Thanks, Chris.

I don't think anybody thinks that these problems continue despite being easy to solve -- we fully appreciate the difficulties inherent in the cooperative process among software & hardware vendors.

The overarching complaint I see here (or maybe I'm projecting because it's my own feeling) is that communication on the subject has been just awful.  Responses like "you should be complaining to {AJA, BMD}, not us" are not helpful.  Believe me when I tell you we are already engaged with them.  We already have support cases open with Avid, as well.  The support folks have less information than you do.  They don't have access to the bug dartabases, or don't have the ability or the training to search them.  Complaining in public in the user community is the LAST place we want to be, but we're out of other options.

The fact that SOME of the customer-facing team (yourself, Ajay, Marianna, Philip) are aware of SOME of the issues and not others is discouraging, even upsetting.  And I am not calling out any of you -- each of you is VERY MUCH APPRECIATED by us.  You grease wheels every day to turn our frowns upside down.  It seems you're not being given the tools and information you need this situation, which is has been worsening for two-plus years at this point.

But as Avid customers and MC users, what we need is for Avid to provide is clear communication on three points:

1) Unqualified acknowledgement of the broken combinations and a thorough "what you may observe" list of symptoms.  This is crucial to save editors, assistants and tech staff HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of hours trying to figure out and fix what might be wrong in their environment when the answer is "We know this doesn't work and here's what will happen if you try."

2) One or more recommendations for combinations that works as well as possible.  This may include staying on a specific MC version, staying on a specific macOS version, staying on a speciifc hardware driver version.  If there is no "everything works" option, say so and present the best-bad-option for various scenarios.  E..g, if clean AV playback is the most important thing, use A+B+C and expect to crash often.  If edit functionality without hangs and crashes is most important, use X+Y+Z and expect issues in AV playback.  If there is no "good enough" solution on Apple Silicon hardware, just say that you aren't there yet and the app is not supported on that hardware.  As awful as that is, and as much as I'm going to keep pushing hard to get it working, if it's the truth then it's something I can take to the bank in the mean time.

3) Frequent, honest updates on the status of the issues.  status.avid.com should be a site with a public-facing or at least avid account-holder-facing list of customer-affecting issues with daily or weekly updates to each.  It's not a secret that it's broken.  Why should it be a secret how you're progressing on fixing it?  Treat your customers like partners -- keep them in the loop.  This does not have to include made-up unrealistic estimates about when a thing will be fixed, it just has to be honest evaluations.  We have to continue working however we can and the best way for us to determine how we can do that is if we know what's happening.

Absent clear communication in these areas, ill will builds up.  Avid is being discussed among your customers at industry events, forums, and water coolers.  Even here in the Avid and Creative Cloud forums, you must see people asking "what comptuer should I use for MC" and the responses coming back "Don't bother."  Avid must make decisions to change that or lose more customers.

--Rob

status.avid.com would be a great idea except Avid literally just removed every single Media Composer version that was solid from the download center. 

rockpaperscissors:

3) Frequent, honest updates on the status of the issues.  status.avid.com should be a site with a public-facing or at least avid account-holder-facing list of customer-affecting issues with daily or weekly updates to each.  It's not a secret that it's broken.  Why should it be a secret how you're progressing on fixing it?  Treat your customers like partners -- keep them in the loop. 

EXACTLY!

And internally inside Avid 'status.avid.com' already exists. It is called Jira from atlassian. But it is 'Avid only'. And I have also asked for read-only access for Avid reseller ACSR's but the answer was no.

Next to treating your customers like partners, how about treating your partners like partners?

Stop using Macs for anything, folks......why would anyone use that weird OS these days?  Because its cool?  Because they impose odd requirements on software makers?

I am on a PC and have no issues with the BMD mini monitor.

I would love to. Try telling that to everybody in LA.

Hey LA, wake up!!

I tried.....

rockpaperscissors:

1) Unqualified acknowledgement of the broken combinations and a thorough "what you may observe" list of symptoms.  This is crucial to save editors, assistants and tech staff HUNDREDS or THOUSANDS of hours trying to figure out and fix what might be wrong in their environment when the answer is "We know this doesn't work and here's what will happen if you try."

2) One or more recommendations for combinations that works as well as possible.  This may include staying on a specific MC version, staying on a specific macOS version, staying on a speciifc hardware driver version.  If there is no "everything works" option, say so and present the best-bad-option for various scenarios.  E..g, if clean AV playback is the most important thing, use A+B+C and expect to crash often.  If edit functionality without hangs and crashes is most important, use X+Y+Z and expect issues in AV playback.  If there is no "good enough" solution on Apple Silicon hardware, just say that you aren't there yet and the app is not supported on that hardware.  As awful as that is, and as much as I'm going to keep pushing hard to get it working, if it's the truth then it's something I can take to the bank in the mean time.

3) Frequent, honest updates on the status of the issues.  status.avid.com should be a site with a public-facing or at least avid account-holder-facing list of customer-affecting issues with daily or weekly updates to each.  It's not a secret that it's broken.  Why should it be a secret how you're progressing on fixing it?  Treat your customers like partners -- keep them in the loop.  This does not have to include made-up unrealistic estimates about when a thing will be fixed, it just has to be honest evaluations.  We have to continue working however we can and the best way for us to determine how we can do that is if we know what's happening.

I forgot to mention I believe a 4th point could be added here:

4) Allow for more flexible licensing programs, support contracts, compatibility matrixes and (Long Term) Maintenance policies in 'mutually (Avid and customer) reasonable' ways when acknowledging previous and current combinations of products, Avid and 3rd party, while supported configurations, did and/or do not function correctly. In simple words: Do not use End of support dates, End of perpetual licenses, LTM policies including absense of backwards compatibility to push your existing customers into upgrades of which you know crucial bugs still affect operations.

Each and every software product has its economic lifespan and each software company adjusts its licensing, support and development programs according its economic interest. But when sales, development and support of a product or version is discontinued, it is expected that its replacement is functionallity, reability and performance wise ready to replace it. And when something goes wrong in that process I expect Avid to take ownership of the responsibility to correct it in ways that respect both Avid's and its customers interests.

Rob, your post sums up my feelings most perfectly. I have been dealing with this issue for at least two years. Yes, Avid have been trying to help. Today, I installed 2023.8 Desktop Video 12.7 on a Mac studio running Monterey 12.6.3 with DNX ID. No good. I had this issue on an Imac so its NOT just the M1. 2022.7 seems to run with desktop video 12.4 MOSTLY. A crash a day if I'm lucky. I cannot express the amount of anxiety it generates wondering if this is the day the whole thing is going to stop. Avid removing the older versions seems like just such a slap in the face. I have been using Avid since the late eighties. It is a great tool that I know backwards. That means I can just work at my craft. I have no desire to learn a whole new tool, but boy have I thought about it lately. If this issue with IO devices and the later software cannot be sorted, then where exactly does that leave us? Indeed, we should be being treated like partners. 

exactly correct

kkordisch:

Wrong. It drops to black quite often. There are zero 100% working options for IO 2022 and 2023.

Is there a real update on a fix and not empty promises?

The list of problems we see facing Mac and BMD users has forced us to migrate to PC...unfortunately, it doesn't seem bug free either.  We'll be running older stable versions until things get better, or until we migrate to Adobe Premiere...

Hi Kenneth

I should have some information to share later today.    More one I onnet with the team as they met with BMD via phone last night.

Marianna

Update?

Hi Kenneth

I didnt get back from the doctor until late yesterday so my apologies.  I conversed with product management and this issue has been escalated to the owner of BMD and is a top priority to fix on their end.  They have MADE great strides but it is justnot there yet so we are giving them a few more days... and look to have more info on Monday Dec 4th in the nightly Avid/BMD call.

I know that I appreiate your patience Kenneth and KNOW all of you on here are frustrated as are most of us in customer care as we dont have a solution for our users. :(

Lets stick with it another few days and see what the big boss can do internally at BMD.

Marianna

Update. It is Dec 4th.