Avid's reaction to FCPX

N

Newman

Active member
Interesting, please read:

During the Final Cut Pro X demonstration at NAB, Apple took a swipe at Avid and a third supplier, Adobe, by saying they both "are in a race for second place." We already know that the new version of Final Cut Pro will be priced $299. Just to compare - the software only version of Media Composer lists for $2,495, and student pricing is $295. The recently launched Avid Studio lists for $169.99.
After Apple's Final Cut Pro presentation Gary Greenfield (Avid chairman and CEO) told The Hollywood Reporter that there were a lot of unanswered questions but he thinks it will remind people "that Avid is going to wake up and serve your professional needs".
Indeed - Avid and Apple are the two leaders in the nonlinear editing market on which Apple claims to have the largest percentage of editing customer base with more than 2 million users, from hobbyists to professionals. But the majority of members of the American Cinema Editors use Avid. Reacting to Final Cut's newest incarnation Gary Greenfield told The Hollywood Reporter that he thinks what was reiterated on Thursday's night was what Avid has been telling its customers for a long time, that it is a company that wakes in the morning focused on professional workflows -- professional workflows for professionals who making a living doing what they are doing. He also underligned that is the type of capabilities that Avid is going to continue to add to its products. "Whenever Apple does something, they do it well," he added.
At NAB Avid presented its Media Composer version 5.5, as well as a technology preview of its new 3D tools that are planned for a future Media Composer software release. Avid also announced Interplay Central - its anticipated cloud-based system, aimed primarily at the broadcast and related media industries -- which is designed to allow users to work anywhere there is Internet connectivity through Web. "Virtually anyone involved in the content creation, management and distribution process can work from any location and use toolsets tailored to the tasks they need to perform" Greenfield said.


And what are your thoughts on the battle between Apple and Avid?
 
I will say that Avid's media management is far superior to Final Cut right now and moving it to a web-based system is huge! We recently moved to Final Cut at our broadcast station and although I love the editing platform, the Final Cut Server is crap! So Apple does not do everything well. Avid was always immediate with their interplay system, and Apple searches for a long time and hangs there and you are lucky if you find your media sometimes.
 
Well, I don't know. Avid does in fact have a hold on the majority of the upper market in film production. Maybe as younger editors and filmmakers work their way up that will start to change. For the immediate moment, I don't think that Final Cut will seriously threaten that market. People have established workflows.

That doesn't meant that Final Cut is for hobbyists. The older Final Cut suite was a great option for other parts of the professional market. A lot of docs are cut on Final Cut. A lot of indie filmmakers run it too. There are also plenty of people who make a living at digital video who don't produce for Hollywood, and of course, some large budget films were even cut on it. That doesn't change the fact that the average professional editor who mostly runs Final Cut works in a different part of the industry. Professionals in post-production can switch between Final Cut and Avid anyways. The one place where this does come together more is maybe film schools that offer both suites, but that doesn't mean too much. They offer students the two things that they are most likely to see once they leave school.
 
Correct me if i'm wrong but i assume what Avid's CEO is trying to say is that while Avid focus more on what the "professionals" want, Apple with its price point and auto everything is leaning more toward "consumers"? .... again, i could be wrong but i think it's way too early to tell just based on the snippet of final cut pro we saw last tuesday.
 
Newman said:
Correct me if i'm wrong but i assume what Avid's CEO is trying to say is that while Avid focus more on what the "professionals" want, Apple with its price point and auto everything is leaning more toward "consumers"? .... again, i could be wrong but i think it's way too early to tell just based on the snippet of final cut pro we saw last tuesday.
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Well he can say that if he wants. He is trying to market his product. If "professional" only means the upper most market in big budget production, yes. Most big Hollywood movies are cut on Avid, because Avid has had a hold on that industry for much longer. A good bit of TV stuff is cut on Avid too, but Avid does not in any way have a hold on the entire market of people who make a living at digital video and film. There are also high budget projects that run Final Cut.
 
well from what I've seen of the new Final Cut X is seems likes it's leaning toward the consumer market with it's Imovie type functions. But that's just speculation since I haven't actually used it.
 
One demo doesn't say a lot. We will need to see what happens over the next couple of months. I really doubt that in any case. Final Cut outsells Avid in terms of pure volume, because Apple markets it to the indie film world and other parts of the professional market. It wouldn't be logical for them to forfeit that market.
 
Again, it's way too early to tell; this is a perfect example why Apple keeps everything a secret until the last minute because people will judge everything out of that little teaser, some even said Apple is dropping Color, etc... (first mistake RED made with scarlet and epic.)

there is a reason whatever happened tuesday night is not even mentioned on the apple site and no word from apple at all beside "more coming in June"

let's wait and see.
 
Spdamf said:
well from what I've seen of the new Final Cut X is seems likes it's leaning toward the consumer market with it's Imovie type functions. But that's just speculation since I haven't actually used it.
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Been with Final Cut Pro since beta v.1 days, and occasionally my wife calls me over to look at some of things that iMovie 11 does. Ubillos wrote it, and I was surprised to see what it was capable of. To be honest, I would like if some of these features were incorporated into the next iteration of FCP.

And I am delighted that some have been added.

Take a look at this report from one of the most respected users, Philip Hodgetts:

http://www.philiphodgetts.com/2011/04/what-are-my-thoughts-on-final-cut-pro-x/

Similar reports from Gary Adcock, etc.

Just because FCP X incorporates features from iMovie 11 doesn't minimize the usefulness of those features. Range Based Keywording is a huge time saver for the work I do, for example.

Not every feature of iMovie 11 is non professional. Only its cost is.
 
I think this is great news in terms of the price and if anyone thinks that professionals are not making a good living off of FCP they are crazy. That being said if Apple wants to keep up they are going to have to give a little bit more.
 
I hope competition takes it serious. The price is what disappoints me the most. I am affraid that competitors like Avid and Adobe might not take it serious. If they had asked 999 for it and 299 for an upgrade from 7 it would have forced competition to look at it as a new automatic, less tech heavy approach to story telling. I think a lot of people are just going to scoff and say iMovie Pro.

Keep in mind if anyone has the brand power and influence to make an entire group of editors try a more consumer friendly editor it is Apple.

Time will tell.
 
I'm not certain I know the difference between "consumer friendly" and "professional friendly" means.

If any company provides tools and workflow to ease the editing task, wouldn't that be welcome?

Does everything need to be difficult or complex or complicated to be professional?

If that was the litmus test, why do we accept any NLE application?
 
I know I am not a high end professional- I have to write, direct, shoot and edit my own films, with a small crew of three or four people. However, a professional is what I am. This is my business and it supports cast and crew and pays my mortgage and all my bills.

The more I look at it, the more I like the look of FCP X. It looks like it will edit the way I think, which is always the best reason to invest in a particular software product. Maybe it won't have the highest end collaborative working features that someone editing a Hollywood blockbuster needs, but for me it looks like it is going to be just the ticket.

Anything that gets me 90% of the effect with 10% of the effort is a real cost effective solution, because I don't have the luxury or the budget to kill myself over the last 10%. I need to get a workmanlike and beautiful job done quickly so I can get it finished and get started with writing the script for the next production and keep the cash rolling in.

FCP X looks like it is really going to hit the spot with the 90/10 rule with features like sound sweetening directly on the timeline. The less things I need to break out to a different application with a different interface the happier I am. I can totally see your mileage will vary if your job is spending a week colour correcting a single sequence for a Hollywood studio (I can't really imagine what your needs would be, but I can sure see they will be totally different from mine).

"Professional" is a very oft abused term. There's a hell of a lot of different folks making a living from making moving images and we don't all have the same needs.

Cheers, Hywel.
 
jason.adams said:
I hope competition takes it serious. The price is what disappoints me the most. I am affraid that competitors like Avid and Adobe might not take it serious. If they had asked 999 for it and 299 for an upgrade from 7 it would have forced competition to look at it as a new automatic, less tech heavy approach to story telling. I think a lot of people are just going to scoff and say iMovie Pro.

Keep in mind if anyone has the brand power and influence to make an entire group of editors try a more consumer friendly editor it is Apple.

Time will tell.
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Adobe and Avid don't need to take anything seriously; they don't matter in any way. All that matters is what producers, editors, indie filmmakers, documentary filmmakers, editing studios, etc. take seriously. As it stands, most of that market does not take Premier seriously, because the NLE was unstable years ago. That may be changing now, but that is a reputation that Premier has to overcome.
 
I can handle a single viewer/canvas as long as that window automatically displays whatever I'm looking at, I can't see myself trimming based on filmstrip frames.

We'll see when they start showing specs, but if it will run base macbook Pro or iMac (current to release) I'm sold. After years on mac, but in bad need of an upgrade, I've been tempted to go PC and try something else based solely on cost. With this the cost of the software will help offset hardware cost.

I'm firmly entrenched in the lone filmmaker do everything world. Anything that will make post faster and easier so I can get done and on to the next thing I'm cool with that.

I hope one of the auto on ingest features is cadence detection pulldown removal. I'm still on HV20, and I know several AVCHD models still do 24p in 60i, so this is a much needed feature.
 
Newman said:
And what are your thoughts on the battle between Apple and Avid?
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I laugh.

Some of the best movies EVAR wher edited on Movieolas and Steinbecks.
If it can cut a film and bolt it together at a different place you have the tools for a block buster.
Everything on top of that from media management to magnetic timeline is nice to have,
but editing is done in your head not in your software.


Frank
 
I'm not certain I know the difference between "consumer friendly" and "professional friendly" means.

If any company provides tools and workflow to ease the editing task, wouldn't that be welcome?
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Consumer and Pro friendly are measured just like any technology. By how accessible and easy to use they are for beginners. Just like consumer camcorders with Auto everything vs your AF100 with manual everything. I am not saying its a bad thing. I honestly think Apple is going to be the company that brings "auto" street cred to post features. I am only stating that many of the auto features are new to a pro editor environment. Auto stabilize on import. That is pretty radical departure from the motion-track-stablize work flows of old NLE's I think any innovation should be praised and adopted, but my fear is that companies like Avid will now not view FCP as a credible competition because of the price points and imovie like features.

Does everything need to be difficult or complex or complicated to be professional?

If that was the litmus test, why do we accept any NLE application?
Click to expand...
No it does not, but it at least needs to be complicated enough to justify the professional editor in the minds of a client. If Apple has an anyone can do it and its cheap enough for anyone to own it philosophy then why should a client pay 100-200 bucks an hour for an editor. Just ask all the Ad Agencies that no longer higher editors because they saw they could buy FCP for 999 and throw it on the graphic designers mac and edit their own stuff. Now imagine that scenario with 299 piece of software that ANYONE can use.

MY whole point is this is the sharpest looking NLE interface I have seen. And I want Avid and the others to say. How do we compete with that and not say We don't have to compete with that is now prosumer software. We have seen that attitude from Avid before.
 
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