Fade to Gray at Avid Technology

[Yi Fong Yu]

while i was still in college, i did some business analysis for capstone class (management was my major) and our team had to do a presentation on AVID. their strongest suit is still the commercial NLE, the business unit that generates the most amount of $. softimage is suffering, they should have sold that off long ago, it isn't a part of their core business. pinnacle is bundled with a lot of products, but that doesn't mean consumers use it.

i think avid has to get rid of the business units that generating huge profit margins and concentrate on what they do best, innovate and stay ahead of everyone else.

as much as there is hype about avid's demise, it will be difficult to switch someone like CNN away from their platform. when you watch cnn headline news, all those clips are stored, managed and organized by avid products through and through. powerhouses like cnn won't let avid die that easily.

[Mike Paterson]

Avid is just enjoying the results of their longstanding arrogant and complacent attitude towards the market, in particular towards the smaller producer, which they have systematically alienated over the years through poor pricing and lack of response to customer needs. They finally seem to be waking up to this fact, and I sincerely hope that their 'new thinking' really does signal a genuine change of attitude towards the customer. It's still a great product, and although I can't really see it happening anytime in the near future, it would be a pity to see it go under because of poor corporate decision-making.

[Eric Stemen]

I wonder If I'm the only one who hopes Avid goes under.

Edit: It looks like at least one other person in this thread feels the same way.

[Bill Busby]

[QUOTE=Eric Stemen;908448]I wonder If I'm the only one who hopes Avid goes under./QUOTE]

And that will benefit you how?

[David Parks]

Originally Posted by Eric Stemen

I wonder If I'm the only one who hopes Avid goes under.

Edit: It looks like at least one other person in this thread feels the same way.

Eric,

Why would you or anyone wish that an American company go under where people lose jobs? It would impact thousands of people and their families. How could you wish this on anyone??? Is this supposed to be funny!!!!

I really believe that is the most selfish sentiment and statement I have seen on this forum. Even Apple hopes Avid succeeds somewhat. After all, a lot of Media Composers and Pro Tools intallations are on MAC.

I think this thread is totally stupid. If you want to track Avid's performance for stock reasons then wait until July 24th when they announce earnings. Otherwise this is stupid speculation, hearsay, and quite honestly of no use to anyone. I promise you Avid is not going out of business.

Sorry but this really hacks me off.

[Eric Stemen]

No it is not supposed to be funny, this is just the way I feel. Sorry to offend you. I have no problem if you think this is selfish, it is selfish, I can admit that.

To answer Bill's question, this would benefit me because eventually I would no longer have to use Avid, I don't find the program very intuitive, but to be fair I've only been using it for a little over a year.(Yes, you could respond by saying "then find someplace that does not use Avid")

Again, sorry to hack you off, but I stand by what I said.

If you would like I can name other American companies that I would like to go out of business, and give reasons.

Sorry for going off topic.

[David Parks]

I'm sorry but I'm pretty sure your wish won't come true. Avid will be fine.

In the meantime if you have any questions or need tips on how to make Avid possibly work for you, feel free to ask over in the Avid section here at dvinfo. Myself and several other Avid editors trade tips and sometimes even vent about Avid. No program or company is perfect and I'll just leave it at that.

I've been editing on Avid for 15 years and can perhaps help you with any issues.

If not, then try another program that works for you. I also edit on FCP and have some experience on Premiere. No one program has all of the answers.

[Eric Stemen]

Sorry I made that post, and sorry for offending anyone. When posting I did not mean to offend. I was having a very bad day last night(I know this is no excuse). Thanks for handling your follow up post so nicely David, if I have questions that I can't find the answer to at work I will turn to the Avid forum.
Thanks again.

[Jim Boda]

I really like some of the positive changes that Avid made w/ MC3.

It looks like they borrowed some of the practical features from Avid Liquid...
Increased GPU processing power
Mixed formats in timeline
Track inserts
Improved clip movement on timeline (select and drag)
Raster presets
TC window burn pluggin (realtime)

To view the MC3 features video (flash)... http://aimediaserver4.com/studiodail...475&height=316

[Peter Moretti]

Originally Posted by Brett Bevelacqua

I hate Avid with every fiber of my being, 15 years of editing on Avid will do that to you. The only reason it still survives is the lack of pros on FCP.

And I know many Avid editors who've been working on the program for just as long and love the program.

[David Parks]

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

This is just a sample of the type of mission critical systems installations Avid gets big bucks for that shows loyalty from the networks. This is the fifth Olympics for Avid.

[Magnus Helander]

Originally Posted by Theodore McNeil

I got the whole article through this link...

"It is really, increasingly, financial suicide to consider using Avid," when the same work can be done with Apple gear, [Emmy Award Winning Editor John Alpert] says."

I see the same cycle as when Quark Xpress dominated the DTP market in mid 90's. Most people I came in contact with who had to use Xpress at work were suffering with the software and the aggressive support. Then came InDesign and took a massive market share, and Quark had to start to change... here is from Wikipedia

In the late 1990s, Quark faced intense criticism for slow innovation cycles, high prices, and a poor response to customer needs. Therefore, many customers welcomed the release of Adobe InDesign as a less expensive and viable alternative. The availability of InDesign, which was initially released in 1999, resulted in QuarkXPress losing market share. InDesign also demonstrated the first significant competition for that market, which forced Quark to lower prices and invest more into service and marketing. As of 2007, neither QuarkXPress nor InDesign could claim a dominant position.

Quark, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So... Avid will change, get friendly, add interoperability and become more user focused.
When we requested an "AVI uncompressed export" (or whatever that is called in Avid speak) from our Avid editor to bring the material to Vegas, his AVID system exported in 8-bit color, and deeper export was not possible (i.e 10/16/32 bit) on his system. That's just ridiculous.

[Bill Ravens]

The marketplace, and yes, the free market system, is self regulating, as long as there is healthy competition. Consumers hold more selective power than they realize, and are held powerless only because they won't co-operate with each other. Successful products are those that meet customer needs. Companies rise and fall as they realize their market base and get arrogant and ignore it. Companies respond to their mistakes or go out of business. Unless, of course, you're General Motors.

[Evan Donn]

I think Magnus hit the most important point - competition is good for all of us. I use FCP and not Avid, but I like the fact that Apple has to compete with Avid as it drives them both to innovate and then respond with feature parity to the other's innovations.

[Peter Moretti]

Originally Posted by Magnus Helander

... When we requested an "AVI uncompressed export" (or whatever that is called in Avid speak) from our Avid editor to bring the material to Vegas, his AVID system exported in 8-bit color, and deeper export was not possible (i.e 10/16/32 bit) on his system. That's just ridiculous.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Avid does read and export 10-bit color. And you can export using Avid's 1:1 format which is uncompressed. Granted it's a QT not AVI format, but Vegas can read QT's.