Avid Launches Media Composer 6, Symphony 6, NewsCutter 10

[econgeek]

Everyone who says FCPX is "not up to par" is a liar. They're not pros. They're Adobe or Avid employees.

This is why they have to make broad, disparaging claims, and cannot make specific claims that have any credibility.

The most specific they can be is to say that it doesn't support multi cam, which is a flat out lie. Apple has mentioned that they have a better method for multi cam coming up... but these guys say you can't do it in FCPX at all.

This is such an absurd thing-- as multi cam is demoed in every single FCPX video I've seen Apple put out-- that anyone who knows what hey are talking about knows their claim is a lie

They're just relying on saying "I'm a pro! It's not Pro!" and expecting non-pros to believe they know what they're talking about.

Reality is, they're dishonest apple haters, just spreading FUD as they always have.

That pieces of excrement have overwhelmed this forum like they have is what makes this forum useless.

 

[jrlcopy]

The most specific they can be is to say that it doesn't support multi cam, which is a flat out lie. Apple has mentioned that they have a better method for multi cam coming up... but these guys say you can't do it in FCPX at all.

This is such an absurd thing-- as multi cam is demoed in every single FCPX video I've seen Apple put out-- that anyone who knows what hey are talking about knows their claim is a lie

Can you post a link to a multicam video? I've personally yet to see one personally in the videos I've seen and if I'm wrong about FCPX missing this feature I'd like to know.

I've just seen people stack tracks CAM A on V1, CAM B on V2, and kind of copy+paste, or delete whatever they don't need.

 

[iBug2]

Oh, wow, you must be new here...

That's pretty reasonable for software. My engineering friends say that AutoCAD and other design programs are extremely expensive--and you even have to pay a licensing fee per year (usually $1000 or something if I recall).

And special effects programs, like Nuke (a compositor), also cost a few thousand to buy and then several thousand a year to license.

People like you that mindlessly follow Apple give the rest of the Mac community a bad name.

If Apple bought Nuke, they'd sell it for 200$ probably, today.

So yeah, compared to the prices Apple puts out when they buy apps, the 3rd party pricing is extremely high even though they are much more affordable compared to 15 years ago.

 

[Enzobot24]

If Apple bought Nuke, they'd sell it for 200$ probably, today.

So yeah, compared to the prices Apple puts out when they buy apps, the 3rd party pricing is extremely high even though they are much more affordable compared to 15 years ago.

And then Apple would phase it out and completely drop support.

Software developers (like the makers of Nuke) wouldn't dare to that, since that's their sole source of revenue. They can't afford to screw up their product--hence the licensing fee to keep it compatible and feature-filled.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Haha, close.
HDCAM SR is 880mbit/ 4:4:4,
HDCAM maxes out at 4:2:2

Slight correction here as HDCAM is 3:1:1, not 4:2:2.


Lethal

 

[tmroper]

Who the **** spends that kind of money on software... $6000!!! are you insane!?!?!?

It's no more "insane" than spending a couple grand on a MacBook Pro, when you can get a netbook for $250.

 

[jrlcopy]

Slight correction here as HDCAM is 3:1:1, not 4:2:2.


Lethal

You're right, I knew the compressed 1440x1080 part.

http://library.creativecow.net/articles/kolb_tim/formats.php

So effectively, HDCAM is 1440x1080 with a color difference subsample of 3:1:1.

However, when this plays out of the deck through HD-SDI, the signal that the deck creates from that stored signal is actually 1920x1080 4:2:2. Yes, all the data that was not stored and the difference in resolution needs to be "manufactured" on playback, so that your NLE will see 1920x1080 4:2:2 coming down the pipe on HD-SDI.

I'm used to staring at that lcd display on the deck which shows 4:2:2 all the time.

 

[KnightWRX]

Who the **** spends that kind of money on software... $6000!!! are you insane!?!?!?

We have a couple of boxes at work where the OS license is about 8000$ per physical CPU. And they usually are quad CPU boxes (not quad cores, quad CPUs with 4 cores each, and those are the small ones).

Again, the OS license. That basically boots the box and drops you to a shell with a few accounts and some security features. Then you need to actually buy the software that will be running on it, which is even more expensive.

 

[iBug2]

And then Apple would phase it out and completely drop support.

Software developers (like the makers of Nuke) wouldn't dare to that, since that's their sole source of revenue. They can't afford to screw up their product--hence the licensing fee to keep it compatible and feature-filled.

Well they have done it before. They sold Shake to Apple, and those were some of the people behind Nuke, it didn't really screw up Shake. It ended up being used on many high profile films like prequel Star Wars trilogy when under Apple's helm. But eventually the guys left to start Nuke and Shake ended.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Well they have done it before. They sold Shake to Apple, and those were some of the people behind Nuke, it didn't really screw up Shake. It ended up being used on many high profile films like prequel Star Wars trilogy when under Apple's helm. But eventually the guys left to start Nuke and Shake ended.

Close but not quite.

Nuke is older than Shake and created by different people although some people who worked on Shake later went to work on Nuke. I really don't see how Apple buying Shake then putting it on a shelf to rot didn't screw development of the software. The fact that Shake remained relevant for so long despite being killed by Apple is a testament to the Nothing Real team. If someone that gave a crap about Shake and its customers was in charge of it who knows how much better the program could've become.


Lethal

 

[starvingartist8]

I bet most of the people who are complaining about Final Cut X are not professional themselves and would be better off with iMovie

What ever happened to the good old 'It's not the tool, it's the artist' saying.

 

[MythicFrost]

I'm completely uneducated on the subject and would like to know if these applications make use of the GPU (or just the CPU) and if so do they require a workstation GPU such as a Quadro or does a 5770 suffice?

Would appreciate the info, thanks.

 

[jrlcopy]

I bet most of the people who are complaining about Final Cut X are not professional themselves and would be better off with iMovie

What ever happened to the good old 'It's not the tool, it's the artist' saying.

Eh, it's good for certain things, but we cheat so much with audio now, 'frankenbiting' where we steal "ands" "buts" "oks" and other entire words from other sentences to recreate sentences that you just can't efficiently get away with imovie and other programs.

There's also 10+ of us usually in any one show at one time, all watching the same video pulling from the same server, sharing sequences, resources, passing effects over the second we hit save. The tools definitely make the difference between taking 1 hour to do something and needing 5, and when deadlines are at stake and we only have 6 weeks to go from 180hours of raw material down to 43mins... Time counts.

I'm completely uneducated on the subject and would like to know if these applications make use of the GPU (or just the CPU) and if so do they require a workstation GPU such as a Quadro or does a 5770 suffice?

Would appreciate the info, thanks.

They don't require a workstation GPU and a 5770 is on Avid's certified list (was on version 5) a Quadro is also on that list and does give you benefits. I don't know specific benefits and don't have time to research (so I'll let someone answer specifics), I think a lot has to do with color output and allowing you do even more real time rendering. But you do get benefits. Including a smaller checking account. haha.

 

[MythicFrost]

They don't require a workstation GPU and a 5770 is on Avid's certified list (was on version 5) a Quadro is also on that list and does give you benefits. I don't know specific benefits and don't have time to research (so I'll let someone answer specifics), I think a lot has to do with color output and allowing you do even more real time rendering. But you do get benefits. Including a smaller checking account. haha.

Haha, all right thanks for that. How much of a play does CPU have? Is it fully multi-core?

 

[macnerd93]

Avid has to be the biggest pile of garbage out there. Its awful to use and I found it pretty slow. i'd much rather use FCP and Adobe Premiere any day.

 

[CASLondon]

Avid has to be the biggest pile of garbage out there. Its awful to use and I found it pretty slow. i'd much rather use FCP and Adobe Premiere any day.

I love sweeping, blanket statements like this, probably from someone who has never owned Media Composer and probably owns a cracked copy of the others. How is AVID slow? I've had less problems scrubbing audio frame by frame and keeping up with AVID then FCP.

Each NLE has advantages and disadvantages, I own Adobe and Avid both for this reason. One good thing about the new Final Cut X is the rendering on the fly, that does speed things up and points to the future.

AVID's strength was always stability and media management for large projects. Not having crashes and media offline notices keeps speed up. But one of the best features about recent Media Composer versions has been the ability to mix source frame rates and types in one timeline, WITHOUT any transcoding or re rendering time lost. Just drop in and use. WIth documentary being made of endless clips from endless sources, this is a real timesaver.

And then phrasefind, this is a nifty piece of software that associates script text and the source clip instantly. Again, a real timesaver for scripted work or documentary interviews that are transcribed. Just search for the words you want, and bam up comes the clip.

As for clunky, fast editors work off of keyboard shortcuts, an editor can be equally fast on all the NLEs as far as I'm concerned.

Half the time when someone thinks an editing system is slow or clunky, its the media access speeds that are the issue. Raid through a pci or thunderbolt vs one external USB 2 or firewire drive and bam, problem solved.

 

[KnightWRX]

What ever happened to the good old 'It's not the tool, it's the artist' saying.

This has been said a lot and frankly, it's quite disingenuous. It's sort of an elitist comment that has no bearing in real life. I'm not a movie editor, I'm a Unix systems administrator, but let's draw a parallele.

You can give me Windows 95, a Pentium 100 and an old copy of Win32 Apache 1.3. I can build you a web server out of that. I can mitigate all the unpatched security problems, I can set it up so it'll serve a website as best I can. Will this do the job ? Of course it will.

Then you can give me something like Solaris on a SPARC based T4-1 8-core machine, with Apache 2.2 using the worker MPM on a fully patched Solaris 11 installation, running off ZFS for storage, using Zones to completely isolate the httpd process.

I wonder how much more securely and how much more load I can get out of the 2nd setup.

Better tools often can help to break limits on what an artist can do. Tools are tools, they enable you to do things more efficiently and faster, sometimes in a much cleaner way. A good artist with poor tools will take more time and probably give you something less refined. A bad artist with good tools won't do much better.

But give a good artist good tools and suddenly, there are no limits (*void where prohibited) to what he can do.

 

[iBug2]

Close but not quite.

Nuke is older than Shake and created by different people although some people who worked on Shake later went to work on Nuke. I really don't see how Apple buying Shake then putting it on a shelf to rot didn't screw development of the software. The fact that Shake remained relevant for so long despite being killed by Apple is a testament to the Nothing Real team. If someone that gave a crap about Shake and its customers was in charge of it who knows how much better the program could've become.


Lethal

Apple did not shelve Shake when they bought it. They did it after several iterations/years. They shelved it when Nothing Real team left Apple claiming that it's not a suitable environment for specialized software like Shake, which they were right about.

 

[milo]

Avid is continuing its assault on Apple's treatment of pros with this release. Pro Tools 10 just announced about a month ago, which I am happily upgrading to. Now once we (possibly) lose the Mac Pro, do I see an Apple-less audio post studio next year? I hope not but it's something in the back of my brain.

This looks like a decent update, but PT10 has had a reaction about as bad as the FCX one for different reasons. Not much in that update and crazy expensive - only nine months after PT9 shipped it's $299 to upgrade the base version and $999 upgrade for those with hardware. Only a 20 day grace period for those who just bought the last version. They're going to dump their current plugin formats as well as support for much of their hardware. And STILL not 64 bit, that's not coming until PT11 whenever that is (which is the version that dumps all the legacy stuff, so more $$$ for that upgrade AND new hardware AND likely paid updates for at least some plugins.

It looks like Avid is still doing OK on the video side but their latest moves with the audio software have users out with the torches and pitchforks. There's a good reason AVID stock just hit an all time low.

What ever happened to the good old 'It's not the tool, it's the artist' saying.

What happened is it's not completely true. While the artist is much more important, the tools have a significant amount of importance as well. Better tools can give a better result, and at the very least can give the same result much much faster.

 

[iBug2]

What ever happened to the good old 'It's not the tool, it's the artist' saying.

That saying does not mean the tool is not important. It means the artist is more important than the tool.

Kind of hard to paint if you don't have brushes.

 

[Sirmausalot]

I'd love to see you write a very cognizant post/article on the strengths and weaknesses of each software package. I love dual screen support, full sized viewer (I do so much work there) and OMF export. So I'm using Premiere Pro. To watch 4-8 cores crunching renders and encodes is a wonder.

I can't wait to try MC 6.

That said, Apple is really, really focusing on content for the web and mobile devices. My guess is that FCP X has the tools to do that really well for a vast majority of power (but not Pro) users.

Glad I'm not married to any particular NLE, just the Mac platform. My studio's Mac Pros all have FCP7/X, Premiere CS5.5, and Media Composer 5 (now soon to be 6).

I find in interesting to be able to sit back over my 14 years and watch one NLE's dominance come and go. One surpasses the other only to be surpassed itself and so on.

 

[McG2k1]

Actually, the serial port on the Nitris DX box doesn't do deck control. You still need a separate Keyspan to USB adapter to get deck control.

It's a bit aggravating given what you pay for a Nitris box that they somehow haven't included that function.

yeah forgot about the keyspan. I guess the nitris is really just an hd-sdi i/o box that'll let you hook up a VO mic. Pretty much a dinosaur at that price though.

 

[scotth23]

I bet most of the people who are complaining about Final Cut X are not professional themselves and would be better off with iMovie

What ever happened to the good old 'It's not the tool, it's the artist' saying.

I am a professional and while I'm not complaining about FCPX per se, I do have issues with how Apple handled the software. The main issue is that it doesn't have the same features that FCP7 has that I need to work for my clients.

Being Mac based, that means that I have a choice of either waiting it out until FCPX can eventually do what I need it to do or pick another application.

I work in a company with nine edit seats. Changing one means changing them all and changing workflow for 20 people. Not a task taken lightly.

If we decide to stick with FCP7 and wait it out, we have to hope that it happens within the lifespan of our computers. Apple doesn't always make it very easy to run some older apps on newer computers. A change in the Mac Pro line plus FCP7 being killed and not supported means that at some point, FCP7 may not like newer Macs or OSX. Not being able to upgrade at a reasonable cost to FCPX could mean that Avid seats need to be bought (at $1500 a seat) or Premeire.

So while it's not a big deal to me right now that FCPX doesn't do what my company needs it to do, we could find ourselves in a hole when our equipment decides to stop working and we need to overhaul. At that point, we may be forced to make a decision that we normally wouldn't have to if FCP wasn't end of life'd.

Say what you will about Avid. It's certainly not for everyone. But with their jump to 64 bit, they didn't abandon the core of their editing system. They could have overhauled and gotten rid of tape capture and decided to launch a program without client monitoring, etc. But it's obvious that that wouldn't work for the majority of their user base which is the professional market.

The majority of FCP7's user base is not professional. Not by a long shot. Pros encompass something like 12 percent of FCP users (the last reference I saw to that percentage was between 12 and 15 percent). If Apple was tapping the enthusiast market at $999 (and the thousands of free cracked users), how many could they tap at $299? And how many of those non-pros care about deck control or client monitoring? Very very few.

Again, it all comes down to what you need. You don't buy a jack hammer when a claw hammer will work. Different tools for different needs and jobs. The problem with FCPX is that it has created a period of uncertainty for a lot of customers that won't be cleared up for quite awhile. In the case of the original FCP, it took until version 5. Most pros don't have that long to wait.

----------

yeah forgot about the keyspan. I guess the nitris is really just an hd-sdi i/o box that'll let you hook up a VO mic. Pretty much a dinosaur at that price though.

It was originally doing some outboard processing and has slots for decoding etc. I believe they actually released one for AVCHD.

But the 64 bit release seems to get rid of any need for outboard decoding. We have a Nitris DX on our Symphony which is fine for universal mastering but Mojos on our MC seats. Now, if AJA decides to support our LHe cards (and not just the LHe Plus), we can dual boot our FCP7 machines and load MC 6 as well which is the best of both worlds.

 

[LethalWolfe]

Apple did not shelve Shake when they bought it. They did it after several iterations/years. They shelved it when Nothing Real team left Apple claiming that it's not a suitable environment for specialized software like Shake, which they were right about.

Yes, Apple didn't put Shake on a shelf immediately. It took a little time for them to walk it over to the shelf first.

Apple took it from 2.5 to 4.1 over four years with some of the biggest changes being deeply discounting the Mac version while killing off the Windows and Linux versions. From my perspective the remaining Nothing Real guys leaving didn't kill Shake. Shake was already dead by the time they left.


Lethal

 

[iBug2]

Yes, Apple didn't put Shake on a shelf immediately. It took a little time for them to walk it over to the shelf first.

Apple took it from 2.5 to 4.1 over four years with some of the biggest changes being deeply discounting the Mac version while killing off the Windows and Linux versions. From my perspective the remaining Nothing Real guys leaving didn't kill Shake. Shake was already dead by the time they left.


Lethal

Well, they already explained why they left, that it wasn't a good environment to develop Shake and Apple's policies made it very difficult etc. But obviously when they joined in, they were happy for a while because they didn't leave immediately.

And again, Shake's new versions which were released under Apple were used for very big projects back then. So your dead Shake was good enough for almost anyone. I'm not arguing whether or not Shake would have been developed even more if Apple didn't buy it. Maybe it would be, and maybe it would still die. The argument started with the price. Apple's sale price of Shake was considerably less than its original price, so someone looking at the Apple price and saying "Nobody pays 200$ on a Pro software lol" would be unreasonable because Shake still was a top tier app even if it's price was around couple hundred bucks.