some pre-NAB insight?

[grinner]

Hey Michael, for the tenth year running, I'm gonna miss NAB after saying as fact I'm freakin goin this year.
Can you give us any inside scoop on what may be unvailed at NAB this year?
Please tell me a true 10 bit Adrenaline 2 with a DVE that is not all aliased like the old MC is on the horizon.
New prices for Nitris maybe?

[MichaelP]

Well the DVE in the shipping version of Adrenaline is already head and shoulders above the Pinnacle based DVE from Meridien based systems. The real time OGL probaly looks as good and better in many cases, but render with the HQ setting and it just blows it away.

I can't really give away ahead of time too much but rest assured there will be a lot about resolutions in addition to everything else...

Michael

[grinner]

really?
I demoed v1 last year. I saw lots of aliasing in rotated things and the ole fuzz in and out on slow scales and repositions. This was what I was looking forward to the most about adrenaline (a better DVE) but I was disappointed.
IMO, things like having the HQ toggle are a downgrade. Feels more like XDV with MC bells n whistles so far.
I'm going to demo one again next month along side Velocity Q and 844/X. Should be cool to do the same things on all three and see how they do.

What do you know about the future of Symphony?

[MichaelP]

The 3d DVE was always a Pinnacle hardware issue in the past. Once we moved to a new hybrid architecture of host processor and hardare accelration, we decided that 3D DVE would take advantage of the OGL card on the CPU. There is only so much processing thjat can be done with OGL in its current state, but OGL like processor will only get faster and higher quality over time. Also, we have a lot of 3D and OGL expetise in Montreal with Softimage that we will be taking more and more advatage of over time.

The HQ is to allow real time preview of moves, and in many cases will look as good as the old Pinnacle, but rendering is needed for the absolute highest quality.

Symphony is on a slower development path than the Xpress and Adrenaline products because the new architecture in these systems are what we are basing all future development.

Michael

[FatDaddy]

Michael,

I'm holding off on the Mojo for version 2, am I waisting my time?

I have also heard about a version 5 for Xpress Pro any truth to this?

Any beans to spill?

Much Thanks,
FD

[MichaelP]

Can't spill any beans if I want to keep my day job, but at NAB you will see peformance increses in shipping versions, demo of the June release, and a peek into what the end of the year will bring. There is some pretty exciting stuff and all will be on the Avid website after the Avid Press Conference which is on Sunday, April 18th at 5PM desert time.

Michael

[FatDaddy]

Thanks Michael.

I know Avid has increased their presence on the forums at avid.com and it seems like they want to keep avid in the lead (instead of coasting on what they have already accomplished).

My system (G4 dual w/10.2.8 and 4.1.1) has been running fine for a while now. I still can't believe what I can do from this piece of software (I remember buying an mc 1000 used for $60K without drives -- which were $3200 for nine gigs - EACH).

FD

[grinner]

I truely hope your right about their wanting to remain the industry standard. I've seen nothing from Avid in many years that suggests they wish to do so though. Seems like they are wanting apple to take that slot while they sell software on the shelves of Best Buy. NAB this year will be the tell-tell of Avid's fate, IMHO. If they release something new and inventive they will have no problem staying at the top of the virtual mountain. If they fix two bugs and call it an upgrade (then charge for it) we will findly speak of the Avid days as we talk about the ole linear days now.
I hope to be impressed by somthing from em this year.

anything.

[SJ_Lee]

Those are some pretty harsh words.

In my opinion however, Avid is the only company that really seems to know how video should be handled. Just look at their codec, it's far and above what anyone else has done, or provided. Their prepriotory way of doing things might seem bad at first (I felt this way when I first looked at Avid's stuff), but it yields the best quality for the work.

The only problem I have with Avid's software is their interface and their user-friendlyness. I find Avid's editors to be restrictive and ugly to look at. However, their color correction interface is far and away the best and most intuitive utilities on the market -- just try to do a chip chart correction on Primiere Pro and you'll see the difference.

At one of Michael's talks I saw Media Composer which seemed to have a compeletely new interface that I think would be would be much more user-friendly. Can you tell me when that is coming out Michael? I really can't remember where that interface fit in with the Avid Xpress suites.

And your HD line looks extremely interesting. Now that the word is out, can you talk about that for a bit? Compression ratios? Generational losses, etc?

[FatDaddy]

Over on the Mac Xpress Avid boards (avid.com), things are not well. People are tired of rehashing "other" software and not intergrating it as well as Apple seems to be doing. Also people are getting ticked off about the Mac support starting to slip and overall updates to Xpress that reck your system and don't work well.

My system runs well but I am back a months and waiting for things to pan out more. I really don't like FCP and am hoping Avid can keep up.
FD