more users simultaneously, with Avid's classic bin locking feature.

Thank you. That' understandable. 

2018.12 works perfectly for me. Nothing Avid has done in the past 5 years is enough to get me to pay more money to get a newer version. That's the problem - they are not updating the software in any meaningful way. I would be less inclined to complain about the cost if the product was being updated. I wouldn't think twice about paying a subscription if the product I was getting was awesome. Management needs a kick up the ***.

Andi

Job ter Burg:

Here's another company that walked back the termination of their perpetual products, after severe backlash.

https://www.waves.com/news/perpetual-waves-licenses-are-back?utm_source=wnletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=waves-update-plan-available-march-2023

 

The online backlash to this was vicious! I don't think I've ever seen such an immediate and universally negative response to an announcement. Absolute tail between their legs stuff with this one.

Andi

ripvanmarlowe:

2018.12 works perfectly for me. Nothing Avid has done in the past 5 years is enough to get me to pay more money to get a newer version. That's the problem - they are not updating the software in any meaningful way. I would be less inclined to complain about the cost if the product was being updated. I wouldn't think twice about paying a subscription if the product I was getting was awesome. Management needs a kick up the ***.

Andi

I would really argue against this statement. Not that it's wrong... not at all... but that my own personal workflow disagrees with it.

Here's a link to the "What's New" document that we populate with every new version that's come out since MC8 in 2014.

https://avid.secure.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/User_Guide/Avid-Media-Composer-What-s-New

If there's nothing in there after 2018 that you're interested in, then your statement is completely valid.  just know that other customers have seen dozens of features in the list and have wanted to upgrade. 

That's totally based on one's workflow though. The people at Adobe would say the same thing about me, because my Photoshop usage,feature-wise, is still perfectly servied by Photoshop 7 or CS-1.  Which is why I definitely understand your reasoning. 

Chris, I follow the "whats new" docs obsessively every time there is a new release. They are a constant source of disappointment for me.  I absolutely stand by my statement. Nothing that serves me has been a significant enough improvement over what we had 5 years ago. We are talking basics here - colour correction, paint tool, title tool (on mac), audio. Name an improvement to any of those tools. You *might* be able to convince me there have been some audio improvements but I still don't see sample level timeline audio editing as a feature.  If the above stuff isn't the bread and butter of editing then I don't know what is. 

Andi

Yeah that's an understandable stance, and one I certainly respect. (Thanks for understanding mine too, by the way.)

The audio stuff is largely because of the new effort to (finally) get Media Composer and Pro Tools talking to each other. 

alara:

I think it is wonderful to give free licenses to students. It seemed too good to be true, and I am wondering if there’s any caveat, for example with sharing projects between them, or with university pcs. 

The affiliate program license is a Media Composer (standard) package, which won't include Nexis bin locking, script sync, and the various other options found in the ultimate edition. But as far as I understand that is the only drawback. 

Philip Kapadia:

The affiliate program license is a Media Composer (standard) package, which won't include Nexis bin locking, script sync, and the various other options found in the ultimate edition. But as far as I understand that is the only drawback. 

This is correct. We know that most students in the affiliate program may have never even seen a pro-level editing app, or at least haven't been introduced yet to the complexities of pro-level workflows and team-based environments. So we didn't want to overwhelm them with having too many tools right from the start. So they get the Standard (non-Ultimate) tier to Media Composer. 

But yes, the affiliate program, now named "Media Composer for Students" is doing exactly what all of us have been wanting for years, which is to get Media Composer into the school setting. Too many people exiting college have zero experience with Media Composer. This is mainly because Avid didn't have any sort of a "feeder program" set up with schools that translated into real jobs after graduation. Now we do.

Separately, also know that part of the affiliate program is also to give students further opportunities after they graduate. So, if their MyAvid account shows that they were part of the affiliate program, it will offer them a huge discount on Media Composer Ultimate after they graduate.

Chris Bové:

I would really argue against this statement. Not that it's wrong... not at all... but that my own personal workflow disagrees with it.

Hi Chris,

I'm sure that, like you, there are plenty of users that value the changes Avid has made in Media composer since version 2018. And how new features and fixes are prioritized will always remain subject of discussion. Not only between individual users, but also because of the different environments in which media composer is being used, standalone, on Nexis and in Mediacentral production environments, by people at home to large news and broadcast organisations.

And I applaud Avid for keeping the 'what's new' document updated all these years. But we all know that there is another side to this information. And I'm not pointing to a wishlist of features some/many users might want that haven't been introduced yet (and their priorities). I'm pointing to a list/document that describes the 'what we broke (in the process)'. Of course I do not expect Avid to publish a document with that title. But the readme's of the new versions and the fixes described in them obviously do not cover the historic/commercial origin for their need in the first place. 

Of course we are all human. So bugs are an inevitable reality. But problems in Media composer like Titler+ on Mac and dynamic relink in a Mediacentral production environment are not just the result of human error by developers but also the result of product manager/commercial decisions and the need for technological changes due to external factors like new formats and discontinuation of 3rd party products and technology like 32bit apps on MacOS.

Chris, let me give a clear example what I'm on about. Because of technical requirements Avid decided to rewrite dynamic relink in Media composer 2020 and up. So when Media composer 2020 was released some problems were expected. But it took almost 3 years and all the fixes in the underneath list (Sorry this is such a hugh list but that is exactly the essence of the problem):

2020.8

Bug Number: MCCET-3630. When Dynamic Relink was enabled, XAVC-I class 300 clips

displayed as media offline.

2020.9

Bug Number: MCCET-3812. With Dynamic Relink enabled, you might have received a

“Structure Exception” error when loading a sequence

Bug Number: MCCET-3766. In some instances with Dynamic Relink enabled, you could not

perform a Send to Playback on a sequence containing a freeze frame and rendered effects.

Bug Number: MCCET-3701. Partially restored media from Archive did not relink to high

resolution if Dynamic Relink was set to Highest Quality

Bug Number: MCCET-3799. With Direct Audio Channel selected, performing a Send to

Playback with Dynamic Relink enabled created an audio mixdown.

2020.10

Bug Number: MCCET-3812. With Dynamic Relink enabled, you might have received a

“Structure Exception” error when loading a sequence.

Bug Number: MCCET-3819. The highest quality Dynamic Relink setting linked to AVC Long

GOP 50 instead of AVC-I 100.

2020.12

Bug Number: MCCET-3822. In some instances, even when Dynamic Relink was set to Highest

Quality, video clips were relinked to the proxy resolution.

Bug Number: MCCET-3670. You could not successfully Dynamic Relink to XDCAM HD 50

and MPEG 50 SD (IMX50) at the same time. The Dynamic Relink options would not allow you

to relink XDCAM HD 50 and MPEG SD 50 at the same time, with the proxy offline.To fix this,

an additional option has been added to the Dynamic Relink dialog.

Bug Number: MCCET-3871. You could not successfully send a mixed resolution sequence to

Send to Playback if Dynamic Relink was set to a specific resolution.

Bug Number: MCCET-3868. In some instances, you might have received an “Exception” error

when accessing the Dynamic Relink settings dialog. This happened if the Dynamic Relink

Override Target Video menu did not populate correctly

2020.12.1, 

Bug Number: MCCET-3563. With Dynamic Relink enabled, media appeared offline after batch

re-importing (PNG/TIFF) and AAF from Prunus files.

2020.12.2, 2021.5

Bug Number: MCCET-4049. Importing a wave file with Dynamic Relink enabled resulted in

one audio track offline.

2020.12.5 2021.9, 2021.2

Bug Number: MCCET-4403. You might have experienced inconsistent behavior when

switching the “If no match found” Dynamic Relink setting between Highest Resolution and

Offline.

Bug Number: MCCET-4397. When performing an import, Matte Keys were offline if Dynamic

Relink was enabled.

Bug Number: MCCET-4002, MCCET-4408. With Dynamic Relink enabled, performing a

batch import of .wav files (AAF from Prunus) did not import properly.

Bug Number: MCCET-4380. A sequence containing XDCAM HD 50 clips displayed yellow if

Multirez was activated with Dynamic Relink Target setting set to XDCAM HD 50.

Bug Number: MCCET-4404. In the Dynamic Relink Settings, switching the “If no match is

found” option between “Use Highest Rez” and “'Offline” toggled the media offline and back to

online.

Bug Number: MCCET-4331. Media Composer crashed to a white screen if you enabled

MultiRez with Dynamic Relink setting set to “Linked Media”.

Bug Number: MCCET-3993. Setting Dynamic Relink to “Show Mismatches” was not working

with mixed proxy media

Bug Number: MCCET-4177. In some instances, media was offline in the Timeline on some of

the clips and adjusting Dynamic Relink would not bring it online

Bug Number: MCCET-4225. If Dynamic Relink was enabled, imported .wav files were offline

Bug Number: MCCET-4314. You might have seen video glitches if “prefer largest raster, then

prefer highest bandwidth” was enabled in Dynamic Relink.

Bug Number: MCCET-4228. When changing Dynamic Relink settings, a portion of the

original master clip might be offline in the area of consolidated media.

Bug Number: MCCET-4234. If Dynamic Relink was set to Highest Quality or Minimal

Bandwidth, you could not always successfully switch between AVC-Intra 100 and Proxy media.

2020.12.6, 2021.12.1, 2021.12.2, 2022.7

Bug Number: MCCET-4382. In some instances, Dynamic Relink settings unexpectedly

reverted to Most Recent.

2020.12.7, 2021.12.4, 2021.12.5, 2022.12

The readme writes: Dynamic Relink has been improved with this release and includes various fixes to address issues

with Matte Keys and alpha channels. Bug Numbers associated with these fixes include

MCCET-4737, MCCET-4699, MCCET-4568, MCCET-4561, MCCET-4616, MCCET-4560,

MCCET-4784, MCCET-4829, MCCET-4666, MCCET-4778, MCCET-4467, and MCCET-4605

Bug Number: MCCET-4368. In some instances, "Assertion Failed" error message appeared

when using Dynamic Relink, audio media did not load properly, and "highest quality" option

was ignored.

2021.9 

Bug Number: MCCET-4159. In some instances, with Dynamic Relink enabled, a sequence

showed different clips offline depending on the version of Media Composer.

2021.12.1 2021.12.2, 2022.4

Bug Number: MCCET-4436. If Dynamic Relink was enabled, an imported audio file might

have appeared offline.

2021.12.3

Bug Number: MCCET-4306. In some instances, toggling the "Override Working Settings with

Target Settings" option when using Dynamic Relink caused audio and video tracks to become

out of sync.

2021.12.6, 2022.12, 2023.3

Bug Number: MCCET-4507. When switching between working and target settings for

Dynamic Relink in the Timeline, the Source Browser window turned black and did not refresh

properly until clicked.

Bug Number: MCCET-4475. In some instances, Media Composer would not relink properly to

audio files after partial restore when using Dynamic Relink.

Bug Number: MCCET-4545. Show Target Availability coloring displayed incorrect availability

for partially restored media when using Dynamic Relink.

2021.12.7, 2022.12.1 2023.3

Bug Number: MCCET-4915. When performing a Dynamic Relink operation, audio was offline

for clips with audio tracks not starting at A1.

Bug Number: MCCET-4958. In some instances, clips that started at 00:00:00:00 would go

offline after Media Composer was restarted and Dynamic Relink was enabled.

Bug Number: MCCET-4948. In some instances, Media Composer would not relink all partially

restored audio files when using Dynamic Relink.

2021.12.8, 2022.12.2, 2022.12.3, 2023.3

Bug Number: MCCET-4987. In some instances, audio tracks became offline if Dynamic

Relink was enabled and set to Highest Quality.

Bug Number: MCCET-4706. Enabling Dynamic Relink caused linked .mov QuickTime files

with a Matte Key (DNxHD with alpha) to go offline.

Bug Number: MCCET-4603. (MediaCentral | Production Management) When using Dynamic

Relink with media that had both PCM and MP2 audio, the Highest Quality option did not always

link to the PCM audio.

Bug Number: MCCET-5093. (MediaCentral | Production Management) In some instances,

checking out and loading sequences caused Media Composer to crash if Dynamic Relink was

enabled.

2022.12

Bug Number: MCCET-4812. Lower quality, MP2 audio files were used even when Dynamic

Relink was set to "Highest Quality" and partial, higher resolution PCM audio files were

available.

Bug Number: MCCET-4852. Media Composer performed slowly and would sometimes crash

when "Show Mismatches" and "Show Target Availability" were enabled for Dynamic Relink.

2023.3

Bug Number: MCCET-4784. Spanned media did not link properly and would revert to media

offline when Dynamic Relink was enabled.

Bug Number: MCCET-4977. Enabling "Show Target Availability" or “Show Mismatches” for

Dynamic Relink caused a decrease in performance while working in the Timeline.

for us to reach the state we are in today.

These bugs rendered Media composer more or less unusable during 2020/2021 in a Mediacentral environment where dynamic relink is enabled and from my perspective this is an important reason why many users, my broadcast customers in Greece but from what I hear also in the rest of the world, never upgraded to MC 2020, 2021, 2022 and now 2023 or tried and downgraded back to 2018.12.15.

The biggest problem is what this did to the trust relationship with Avid. Obviously the we all have no other choice than to test each new version and it seems things got a lot better due to the fixes implemented in 2022. But even now we see it performing better, we are now forced to have a prove of concept prior applying the updates at some of our customers! And this lack of trustis one of the ramifications of introducing changes to existing functionality without them being ready for production yet and as a result the perception of participating in an involuntary beta test program is created!

And then came the LTM poilicy in 2022 and this is where the combination of the state of Media composer and Mediacentral, the way the LTM policy was announced at first and how it was eventually introduced including the lack of backward compatibility, that just took things over the edge of what I find acceptable. Fortunately it seems customer pushback and common sense is bringing some sense to the LTM policy and I'm tempted to believe viable ways forward will come. 

Now Chris, the question I have is wether or not 'your personal workflow' or that of any other indivual user is a relevant argument in this discussion. Why can't Avid/you/we engage in the discussion in a broader perspective and include what has gone wrong with the reasons Andi gives for not valuing Media composer 2019 and up and mine about Dynamic relink, Titler+, Maestro, etc... in the past years to see how we can take things forward? 

Isn't there any room for discussion in this forum by Avid representatives other then a marketing driven 'all is well or going to be fine' position?