Avid and 720p

[Antony Michael Wilson]

I thought the few remaining Avid (non-Liquid) users on here would be interested in this:

http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/thread/86155.aspx

Personally, I have no words to express my disgust.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Antony Michael Wilson

I thought the few remaining Avid (non-Liquid) users on here would be interested in this:

http://www.avid.com/exchange/forums/thread/86155.aspx

Personally, I have no words to express my disgust.

What's worse is that Avid refuses -- even to a reviewer of a major magazine -- and even "off record" -- to confirm that there will be any future development of Liquid. Not even to confirm the 7.2 patch will arrive.

Liquid PM left Avid several months ago. Now if he was the "problem" that's good news, but somehow I never felt he was the problem. So either he left on his own or was fired. No need for a PM if you plan to simply sell as many as you can until the product dies. A repeat of the Avid VideoShop experience.

On the other hand, lots of development on the consumer side -- which may account for that group's lower margin. Which may be what the Pinnacle team is busy on.

I think Avid may be shocked that by the time they get Xpress Pro and Composer finished, no one will care. Liquid -- "as is" -- EDIUS and even Vegas seem to be doing well for PC users.

And how many Mac users will pay for an Xpress Pro upgrade sometime in late 2007 -- which is when the bug fixes arrive for next version that will arrive (likely at NAB). (I sure would not trust Mac Intel V1.) That will put Avid out of the "full" HDV Mac market for almost 2 years.

[Antony Michael Wilson]

Agreed. The most upsetting thing is that Liquid - a potentially fantastic alternative to Avid on the PC - is now owned by Avid. IMHO the Fast interface is great and it was very promising before the Pinnacle acquisition. Now that Avid have it, I really do fear for the future. If Avid did not now own Liquid, I would have switched properly to a Chrome HD setup.

Now, it's back to the drawing board. We are determined to set up a non-Avid system but it's very hard indeed to choose, especially for the PC.

[Stephen L. Noe]

Have no fear about losing Liquid or further developement. There are things "in the works" and on the way.

I don't know about Xpress, now that Media Composer is available as software only. We'll see...

[Adam Grunseth]

If you have ruled out Edius as a viable PC editing platform based on experiences with previus versions of this software (like I did). I seriously encourage you to take at version 4, it was a pleasant surprise.

I have used most major NLE's out there. In school I used Speed Razor, then FCP. My time as an intern I spent using Avid Xpress, Newscutter, and Symphony. When I started doing my own projects I purchased Premier Pro 2, and use Edius 3 in my day job.

My favorite video editor by far has been Avid- it has proven the most stable on long form projects, and seems to have better performance when scrubbing through extra long clips. Premier Pro and final cut seem slower to edit on, even using all the keyboard shortcuts. They also seem to become unstable on longer projects, and while playing out long timelines via firewire the audio will occasionally fall out of sync.

Edius 3 seems to have major issues working correctly with resources over a network, and even though it make it easy to work with a variety of formats on the same timeline doing so seems to make the application very unstable. I have had multiple program crashes with Edius, and even times where the whole computer would spontaneously restart itself. Edius also seemed to lack features... it had problems layering too many effects on the same clip, and has no support for nesting sequences.

The only decent editor out there for longer projects I felt was Avid, however of course Avid lacks support for the JVC100/110. This left me extremely discouraged.

Then, on a whim, I downloaded the trial version of Grass Valley's Edius 4. It is much improved. Its performance with start up time, and scrubbing through very long clips seemed on par with Avid. I also had no problems using loads of effects on a single clip, or with audio sync when playing out via firewire. The interface is also much improved (IMHO).

[David Parks]

Originally Posted by Stephen L. Noe

Have no fear about losing Liquid or further developement. There are things "in the works" and on the way.

I don't know about Xpress, now that Media Composer is available as software only. We'll see...

That sure would seem to make sense. Lose Xpress Pro because it's almost a Media Composer, use Liquid to replace Xpress Pro.

The main thing I have always worried about Avid is how long can it stay an independent company before it is absorbed by the like of Panasonic, Sony or even worse Microsoft. And the basis for this fear is that when you look at market share they're competing against Apple and Adobe. Apple can and will sell software at a cheap price when they can sell more expensive hardware while Adobe has such an extensive array of media/web dev. software to counterbalance selling a bundled suite for cheap. I predict, and I hope I'm wrong, that Avid will have no choice but get absorbed by a much larger company.

This year has taught me not to just bank on one editng platform. Be versed in other editing options. And that sucks because I love the Avid (Media Composer style) workflow.

[Steve Benner]

Avid's main source of income is not Hollywood. It is from the Federal Government. There is a major amount of money spent of Forensics Editing and this is the area where Avid makes a huge amount of money. I am not so sure they will get absorbed that easily.

[Jiri Bakala]

Originally Posted by Steve Benner

Avid's main source of income is not Hollywood. It is from teh Federal Government.

There are also Avid news environment applications, so many broadcasters are major customers for Avid, as well.

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Adam Grunseth

If you have ruled out Edius as a viable PC editing platform based on experiences with previus versions of this software (like I did). I seriously encourage you to take at version 4, it was a pleasant surprise.

I decided my trust in Avid's support for Liquid was so low, and the frustration of current Liquid users was so high, that despite loving Liquid I would fully setup EDIUS 4 on my MBP 2.

While it clearly is missing many Liquid features -- at least GV is reasonably commited to the product with no NLE conflicts. And, it really does work very well. It even supports the V1's 24p. Plus has it has the ability to edit HDV natively or with a better alternate to Avid's codec which Xpress Pro.

------

Have no fear about loosing Liquid or further developement. There are things "in the works" and on the way.

I don't know about Xpress, now that Media Composer is available as software only. We'll see...


Nice to think so, but if Avid can't get XP or MC out the door, and both are critical to their business, where are the $$$ coming from to support a $400 NLE that has a tiny market share? And, Liquid needs a ton -- read $$$ -- of support because it has mucho bugs and too is behind on HDV support.

[Antony Michael Wilson]

Well, what I would like to see is Liquid and the traditional Avid apps synthesised into one great product. I'm not holding my breath, though.

As to Xpress Pro - yes it certainly would make sense to get rid of it, bring the price down by about 40% on MC soft and offer secondary CC. Then Avid would have a product that could be much more of a direct rival to FCP at something close to its price point. As to the bundled studio apps (with Avid Xpress/MC) - what a load of hastily cobbled-together rubbish IMHO.

Steve - Your comments about Edius are very interesting. I have Edius Pro 3.6 but haven't used it a great deal so far. What do you mean about the Canopus codec being superior to Avid? Do you mean Canopus HQ is better than DNx? I am surprised, if this is the case.

[Steve Benner]

Steve, How is everything running on you MBP 2 anyway on the Windows Side? Any problems with any of the programs you are using?

[Steve Mullen]

Originally Posted by Antony Michael Wilson

Do you mean Canopus HQ is better than DNx? I am surprised, if this is the case.

According to an Canopus -- yes. :) But even if it were equal, the fact it's free with EDIUS.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> UPDATE

The Canopus HQ codec uses 4:2:2 subsampling and down-samples the luma resolution to 1440. Therefore, the luma resolution is equivalent to HDCAM and higher than DVCPRO HD—while chroma resolution is higher than both DVCPRO HD and HDCAM.

The Canopus codec operates at a data rate of 105Mbps, which is considerably lower than HDCAM (140Mbps) and approximately equal to DVCPRO HD (100Mbps).

The data rate—under 15 megabytes per second—for the 8-bit HQ codec is a fraction of 8-bit uncompressed video that has a data rate of 124Megabytes per second.

=================

The problem is -- even if MC were $2000, how many would care? I've written for years than no NLE is worth more than $1000. I think FCP proves this, so MC would really need to be $1000.

Were Avid to grock this, then fixing Liquid plus adding a few more features (all 24p flavors of HDV) and BD/HD DVD output (copied from Studio 10) and pricing it at $500 -- would be a real cool move.

But when Avid refuses to make a commitment that Liquid will even get a 7.2 upgrade -- I decided to put my time into customizing EDIUS rather than Liquid. I'll wait until I get 7.2 and see how many bugs get fixed. I'd love to go back to it.

------------

So far EDIUS 4.1, Vegas 7.0c, Liquid 7.1 all run fine! Premiere Pro 2 would only run after I removed a VFWxxx.dll. I have no idea if I broke it, but at least it now starts.

Remember that as the second parition, your XP media drive is going to become slow as it fills. I sure hopes someone releases a utility that can alter partitions on-the-fly.

[Gary Bettan]

Liquid is staying a very important part of the Avid product line. In fact in 2007 you will see a significant increase in the marketing and developement of this product.

Steve - while the Avid folks at Tewks have treated Liquid as the red -haired step-child, in Europe it is very successful. Over the past few months major changes have happened over at Avid. The marketing and product teams have been changed. Many of the key spots are now filled by the folks who have made Liquid such a big success in Europe.

I can't go into any more detail. I've met these guys and gals. They know what to do to make Liquid a HUGE success world-wide.

Gary

[Steve Benner]

Originally Posted by Gary Bettan

Liquid is staying a very important part of the Avid product line. In fact in 2007 you will see a significant increase in the marketing and developement of this product.

Steve - while the Avid folks at Tewks have treated Liquid as the red -haired step-child, in Europe it is very successful. Over the past few months major changes have happened over at Avid. The marketing and product teams have been changed. Many of the key spots are now filled by the folks who have made Liquid such a big success in Europe.

I can't go into any more detail. I've met these guys and gals. They know what to do to make Liquid a HUGE success world-wide.

Gary

Any talk about Xpress Pro and Media Composer getting HDV 1 Support?

[Stephen L. Noe]

Originally Posted by Gary Bettan

Liquid is staying a very important part of the Avid product line. In fact in 2007 you will see a significant increase in the marketing and developement of this product.

Steve - while the Avid folks at Tewks have treated Liquid as the red -haired step-child, in Europe it is very successful. Over the past few months major changes have happened over at Avid. The marketing and product teams have been changed. Many of the key spots are now filled by the folks who have made Liquid such a big success in Europe.

I can't go into any more detail. I've met these guys and gals. They know what to do to make Liquid a HUGE success world-wide.

Gary

I corroborate these comments from my own knowledge.