RE: NEW - Tell Avid What Makes DS Special
We have noted that Avid is a very different
vendor than anyone else NBC deals with. Generally, when we talk to a
vendor about problems -- especially right after a sale -- they really
work to fix the problems because they can crow about their success to
the rest of the world.
Avid has offered a "mea culpa" and has done very
little to solve some of the problems. That's wierd.
Mind you, NBC has some management issues that
nobody, save NBC can solve. One cannot blame Avid for managers in one
department not agreeing with managers in another in all fairness to
Avid.
A note about the NBC - Panasonic "M-2" decision
(for Sean):
When NBC decided on M-2, Sony Betacam-SP was not
out yet. Sony showed Betacam-SP at NAB but they did not have the kinks
worked out on it. The tape cassettes for 90-minute or 60-minute
playback or record required a reconfiguration of storage space (versus
U-Matic) to a taller cassette. The quality just wasn't quite as good as
what Panasonic was showing.
Also, Sony was this really arrogant company back
then -- and they still are today. Their gear sells for a lot more than
anyone else's. The quality varies.
NBC found out that M-2 was a bad decision in
Vietnam. When Vietnam opened up to the world and all of the US networks
went there to do reports, NBC had shipped out their M-2 gear. It got
totally messed up in the jungle and didn't work. NBC could not get
tapes, other than those shipped in from the US or Japan. They could not
get parts. They could not get on the air.
They adopted Betacam-SP at that point and, in
order to get their foot in the door, Sony turned themselves inside out
to offer deals on their equipment.
The managers who wound up "owning" the decision
to adopt M-2 were promised positions by Panasonic. They got them. Now
this is not as sleazy as you might think because it was those managers
that made Panasonic more responsive to broadcasters over time. The end
result was the DV format, which even Sony had to adopt for a while.
Sony has come back with a new tape format that
records 60 frames per second in 1080 for high definition and then plays
back whatever you want it to play back at whatever frame rate you like.
That's the only way they could compete and everyone wins because of the
competition.
When I started working at NBC, we all used
Betacam-SP and each linear newscutting room had one M-2 machine for
backwards compatibility. I used to use those to record voiceovers and,
sometimes, b-rolls. A four-machine room is superior -- even with an M-2
deck -- than a three-machine room if you're trying to be creative.
NBC used other such "non-standard" equipment for
editing as the Grass Valley 151 and 251 editors, the GVG 100 and 110
switcher (as well as the 200 and 300). The GVG DPM-700 digital effects
box was the only real oddball but I had previously learned it and was
really good on it.
So a sale to NBC does set a trend -- even though
they made one mistake in the past.
The big difference is that NBC no longer
dictates to the local stations like they used to with respect to
hardware. And that is why M-2 was such a nightmare. But it's all in the
past now. Nobody can say that choosing the Avid Newscutter Adrenaline
was an M-2 decision for editing news.
--
So a sale, like Avid did with the DS and the
Newscutters, the huge Unity Server for recording feeds and the other
little Unitys that serve the DSs (mostly in the HD post area) are
something they can certainly crow about to any network, to any
television station, to any post house.
Hi Bob,
An email for your
return from the land of peace ;-)
<rant>
I agree with
absolutely all of your points. In particular I would HATE to have to
go back to the clunky and ancient MC interface. It was very clever
when they introduced it back in 1988 and has undergone many
improvements over the last 17 years. However, Softimage demonstrated
with DS that by thinking with a fresh mind, and asking as many editors
as they could get their hands on what features they actually wanted
as opposed to what a technician could make they could
come up with a far superior editing workflow.
Unfortunately,
when you try to point that out to any of the long-term Avid suits you
are confronted with a brick wall of monumental arrogance. They will
tell you with a totally serious face that "MC has been going for many years (yes we
know - seventeen of them) and all of the improvements have
been included in response to users' requests. We therefore now have
the perfect editing interface."
They really mean this - with total sincerity. They are completely
blind to the fact that how ever many improvements you add to a
fundamentally flawed interface you are still left with a flawed
product. Of course they think that the MC workflow is superior to the
DS workflow because they have
never taken the time or trouble to understand the DS methodology.
I completely
agree with your offline/online points too. Our biggest arguments with
our biggest client is that their editors really shouldn't be wasting
their time tweaking effects on their Adrenalines because all we'll do
is throw those effects in the trash anyway, and then rebuild them
"properly". It's what we do. We specialise in making quality
broadcast programming - creating believable keys, snazzy graphic
inserts, quality grading etc etc.
We now get 95%+
"Total Conform" and, mostly, are very happy with the way conforms,
well, conform. AVX2 would be very welcome, but you don't need Phony
Nitris for that. Animated curves on the CC would be welcome, but you
don't need Phony Nitris for that. RT Secondaries would be very
welcome, but you don't need Phony Nitris for that…. The list goes on
and on.
I really don't
know (exactly) what the future holds for DS. I despair at the
continued silence from Avid despite the assurances I have had from
certain executives (you know who you are) to the contrary. I even
offered (back in July!) to write an announcement for them to amend as
they saw fit… and still we have silence.
</rant>
I just feel
drained.
Regards,
Tony
-----Original
Message-----
From:
owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-ds(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Bob Maple
Sent: 23 November
2005 10:57
To: DS(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: NEW -
Tell Avid What Makes DS Special
> So, if Phony
Nitris were to get DS's trees, what would you miss from
> DS?
Even if they
stapled effects trees into SymPhony, it will wouldn't be a DS.
It's still the same
crappy box, with it's archaic editing interface.
What is the point
of putting all the good stuff from DS into a SymPhony? It seems like
the same situation we're already in, except in the opposite direction -
The MC editors who want SymPhony are just lazy and don't want to learn
something new. Wouldn't they all rather keep going with nested
effects, the horrible effects pallete, and video mixdowns, than learn
how to use trees, etc?
[soapbox on]
Personally,
editing on the MC interface drives me crazy. It's not intuitive. It's
ancient. You have to click 10 things to perform 1 action, and there's
a sea of hieroglyphic buttons on the interface to support this
insanity. On DS, if I want a clip to go over there, I just pick it up
and put it over there... why does it need to be more difficult? With
timeline magnetism, it's the perfect balance between having a
drag-and-drop interface and not being able to screw up your timeline
too easily (like in Vegas).
And the way DS
thinks of media is SO much more intelligent than MC.
To me, AVID does
not understand DS at all and never did. They are "giving the customer
what they want" with SymPhony, to make a quick dollar - and
unfortunately it's probably what they SHOULD be doing. AVID is out to
make money, not please a minority. It sucks for us, but it's the
truth. Clearly they don't want put themselves behind DS anymore..
fine, I get that. They bought Softimage for the 3D, and DS was just
the stepchild that came along with the marriage that they really didn't
want in the first place.
The main thing
AVID doesn't seem to truly understand, to me, is compositing &
effects for finishing work. Symphony is not that box. Marquee is not
that tool. They haven't done anything themselves, they've just keep
buying other companies to try and solve their problems - it's like they
just don't understand it. They get excited over saying things like
"Total Conform".
So WHAT if I have
"total conform" from an MC, if it's still the same crappy toolset?
Personally, the
stuff that comes across into DS currently is pretty much what I need,
because the rest winds up getting rebuilt anyway. Perhaps other
facilities work a different way (I'm sure), but at our place the MC is
an OFFLINE system! The rate is like 1/4 of online. You're there to
spend your time and money doing your editorial, cutting your content,
telling the story.. not spending all day trying to pull a perfect key,
or track shots into monitors. Thats MY job, to use my expertise and
visual creativity make things look pretty... so when I get an AAF with
a chroma key or a color correction, it doesn't really matter, cuz it's
going in the trash anyway.
But, I digress..
It's late, and now I'm just cranky, so I'll shut up :) I just wish
AVID had the balls to come out and state their intentions, for better
or for worse, instead of just leaving us in the dark to rant like fools
on this list. But of course they can't do that for their pinhead
business reasons (I have a very low tollerance for BS in general,
particularly the games that these businessmen play.)
[soapbox off]
| Bob Maple |
bobm_at_burner_dot_com | [http] burner.com
|
| I don't want the
world, I just want your half.
| - They Might Be
Giants
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