luca.mg:

if they keep to phase out all of the indipendent users out there, there will be no workforce trained to run the software at the broadcast facilities sooner or later, period.

I think this ship has sailed.

TrevorA:

luca.mg:

if they keep to phase out all of the indipendent users out there, there will be no workforce trained to run the software at the broadcast facilities sooner or later, period.

 

I think this ship has sailed.

e.g. I often work on large sport events.

Historically these were nearly always Avid (as opposed to individual OBs - which were FCP7 then Premiere).

Currently it is probably a 50:50 split on the large events (eg Host Broadcaster for World Cup is Premiere, for Olympics is Avid), but many of the newer editors available, with experience of sports turnaround, only know + use Premiere in their regular work.

This is great for us old farts, but not sustainable.

Also ~80% of the freelance editors I work with (and ~30% of producers) have personal Adobe subscriptions.

Less than 2% would have Avid subscriptions (and *none* of the producers).

There's stuff I still prefer about Avid for editing. I want Media Composer to thrive. Maybe it will. 

camoscato:

I also remember, though, 15 years ago when Avid offered Media Composer alongside Avid Xpress Pro, which was exactly like Media Composer, but with some of the features disabled. It was marketed toward independent editors and smaller post houses with (presumably) smaller budgets.

Don't know if it's the best example. XPress Pro was limited to DV only (and one flavor of low res AVR IIRC), it was released to try to veer people away from Final Cut Pro which was stealing all the light with the DVCam revolution.

Anyway, what we all know from then, and now it's probably the same: Avid doesn't read those forums, apart from a couple of great individuals. The rest of them are busy keeping an eye on the stock market. It's been like this for a decade and it's surprising that Media Composer is still around.

But one thing for sure: the user base is not getting younger, and the new wave of editors grew up on other platforms which have been pretty agressive at getting their teeth in the market.

pierreh:

Don't know if it's the best example. XPress Pro was limited to DV only

Are you sure you're not thinking of Free DV? They gave that away for free, and it was limited to DV only.

Looking at an old Xpress Pro readme it talks about MPEG 30/40/50 codecs and use of 24p and HD support.

pierreh:

Avid doesn't read those forums, apart from a couple of great individuals. The rest of them are busy keeping an eye on the stock market.

Agreed.

camoscato:

Now that feeling is back. Symphony, Phrasefind, Scriptsync, bin sharing, and now ProTools Export are all useful to somebody, and the person that has to pay more to get the one that's useful to them is going to feel cheated.

Yes it's a shame and makes no sense, I can understand that perpetual needs add-on options to be on par with ultimate subscriptions but this ProTools export is not even offered as an option and it's not a tool like phrasefind or such, just a new export feature. It's like if bin sharing was not available for perpetual users. The biggest joke is that pricing is now the same for a 1 year ultimate subscription or for a 1 year support/updates for perpetual. Avid should just kill perpetual support/updates since it's what they are aiming for anyways, people could then keep a running version stuck at the end of their support or crossgrade to subscripion, but the crossgrade offering should then be a lot more generous, something like 2 to 3 years of ultimate for free depending on the perpetual options the seat has. 

camoscato:

Are you sure you're not thinking of Free DV? They gave that away for free, and it was limited to DV only.

Avid Xpress DV was limited to DV and was the first 'Avid' I bought personally back in 2001. It was the first software only version of Avid. Firewire capture and Digital cut being the principle. Xpress Pro which came later then could be used with Avid Mojo (first Y/C later after much complaints full component analogue) for a range of codec capture and output.

I am rather shocked too by this latest release having features locked out for the perpetual licence, although I'm not overly concerned or bothered about ProTools project export since I long ago moved to Fairlight and good old AAF still works. But if this is the case going forward I too will drop support this year, when I had intended to continue until the perpetual is EOLed a bit later. I won't be moving to subscription ever from my own pocket, except as client rental.

BTW, my current perpetual dongle dates from that very first copy of Xpress DV

Mercer:

Avid Xpress DV was...

That's the one I forgot about! Embarassingly, it was my first dongle license, too.

Mercer:

BTW, my current perpetual dongle dates from that very first copy of Xpress DV

Funny you say that, same here!

There was an Avid Xpress before that, pretty much with the same hardware as Media Composer and it didn't have the Dual Composer windows. But it was still pretty pricey. Then came Xpress DV which was software only and at some stage it could get a Mojo and could do pretty much what MC could do except the resolution limitations. IIRC.

Edit:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060325013538/http://www.avid.com/products/xpressFamily/index.asp

Ha ha, then you'll both remember badgering Avid on these forums, back then, that look much as they did then too about Mojo not being able to do component, so they came out with the cable kit. I remember being amazed at that and having my 'own' Avid. Having a go at Avid here is nothing new from us, poor things!

Avid Xpress was a 'cut price' turn-key hardware/software system, with limited functionality, though still out of reach for most of us, personally. Xpress DV was also a single monitor window, though you could open another floating one. IIRC, it was not until Xpress Pro came out that the MC like source/record became avaialble. I miss the big thick manuals in a box too, lol!

I've dropped my perpetuals, but I'm not giving up on MC, what I was trying to say is that the company is pushing me hard to run away from their products, kind of weird, ain't it? I'm on Avid since day zero, not even day one, the company has a very long story of squeezing money out of the customers giving them very little in turn. As a freelance in Italy I see many post houses willing to leave the ship, it's the broadcasters who still trust the platform and ask for Avid editing sessions, but more and more frequently I welcome in the editing room directors and/or producers with rough cuts made on either Premiere or Resolve, asking me to take on from where they left off at home. All of the camera crew people push Resolve, all the directors and producers mess around with Premiere at home, with the Mac addicts playing with FCX, nobody uses MC for their own stuff, and badly tolerate MC when the broadcasters send them to MC based post houses. How long will it take for these professionals to convince the networks to leave Avid? Not that long, as this ballet has already been going on for years now. The people at Avid don't care, they look at the stock market, once the company won't be profitable anymore they'll leave it sink and invest somewhere else, no problem. 

luca.mg:

Try this: CTRL-f and search for an existing clip, double click it, if the bin's clip is not already open it will open as a floating bin, or again match frame any clip from a sequence, in the player window click on the find bin command, if the relevant bin is not already open it will pop up as a floating bin. These floating bins will stay on top of whatever it was displayed no matter what, one has to open them in the main bin container and manually close the floating istances, the thing is that You might have no access to the dock hidden under the floating bins. Not to mention floating stuff hidden by the docked stuff.

Thank you for this, Luca. I ran into it today, and you reminded me to make a feature request to improve this behavior.

This bug is only part fixed for me it seems... the two leftmost boxes' backgrounds have been lightened, but arguably the most important one is still dark!

·         Bug Number: MCDEV-16346. Edit Master Caption List was difficult to read when using a dark interface.

brk95:

This bug is only part fixed for me it seems... the two leftmost boxes' backgrounds have been lightened, but arguably the most important one is still dark!

 

·         Bug Number: MCDEV-16346. Edit Master Caption List was difficult to read when using a dark interface.

 

Let me try to find more out about this

luca.mg:

How long will it take for these professionals to convince the networks to leave Avid? Not that long, as this ballet has already been going on for years now. The people at Avid don't care, they look at the stock market, once the company won't be profitable anymore they'll leave it sink and invest somewhere else, no problem. 

The networks won't listen to the professionals if the alternatives, Premiere, Resolve, FCX, do not provide integrated alternatives for the Avid products which can integrate with Media composer. Alternatives for others NLE's depend on 3rd party solutions with another spectrum of problems. This has been going on for almost 2 decades and I see little to no difference in the market from that perspective. So the networks will make up there own mind while also getting bitten by the exact same, and many more, Media composer related problems, technically and commercially, as the independant professionals. 

If you ask me Avid should try to increase price / features + reliability accross the product line and not for any specific user group. As part of that process they should define which user base they want to target with Media composer and its options resulting in a licensing scheme that gives the users choices to buy the features they want.

- Why include the newscutter option in Utlimate?

- Why is the Shared storage option not a seperate purchasable product for standard subscription license? Take into account it was included in Perpetual which is being discontinued.

- Why is the protools export option not a seperate purchasable product for standard subscription?

- Why not enhance Symphony so it becomes an alternative to Resolve or Baselight and make it again a paid option for the standard subscription license?

etc...

As time progresses the current bundle of all options for MC in an Ultimate (and Enterprice) license looks more indicative of a lack of Avid being able to correctly manage all the options and/or Avid believing its user base doesn't know how to choose.

Jeroen van Eekeres:

- Why not enhance Symphony so it becomes an alternative to Resolve or Baselight and make it again a paid option for the standard subscription license?

The one thing that would make me update my two licenses.

(Otherwise MC18 will suffice my needs!)