Nice review on new Avid

Shane posted a nice review of the new Media Composer 6.0 here : [lfhd.net] Some interesting developments for FCP switchers.

Also read Michael Kammes's review.

[michaelkammes.com]

Michael Horton
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Well it looks like Avid finally started listening to the users! MC6 looks great - will have to put it to the test.

Avid now looks like a really fantastic grown-up-product with proper WIDE industry integration rather than the "petulant Wall Street businessman with a 'Peter Pan complex' sitting in his expensive, secluded, rather-dated apartment with 'special friends' group chatting about how they think the world is, without ever venturing outside to see the damage". Deep breath...

Harsh but hey, if the berluti's fit...

Yes until recently Avid seemed to still think that video editing was a niche market! And well, that's what they ended up with. I think MC6 could finally be the start of something far wider-reaching. As a freelancer I hope this means the majority of facilities house finally start upgrading their antiquated Avid suites instead of charging astronomical amounts for outdated tech!

I'm really looking forward to the release: [www.avid.com]

Especially if they deliver it without all the usual bugs!

If only Apple was this quick to realise that when Steve Jobs said:

?You can?t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they?ll want something new.?

He was actually wrong...

...he should have simply said:

?Give them what they NEED - but show them more as well!?


I think you'll all agree - as Pros we KNOW what we need. I mean we DO work with the Hard/Software every ruddy day!

I am not averse to a "new way" of editing as long as that paradigm shift allows for seamless (and easy 1 step) integration into the "old-way".


Note to all developers:

Try making the basics work properly before investing all the time in gimmicks!

*Avid, Apple and Adobe (although Adobe in recent years have almost reversed the trend) are often too wrapped up in creating something that they think we want/need - too often they forget that they should be EXTENSIVELY consulting the people they make their products for.


Anyway kudos to Avid for finally taking the hint (albeit several years of hints).

Now I just need a new MacPro (or MacPro replacement) to run my AAA* edit suite on!

...cus despite the good news - Avid and Adobe on Windows PC still sucks - BIG TIME.

Time to explore a Hackintosh?



For instant answers to more than one hundred common FCP questions, check out the LAFCPUG FAQ Wiki here : [www.lafcpug.org]

Shane did an absolutely fantastic job on that review and he's been absolutely giddy over the AJA Kona performance during all the testing.

I can tell you here at our shop, the operation of the AJA Kona 3 in our system has been performing flawlessly with MC6. I would still have to really ramp up my efficiency in the application as this testing was the first time in over 12 years I've used Avid for any more than an NAB once through.

We need Avid to address one issue and we would be able to implement the software company wide. But overall, this is definitely a new and much more open company than I've ever dealt with in the past.

We'll definitely install both Avid and Adobe in our shop moving forward since both allow us to go cross platform and I've gotten some excellent recommended Windows 7 configurations from a colleague. Don't really feel the need for a Mac Pro any longer and we'll drop the ProRes workflow in favor of DNxHD most likely which Premiere also supports with the codec installed.

Which of the two applications will be our primary editing system remains to be seen. More testing to do but we'll be making our final decision shortly.

But kudos to Avid for finally opening up the product to AJA / BMD / Matrox and other third party products. They've done an excellent job of moving forward into 64bit, improving the interface and software while not alienating the current user base. Avid and Adobe have certainly shown the correct way to move a professional editing product forward into 64bit.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

Just curious, Walter, what are you using for shared storage on the Avids?



www.strypesinpost.com

strypes Wrote:
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> Just curious, Walter, what are you using for
> shared storage on the Avids?

Can't comment on that at this time. Sorry. After the product is publicly released I can talk more.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

Dontcha love NDAs? ;-)

I was really fast on the Avid Express back in the day...cutting 3 - 5 spots a day at the sweat shop ad agency... but the buggy crashy software, proprietary crap hardware, expensive maintenance plans and horrific Customer Service pushed me away from Avid for good in 2003. This is an absolute gamechanger...period. I will definitely be adding MC6 to my kit and pushing it.

Gotta give Apple credit...the FCPX debacle gave us 2 SOLID new editors to use in our kits = Premiere CS 5.5 and MC6.

When life gives you dilemmas...make dilemmanade.

grafixjoe Wrote:
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> Gotta give Apple credit...the FCPX debacle gave us
> 2 SOLID new editors to use in our kits = Premiere
> CS 5.5 and MC6.

That's what a long time Avid editor was commenting about here in Atlanta a few weeks ago. Apple was poised to kill of Avid and then handed them a beautiful lifeline in the form of X.

Adobe and Avid certainly stand to gain the most in the short term since they've managed to go 64 bit without disrupting the long standing workflow and are both improving on their legacies.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

strypes Wrote:
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> Just curious, Walter, what are you using for
> shared storage on the Avids?

My article is now published on the Creative Cow website. We're using our Small Tree ethernet SAN with the Avid and I show you how to enable the drives in the article.

[library.creativecow.net]

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

Just read it. Nice one, Walter. Does it generate a lock file if two people open the same bin (like on a Unity) or does it share in an FCP manner where you have to be careful about not saving over someone else's bin?



www.strypesinpost.com

strypes Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just read it. Nice one, Walter. Does it generate a
> lock file if two people open the same bin (like on
> a Unity) or does it share in an FCP manner where
> you have to be careful about not saving over
> someone else's bin?

Nope, it does not generate a lock file. What we are doing in our testing is simply creating a bin specific for the other editor to pull materials from. So yes, you have to be a bit careful like FCP but since we've been doing that for years, it's nothing different.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

Hey, I just read one of your articles on your SAN setup. Are you using 10gigE or do you have 8 cables on LACP?



www.strypesinpost.com

The 24 port switch is 10GigE throughout. But each of the suites is just getting standard GigE. We can switch that in the future, but just standard Cat6 cable to each computer from the switch. We've been cutting ProRes almost four years this way and DNxHD seems even lighter on the system.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
biscardicreative.com

Thanks. I figured something was different when I conservatively calculated some 800Gb/s of throughput from your main server, and 8 cables of link aggregation seems a little... well... far out.



www.strypesinpost.com