RE: Avid In Focus

["Derek Herr" <DHerr(at)rioting.com>]

Sorry, couldn’t resist…

 

In response to this http://www.avid.com/products/nleFamily.asp?dm=InFocus0927a

 

Avid works in mysterious ways.  I can’t really slam them since 1) they were gracious enough to employ me as an AE for a couple of years, 2) I make a decent living using their products, first Symphony and now DS.

 

That said…

 

==========START OF RANT==========

 

Just wait until all the wankers that were too lazy/stupid to learn the DS and cried to Avid about how they wanted Symphony to be HD get their wish:

 

Look at what has happened to a lot of the standard-def market:  Many SD TV shows finish in-house on their own Symphony or Adrenaline because it’s cheaper for them – their assistant editors are doing the “uprez” for pete’s sake.  Much of the SD TV finishing market has dried up, at least here in Los Angeles.  Even the SD reality shows are doing nearly all of their own finishing.

 

These same folks will figure they can get a Symphony Nitris and think they can do the same thing in HD—finish in-house.  It’ll probably even work on simple shows.  So buh-bye, wankers… time for a career change—there’s no need for a special HD finisher who only knows the MC interface.  There won’t even be much freelance work on the thing… the offline editors/assistants will just do it all on rental Symphony Nitrises.

 

But I imagine hilarity will ensue when more complex shows are run through the Symphony Nitris.  Yep, they’ll get a pixel-perfect “total conform” HD version of their offline creative work.  Complete with all the bad compositing, sloppy animattes, crappy-looking titles, and the zillion things that looked ok at lo-rez in the little Avid monitor but suck to the point of being not usable in HD, etc.  And they’ll be stuck with the rather pitiful (by comparison) Symphony tools to fix them. 

 

How will they deal with all the things that we routinely smooth over and make beautiful on the DS using tools not available on the Symphony?

 

They won’t.  Because they can’t.

 

They’ll send the “finished” assemblies over to a DS or a discreet/autodesk box to fix it.

 

==========END OF RANT===========

 

I made a great living driving a Symphony for many years back when it was in it’s prime and HD was not quite a reality.  But even if the Symphony Nitris works 100% as advertised, as an HD finishing box in my opinion it will be a joke.

 

Putting this *kluge* on the “top” of the Avid product list is laughable and insulting to the excellent team that continues to work on and support the DS.

 

Derek

 

---

From: owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Scott Roy
Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2005 10:07 AM
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: FW: Avid In Focus

 

 

Hi guys;

 

Just received the newest spam form avid....By the order of the line-up, seems symphony is at the TOP of the pile......Any indications of what's to come??

 

http://www.avid.com/products/nleFamily.asp?dm=InFocus0927a

 

 

//s

 

 

 

scott roy | editorial

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