Avid will be at NAB '09
- Thread starter mikkowilson
- Start date
Jason Adams
Section Moderator
Avid is really movin. They Drop out when everyone shows up and they show up when everyone drops out.
They sold Softimage and PCTV. Looks like they finally realized that they have to innovate and compete to stay in this industry.
They sold Softimage and PCTV. Looks like they finally realized that they have to innovate and compete to stay in this industry.
NateCaauwe
Roto Ninja
Well I tend to end up being pretty wrong on what Apple will do considering how much of a fanboy I am, but consider why they left: they have tons of retail stores all over the country (and a few internationally) as well as a very nice website that both showcase their hardware and software to how many millions of people every day? Then consider the fact that at NAB you've got a week long exhibition that reaches what? 100,000 people? Seems like a waste of several million dollars for the little exposure they get compared to their retail and online outlets, which I believe is what Apple was thinking. Plus we're talking about media professionals...professionals who really know what they want and where to find it
MrBill
Well-known member
Avid is very strange. I'm not quite sure who runs the company but I remember last year they came out with all these justifications as to why they didn't have to go to NAB to be successful. Guess they changed their minds this year. I'm sure Apple is devastating their sales numbers.
snowleopard
Well-known member
Apple, Vegas, and Edius.
I work at a TV station, and worked for a large broadcaster the last couple of years. When it was time to upgrade, Avid didn't really even make the first round and was eliminated from consideration pretty early on at both places. Same with a rival TV station where I have friends.
As a company, they kind of remind me of Quark in the design world. Remember them?
I work at a TV station, and worked for a large broadcaster the last couple of years. When it was time to upgrade, Avid didn't really even make the first round and was eliminated from consideration pretty early on at both places. Same with a rival TV station where I have friends.
As a company, they kind of remind me of Quark in the design world. Remember them?
snowleopard
Well-known member
Sorry to hear that. 
Most places I know of switched to In Design a long time ago, like CS1 at the latest. But Quark is still in business, somehow. Sort of like...Avid.
Most places I know of switched to In Design a long time ago, like CS1 at the latest. But Quark is still in business, somehow. Sort of like...Avid.
MrBill
Well-known member
Agree, that's why it was so strange when they cancelled last year. Being the leader in Editing software, I'm wondering who made the call for them to cancel last year.
Kind of like their move several years ago when they announced they were going to stop
supporting their AVID MAC customers. Those kind of moves won't help them in the long run.
Kind of like their move several years ago when they announced they were going to stop
supporting their AVID MAC customers. Those kind of moves won't help them in the long run.
AVID makes a geat product, and if they had a cheaper price when I purchased Adobe several years back, I would of gone with them. If I ever jump ship, it will be to AVID. No matter how many FCP user and articles I read hyping Apple's FCP, AVID is still king. FCP is also a great product, I just don't buy into the theory that Apple has taken over the world.
puredrifting
Major Contributor
Hi Adam:
I am not sure if you read the industry magazines or go to the trade shows. The numbers don't lie. Avid has been quite close to going under three times in the past five years and recently went almost two years without a president. They are trying to turn around their business model but basically they are barely stemming the bleeding of Avid users switching to FCP. There are very few new editors who are investing in Avid, at this point, they are coasting on older editors who grew up on Avid. I am 46 so I have been on the path with both Avid and FCP since day one so I am not really late to the party. Fortunately for Avid, older union editors are mostly who edit network and studio features.
I won't dispute that Avid is a great product, it is, I have worked with it for the past 15 years and the last two prodcos I worked at were 90% Avid based, with just one FCP on-line system for out of house off-lines that needed to on-line in FCP. But Apple has taken most of Avid's marketshare except in features and network television. Cable, DVD, trailers, industrials, etc. are all owned by Apple now, with FCP chipping away at Avid's remaining strongholds, which are crumbling rapidly. Avid is reacting but many feel it is too little, too late. They finally made the MC software a great deal, but they should have done what they just did last year five years ago and they would be in a much better position than they are today.
Apple has over one million registered seats for FCP with an estimated 3-4 million more bootlegged seats worldwide. Avid has a small fraction of that amount and their market share is still falling. The basic strategy is Avid is just putting out tiny, incremental upgrades while rapidly dumping price. Apple has pretty rapidly added features, held price constant for quite a while. Cost will win out. As long as Avid wants to sell you Nitris Symphonies for $100k, they will continue to lose market share because the days of traditional on-line editing are mostly over. You can buy an FCP on-line capable system for about 1/5th of the price. The final output quality is indistinguishable on either system.
So you can have a philosophical argument about the realtive merits of the Avid interface and editing tools vs. FCP or you can have a discussion of what the true numbers reflect. You can also get into semantics about how to best express the thought, but the bottom line is that Avid is going down. Anyone who has studied business can see that. They are not totally dead and they could pull off a miracle comeback, they do have their strongholds, which are the best ones to have. But when you have people like David Fincher, the Coen Brothers, Walter Murch, etc. making the switch, that says a lot.
Dan
I am not sure if you read the industry magazines or go to the trade shows. The numbers don't lie. Avid has been quite close to going under three times in the past five years and recently went almost two years without a president. They are trying to turn around their business model but basically they are barely stemming the bleeding of Avid users switching to FCP. There are very few new editors who are investing in Avid, at this point, they are coasting on older editors who grew up on Avid. I am 46 so I have been on the path with both Avid and FCP since day one so I am not really late to the party. Fortunately for Avid, older union editors are mostly who edit network and studio features.
I won't dispute that Avid is a great product, it is, I have worked with it for the past 15 years and the last two prodcos I worked at were 90% Avid based, with just one FCP on-line system for out of house off-lines that needed to on-line in FCP. But Apple has taken most of Avid's marketshare except in features and network television. Cable, DVD, trailers, industrials, etc. are all owned by Apple now, with FCP chipping away at Avid's remaining strongholds, which are crumbling rapidly. Avid is reacting but many feel it is too little, too late. They finally made the MC software a great deal, but they should have done what they just did last year five years ago and they would be in a much better position than they are today.
Apple has over one million registered seats for FCP with an estimated 3-4 million more bootlegged seats worldwide. Avid has a small fraction of that amount and their market share is still falling. The basic strategy is Avid is just putting out tiny, incremental upgrades while rapidly dumping price. Apple has pretty rapidly added features, held price constant for quite a while. Cost will win out. As long as Avid wants to sell you Nitris Symphonies for $100k, they will continue to lose market share because the days of traditional on-line editing are mostly over. You can buy an FCP on-line capable system for about 1/5th of the price. The final output quality is indistinguishable on either system.
So you can have a philosophical argument about the realtive merits of the Avid interface and editing tools vs. FCP or you can have a discussion of what the true numbers reflect. You can also get into semantics about how to best express the thought, but the bottom line is that Avid is going down. Anyone who has studied business can see that. They are not totally dead and they could pull off a miracle comeback, they do have their strongholds, which are the best ones to have. But when you have people like David Fincher, the Coen Brothers, Walter Murch, etc. making the switch, that says a lot.
Dan
Last edited:
Dan, with all due respect, I really do not think that Avid is going out of business.
So, you say, Apple has sold a million copies of FCP. I didn't realize that my local movie theater showed a million films last year. Oh, that's right, they didn't. That's because those million copies of FCP are mainly used by hobbyists making their own home movies for their friends. You know what an actual useful statistic would be? What is the amount of money made with Avid cut tv shows and films versus the amount of money made with FCP cut shows and films? I think you will find that you woefully misrepresent FCP's market share in the actual film and television industry.
As far as FCP "owning" cable, well that is totally not true. I have many friends working on various Cable shows such as Project Runway and Top Chef, and they all use Avid. Other Avid cable shows: Dirty Jobs, Sandhogs, American Chopper.
Avid doesn't need to put out major upgrades because it is already leagues beyond FCP:
--Avid has the Animatte tool that allows unlimited track points with bezier curves. FCP has the useless 4 point garbage matte.
--Avid has built in shot tracking which is infinitely useful for many, many things. To do the equivalent in FCP, you have to leave it and go to another program.
--Avid has script sync. You can import your script and set it up so that when you click on a line of dialogue, you can hear all of the takes of that line. FCP does not have this.
--Avid has Unity. On the show I'm currently working on, there are 25 systems all hooked up to the same storage, and it works flawlessly. FCP has Final Cut Server. It is a joke to use compared to Unity.
--Avid has a proven, offline to online workflow. You can offline on an inexpensive software only Media Composer at 10 to 1 resolution. You can have all of the effects, flying mattes, motion effects you want. To online in HD on a Nitris or Symphony, you just redigitize at 1 to 1, and render your effects. With FCP, a workflow like this is a nightmare. You have to rebuild by hand all of your motion effects. Forget about advanced compositing like you can do on the Avid, because with FCP you have to do all of those effects in a separate program. The various FCP message boards on the internet are filled with posts about the difficulties encountered when trying to do a simple offline to online on FCP. With Avid, there are no problems like this.
--With the new version of Avid, you can actually edit in 3d. Before this, when editing 3d, you had to guess at things like shot depth, now you can actually see it. FCP does not have this.
FCP keeps attaching programs to itself like a wanna-be rapper covering himself with cheap bling. I don't see how that counts for innovation when the programs don't all work very well together. It's quite an ordeal to go back and forth between FCP and Color. I would definitely be more impressed if all of the programs could be incorporated within FCP. I would be even more impressed if FCP could rewrite how it handles media.
Now, if I were someone who just wanted to make my own films on my own terms. If I had all the time in the world, and nothing and nobody was dependent on me completing my movies and colortiming them and burning my dvd's, then FCP would be an awesome thing to have. But if you're working in a professional environment where a lot of money is on the line and time is of the essence, then FCP is a terrible choice.
Avid is more reliable and it is faster. When you are paying your editors big money, then you actually save money by using Avid because it doesn't take as long and there are fewer problems and workarounds to endure. It is true, Avid doesn't come with built in DVD Authoring software, but the fact is, a good editor is too valuable to have him or her sit around making Dvd's. Everyone loves to talk about FCP Color, but I've yet to see how it compares with color correcting on a
Symphony or Nitris. At any rate, I find that color correction is best done on a DaVinchi by a dedicated colorist.
I suppose I'm one of the older Union Editors that Avid is "coasting on", but I'm only 38, and I'm not planning on retiring for quite some time, so Avid can always count on having at least one customer.
So, you say, Apple has sold a million copies of FCP. I didn't realize that my local movie theater showed a million films last year. Oh, that's right, they didn't. That's because those million copies of FCP are mainly used by hobbyists making their own home movies for their friends. You know what an actual useful statistic would be? What is the amount of money made with Avid cut tv shows and films versus the amount of money made with FCP cut shows and films? I think you will find that you woefully misrepresent FCP's market share in the actual film and television industry.
As far as FCP "owning" cable, well that is totally not true. I have many friends working on various Cable shows such as Project Runway and Top Chef, and they all use Avid. Other Avid cable shows: Dirty Jobs, Sandhogs, American Chopper.
Avid doesn't need to put out major upgrades because it is already leagues beyond FCP:
--Avid has the Animatte tool that allows unlimited track points with bezier curves. FCP has the useless 4 point garbage matte.
--Avid has built in shot tracking which is infinitely useful for many, many things. To do the equivalent in FCP, you have to leave it and go to another program.
--Avid has script sync. You can import your script and set it up so that when you click on a line of dialogue, you can hear all of the takes of that line. FCP does not have this.
--Avid has Unity. On the show I'm currently working on, there are 25 systems all hooked up to the same storage, and it works flawlessly. FCP has Final Cut Server. It is a joke to use compared to Unity.
--Avid has a proven, offline to online workflow. You can offline on an inexpensive software only Media Composer at 10 to 1 resolution. You can have all of the effects, flying mattes, motion effects you want. To online in HD on a Nitris or Symphony, you just redigitize at 1 to 1, and render your effects. With FCP, a workflow like this is a nightmare. You have to rebuild by hand all of your motion effects. Forget about advanced compositing like you can do on the Avid, because with FCP you have to do all of those effects in a separate program. The various FCP message boards on the internet are filled with posts about the difficulties encountered when trying to do a simple offline to online on FCP. With Avid, there are no problems like this.
--With the new version of Avid, you can actually edit in 3d. Before this, when editing 3d, you had to guess at things like shot depth, now you can actually see it. FCP does not have this.
FCP keeps attaching programs to itself like a wanna-be rapper covering himself with cheap bling. I don't see how that counts for innovation when the programs don't all work very well together. It's quite an ordeal to go back and forth between FCP and Color. I would definitely be more impressed if all of the programs could be incorporated within FCP. I would be even more impressed if FCP could rewrite how it handles media.
Now, if I were someone who just wanted to make my own films on my own terms. If I had all the time in the world, and nothing and nobody was dependent on me completing my movies and colortiming them and burning my dvd's, then FCP would be an awesome thing to have. But if you're working in a professional environment where a lot of money is on the line and time is of the essence, then FCP is a terrible choice.
Avid is more reliable and it is faster. When you are paying your editors big money, then you actually save money by using Avid because it doesn't take as long and there are fewer problems and workarounds to endure. It is true, Avid doesn't come with built in DVD Authoring software, but the fact is, a good editor is too valuable to have him or her sit around making Dvd's. Everyone loves to talk about FCP Color, but I've yet to see how it compares with color correcting on a
Symphony or Nitris. At any rate, I find that color correction is best done on a DaVinchi by a dedicated colorist.
I suppose I'm one of the older Union Editors that Avid is "coasting on", but I'm only 38, and I'm not planning on retiring for quite some time, so Avid can always count on having at least one customer.
Matt Gottshalk
Resident Preditor
:huh:
Wow, what color is the sky in YOUR world?
I've been on Avid since 1991, and once had that opinion too. Until it came time to buy my OWN system.
FCPro simply was the best bang for the buck and I haven't looked back. I can show you a LOT of other facilities MUCH bigger than mine that have done the same.
Multiply that across the country and you see why Avid is hurting.
Christian m
Well-known member
One issue for Avid are the fact that they have no other business to support the company. Apple has ipod, itunes, their own hardware and on it goes. This means they can sell FCP studio with loss, you need apple hardware to run it and you might end up with both ipod and iphone in the making, much can also be credited to their marketing....and that every user are a new ambassador.
Avid, Quantel, Davinci and all other high end software/hardware companies have only their bespoke market and they actually need to make a profit on their products. This might end up reflecting their future clients, high end and not hobby users. That said, it's not wrong that hobbyists use pro software, but adding those to "pro" user numbers are a marketing scheme.
A problem though have been, or at least from what i can read....fairly new in this business, Avid became "cocky" when their software was the best and the only one. And suddenly Adobe and Apple where there. The slept a bit regarding price on software MC and finally did something with it. They should do someting with their hardware price for simple monitoring lashing out 8 grand for mojo dx(yep, thats the price i Norway) when working freelance alongside studies is a tad expensive for monitoring when i'm filebased from start to delivery. But Avid did proved itself for me last autum, SD/HD, xdcam ex, hdv, dv25, uncompressed all in the same timeline not one second rendering to start editing. I've considered the fcp change, but for me doing a lot event style editing I'm haven't been convinced that fcp could do the same in the same amount of time, not even the dealers of Avid/FCP have managed to convince me that fcp will match avid....
In a fantasy world, or my ideal world, Avid would merge MC and Symphony. Then they could take the DNxHD hardware and put it on a pci-express card and let Aja handle the I/O as they do on the DS, make an OEM Avid Aja box for both workstation and mobile use. Optimizing for GPU usage for both playback and rendering so that you could buy a Quadro 570 for budget use or Quadro 5800 for as much RT as possible.
Avid, Quantel, Davinci and all other high end software/hardware companies have only their bespoke market and they actually need to make a profit on their products. This might end up reflecting their future clients, high end and not hobby users. That said, it's not wrong that hobbyists use pro software, but adding those to "pro" user numbers are a marketing scheme.
A problem though have been, or at least from what i can read....fairly new in this business, Avid became "cocky" when their software was the best and the only one. And suddenly Adobe and Apple where there. The slept a bit regarding price on software MC and finally did something with it. They should do someting with their hardware price for simple monitoring lashing out 8 grand for mojo dx(yep, thats the price i Norway) when working freelance alongside studies is a tad expensive for monitoring when i'm filebased from start to delivery. But Avid did proved itself for me last autum, SD/HD, xdcam ex, hdv, dv25, uncompressed all in the same timeline not one second rendering to start editing. I've considered the fcp change, but for me doing a lot event style editing I'm haven't been convinced that fcp could do the same in the same amount of time, not even the dealers of Avid/FCP have managed to convince me that fcp will match avid....
In a fantasy world, or my ideal world, Avid would merge MC and Symphony. Then they could take the DNxHD hardware and put it on a pci-express card and let Aja handle the I/O as they do on the DS, make an OEM Avid Aja box for both workstation and mobile use. Optimizing for GPU usage for both playback and rendering so that you could buy a Quadro 570 for budget use or Quadro 5800 for as much RT as possible.
martin kunert
Member
When I was in film school, I used to hear the same thing about flatbeds..... "no, flatbeds aren'y going out of style. All the professional editors who work in film and television work on flat beds."
That was then.
And today, where are the flatbeds? Probably the same place Avid is heading.
martin kunert
Member
Avid used to be the defacto standard. They were a monopoly. Now Avid clings by its fingernails to a third position (except, of course, with old timer editors who don't want to change).
Last year, I went to a seminar held by Panasonic about P2 workflow with editing software. Avid was barely on the list.
Panavision is the same position. They can still claim that most of the big money earners use their cameras, but Pani already knows the future. They bought a rental house to stem their demise, but even that isn't helping. Their future is written in RED. Even my HPX500 puts out a hell of a good image.