If ProTools Export stays an subscription exclusive then this is the final straw and I'm done with Avid. Enough is enough.
What exactly for do we pay 500$ per year? A handful of little improvements other compaynies implement in a point release for free. And now we don't even get one of these few improvements that for once would be really significant for a lot of people... 

It's just ridiculous, same pricing as subscription but crippled, what's the logic? When it was 300 and buy once the perpetual options you need it still made sense somehow but now we are just better of letting support on those licenses die since it is dying anyways in 2025. With the current pace of updates and this absurd segmentation we won't miss on much, if anything.. Nice way to lose income, we'll just save a few k's and move perpetuals to subscriptions a couple years from now, probably with a better discount cause by then numbers will have spoken and avid will be desperate. Good job keeping the loyal base happy and generating steady income, keep it up;)

nicov:

When it was 300 and buy once the perpetual options you need it still made sense somehow but now we are just better of letting support on those licenses die since it is dying anyways in 2025.

I just had an issue with my Baselight Editions licence. At 9.30pm, on a Friday, I contacted support and it was solved almost instantly. This is on a perpetual licence with free support!

nicov:

It's just ridiculous, same pricing as subscription but crippled, what's the logic?

Out of interest what happens if, you cut a master with MC 2021.3 and let you subscription lapse. then in August 2021 you need to make changes?  Do you have the backward compatibility to do this if you take out a new subscription and your new MC version is 2021.8? 

I believe backward compatibility won't be a problem for perpetual or subscription, and it's something very valuable with avid, but that's totally off the point. The reality of pricing today is that avid asks the same amount by year for perpetual support and updates or for ultimate subs and at the same time perpetual gets more and more crippled features wise compared to ultimate. I made an initial investment in perpetual, have kept it to date every year and bought the options I need, and Ive seen pricing for updates and support raised every year and is now on par with ultimate subscription, but at the same time options are not included and the new protools export is not present. Logic?

nicov:

Logic?

To force you to go subscription.

Support for Avid MBOX Studio. Media Composer supports the new Avid MBOX Studio USB audio interface for both Windows and macOS. Connecting the Avid MBOX Studio to Media Composer gives you up to 8 channels of input and output (depending on configuration and additional hardware), including multi-channel, “surround sound” playback on both macOS and Windows. Up to 4 channels can be used for punch-ins, with zero-latency for mixing and monitoring.

How do I make the above work? are there instructions? 

Where is the logic of pushing subscription? Have a read: https://ir.avid.com/financial-information/quarterly-results

Year over year Subscription revenue, +49%. Continued strong improvement in gross margin, driven by growth iof higher-margin subscription.

Doc_Holiday:

Support for Avid MBOX Studio. Media Composer supports the new Avid MBOX Studio USB audio interface for both Windows and macOS. Connecting the Avid MBOX Studio to Media Composer gives you up to 8 channels of input and output (depending on configuration and additional hardware), including multi-channel, “surround sound” playback on both macOS and Windows. Up to 4 channels can be used for punch-ins, with zero-latency for mixing and monitoring.

 

How do I make the above work? are there instructions? 

Hey, let me find out! I will get back to you. 

ck123:

Year over year Subscription revenue, +49%.

Hi CK,

We should all be happy for Avid and congratulate them with this success! Subscription licensing is undoubtedly here to stay!

But I see no reason to 'punisch' the support contract paying perpetual license holder, especially taking into account the quality of the releases of Media Composer and Mediacentral since 2019. Avid themselves are not in denial over the failures and bugs that have affected their products and licensing but from the perspective of the licensing program and Mediacentral long term maintenance program I can only describe the current status as: 'Moving forward regardless...' meaning accepting more and more compromises on quality for short term profit. A 'This will have to do for now'.

Avid could have chosen to honor the perpetual licensing system for existing perpetual license holders allowing them to renew their support contracts indefinitely, have access with a perpetual license to the protools export features, and allow Mediacentral users to expand their existing systems without forcing them onto the latest Media composer and Mediacentral versions. We are forced into the 'latest the greatest' approach without the latest being the greatest and the policies being implemented in a way that protects Avid from having to fix this.

Jeroen van Eekeres:

We should all be happy for Avid and congratulate them with this success! 

Well, I expect most of that growth to be from existing customers that switched to subscription (the ProTools crowd had no other option for quite some time), not from actual new users.

Apart from that... congratulate them on enforcing a model that allows them to be even more exploitative towards their customers?

Dragos:

congratulate them on enforcing a model that allows them to be even more exploitative towards their customers?

It is no secret that Avid was having financial/commercial problems. And I think it is safe to say that 'we' want them to stay for many years to come. So if the subscription license model helps to secure their future, I can accept certain levels of compromise. But not what we are dealing with now.

There is no doubt that the move to subscription brought stability and profitability to Avid in the short term. But if that model is not accompanied by sustained reliable development and customer satisfaction (I give you Titler + and Symphony) with useful new features, it may not prove good for them in the long term.

If you do study the financials of Avid, as I have done also, you will notice that each anouncement of new 'thinking' and direction, where it might be unpopular, has been accompanied by perfectly legal, significant insider trading of shares, amongst top executives, which is often used to allay market jitteriness, over these things.

People often talk about Hollywood and features being the premier crest in Avid's prestige but by far the biggest and most profitable market for Avid, is broadcast. The software and hardware costs the same, whether you are cutting a 100 million dollar feature or a TV series but broadcast uses many more seats than ever Hollywood does. This total huge market and it's trained userbase gives Avid some confidence to be able to push these things through with some impunity, no matter how unpopular they may be with some of us individuals.

Ultimately I have decided there is no point in continuing with perpetual support, it will be dead by 25, in any case. And there is similarly no point in surrendering my dongle for subscription either. So this year, after over 20, will be my last as a paying customer of Avid. My clients will be paying rental/subs going forward, as they largely are now.

Mercer:

People often talk about Hollywood and features being the premier crest in Avid's prestige but by far the biggest and most profitable market for Avid, is broadcast. The software and hardware costs the same, whether you are cutting a 100 million dollar feature or a TV series but broadcast uses many more seats than ever Hollywood does. This total huge market and it's trained userbase gives Avid some confidence to be able to push these things through with some impunity, no matter how unpopular they may be with some of us individuals.

Hi Mercer,

While the above might be true, the impunity is not what I perceive. The broadcast market is just as affected and unhappy with these developments. You could, as they use many more products than Media Composer, even argue they are affected more due to all the compatibility/integration issues.

All users, small, big, Hollywood, CBS, BBC, ZDF or the local '1 man' post production facility do at the end of the day not care if it says, dongle, Rental (node locked) or Perpetual (node locked) as long as the products do what they are designed to do and functionally they get what they paid for.

Jeroen van Eekeres:

While the above might be true, the impunity is not what I perceive. The broadcast market is just as affected and unhappy with these developments. You could, as they use many more products than Media Composer, even argue they are affected more due to all the compatibility/integration issues.

It's the huge professional userbase, trained in Avid that matters. Facilities and broadcasters may not be happy but whilst Avid is the dominant professional tool of post production, they are not going to dump it en masse, whatever Avid do at the moment. If Avid fails to sustain development that keeps pace with that industry, in the future, who knows.