[Avid-L2] Re: Why isn't Avid marketing all over this story?

Ian,

> Oliver, do you really think Da Vinci would be on
> the market if it was selling?
> Ian Wilson

I'm not sure that's a given. For example, take a look at Quantel. They did a leveraged buy-out from Carlton in 2000. This past year was their most profitable since that buy-out. They have come on quite strong in DI and news/broadcast servers, but it's a company that many would have argued could not survive the desktop world. Re-establishing the company based on new core R&D developments (Generation Q technology) gave them a new life.

In the case of DaVinci, they have been encumbered by proprietary hardware in the 2K systems and existing support contracts. The first thing BMD did was wipe that legacy out. Now this doesn't make 2K customers happy, but it may well be a required survival move.

As I understand it, Resolve is "software only", but it actually runs on a very optimized cluster of Linux boxes. You can't simply replicate that performance with a card today or even in the next couple of years. If you don't have performance, you don't buy a DaVinci. Resolve is "software only" in the same way that Flame and Lustre are "software only".

Second is the issue of telecine support. A lot of DaVinci customers are grading from telecines, i.e. direct from the negative or print. That's a lot more involved there than grading from scans or files or even videotape. My point is that the items that make a DaVinci desirable to customers cannot be easily reduced in cost.

There are already two other vendors making desktop grading tools who could easily step in if they wanted to. That's FilmLight and IRIDAS. FilmLight has a version of BaseLight that runs on a MacBook Pro. They will only sell this software app to customers who own a full system. IRIDAS maintains a pricing model like Final Touch used to: very expensive and tiered around resolution. Both companies could easily decide tomorrow to sell a 2K-and-higher grading app for $1K if they felt it made sense. I maintain again that it doesn't, because Apple chose to give away Color with Studio.

Then there's also Synthetic Aperture who sells a powerful standalone version of Color Finesse. It basically works like Color, but they were unfortunate in bringing it to market right when Color was bundled by Apple.

So, if you go back to everything that Grant has publicly said, his intention at this point is to maintain DaVinci as a high-end product. We'll see if the market proves him right.

Cheers,
Oliver

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