Avid to form new consumer division, to buy Pinnacle

[Marco Leavitt]

ACBJ news story:
http://tinyurl.com/5uemx

I would like to link to the original release, but you need to be a member of Businesswire. I could post it in its entirety here, but I don't know if that's okay.

[Chris Hurd]

We can't allow posting of another site's content, but the link is very much appreciated. And as big as Pinnacle is, this is pretty significant news! Thanks Marco,

[Jimmy McKenzie]

http://www.avid.com/company/releases..._pinnacle.html

[Chris Hurd]

Great -- thanks! So it looks like Pinnacle's consumer division resources will form the basis for a new consumer products branch within Avid. Very interesting!

[Stephen Schleicher]

Maybe with Avid buying Pinacle we will finally see products that stick around in the market for longer than two years before the company chucks it out the window.

Pinnacle has never been a favorite of mine for just that reason. They would introduce a product and within three years the company would discontinue it with no updates or update path. What a waste of money for someone who dumped money into an editing application or graphics card only to find out that it is no longer supported by the company.

Cheers
Stephen Schleicher
www.mindspring.com/~schleicher

[Ed Smith]

Sooner or later everything will be AVID ;-)

[Patrick King]

Has Avid dealt much with hardware before this? Haven't they been strictly software?

[Chris Hurd]

In addition to acquiring Pinnacle's hardware, I'm sure they're getting Pinnacle's people as well, so I don't think there will be much to worry about in that regard.

[Gary Bettan]

As many here know, we carry both Pinnacle and Avid.

Actually Avid for many years used Pinnacle/Truevision hardware in their solutions.

Pinnacles Studio user base is 10 million. Even if the figure is only half that, that's still a huge group of potential Avid editors.

I'm not sure where Edition fits in all of this, but clearly there is technology their that Avid can use across their prodcut line -

Integrated DVD authoring
Native HDV & MPEG2 editing
Background Rendering
Deko Titling
3D tools including HFX
Moviebox external converters and thenew LE6 pro break out box.

It's going to be very exciting and iteresting to see how this all comes together.

Gary
Videoguys,com

[Patrick King]

Chris,

I don't think anyone should worry except their competitors.

I think I may be wrong though, isn't MOJO an Avid product. If so, they're combining the talents of two good hardware teams.

C'mon Sony Media, we want you to acquire some hardware folks to build for Vegas!

[Gary Bettan]

Just imagine - an external box that had all of the I/O of the Pinnacle LE6 break-our box. plus the real-time acceleration of MOJO!! That would be VERY cool!

I know that's one I'll be asking for.

Gary

[Devlyn Hukowich]

Lets hope that everything won't be AVID.

AVID has had complex hardware for their high end systems since the beginning. At one time this was the only way to edit video on a computer. Computer based editing needs to come out of the dark ages. Use of the higher powered hardware that is now available in computers. An a shift in edit interfaces needs to happen.
A few have started on the hardware front, with leverging the power of the graphics cards for FX. But except for a couple of companies the editing interfaces are all the same. Jaleo is back (after being on the edge for a couple of years) www.jaleousa.com
So is Lightworks (www.lwks.com)

However these systems are out of the reach of mere mortals. Editing interfaces however are unique and different.
I have trained editors on the Lightworks in 1 to 2 hours. The interface is unique, fast and extremely easy to use. It also is possibly the only true non-linear editing system.
Before aiming both barrels at me take a look at the demo videos and forget about the current editing model. We can only hope that they are working on a software only version for the rest of us.

[George Ellis]

As a Liquid user since 4.5, I do not share Gary's enthusiasm about this merger. Avid has already stated in the announcement that the 'consumer' products a good step to real editing. Considering that Avid upgrades are the price of the full Liquid Edition 6, my pocketbook just flinched as well.

Hey, the good news is that my next editor will have its own forum section here. ;)

[Richard Alvarez]

Avid has always had hardware assist to their software. MOJO and Adreneline utilize FPGA's (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) To accomplish some amazing stuff, so the addition of Pinnacle will be a sweet thing.

As to user interfaces 'needing to change'. I think it's kind of 'survival of the fittest' in that sense. The AVID interface has changed a bit over the years, and changes a little bit each time new technology is incorporated. But re-inventing the wheel is a hard row to hoe. Especially as a practical business model. Vegas has a real 'ouside the box' attitude about their GUI. But I noticed that their high end products, XPRI, which goes head to head with high end Avid in production houses... looks just like Avid. Their marketing materials even includes the line "...and an industry standard user interface just like the one you're probably using now." I would even be willing to bet that the next 'pro' version of Vegas, includes an 'avid like' interface option.

[Devlyn Hukowich]

Unfortunatly Richard you are correct. But "Survival of the Fittest" looks more like getting "BetaMaxed".
The current "Timeline" based "Industry standard" interface is OK for most people, most of the time. But I just don't believe that it is the best editing interface.
I have worked on AVID, Vegas, Premiere & Pinnacle based systems. They require alot work work to manovere around, they are rigid, structured interfaces and require many days of playing with and learning to get the simplest edit done. Is this the best use of time for editing?
There are times when more complex does not translate into more efficient.