This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] Phrase find & Script Sync update?

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Re: [Avid-L2] Phrase find & Script Sync update?

Yeah, your wrong :). Sorry Pete.

We're still working with the Nexidia folks, that's about it. We both understand the urgency to get a deal done. Nexidia has a different arrangement with Boris and as Oliver and other pointed out there are major differences in the functionality.

David Colantuoni

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From: "'Pete Opotowsky' popix@cfl.rr.com [Avid-L2]" <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com>
Reply-To: "Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com" <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Saturday, July 26, 2014 at 4:10 PM
To: "Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com" <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: RE: [Avid-L2] Phrase find & Script Sync update?

Not saying that these features aren't useful. Or that the Avid version of these tools aren't superior. I use them all the time and they are. I'm saying the numbers don't add up. From my vantage point here on the outside of the outside, the fact that SS/PF aren't currently being offered would seem to indicate a disagreement over licensing. Yet other products - stand alone products which use the core tech – are being offered at price points below what Avid was charging for a v7 option ($300 vs ~$1250). The Nexidia tech basically turns audio into text. Once it's in text form does it really take a whole lot to find matching text in two different strings? An additional $1K worth of coding plus on the price of every seat? And you can do some this without the SS/PF option at all (ctl-F to find clip names etc., we can still do that in v8 right?) Everything discussed below doesn't explain the presumed difference in price between Soundbite and some proposed v8+ inclusive of SS/PF, which we must assume would be significantly more than what was being charged for the v7 option. We're talking more thanhalf the price of a full MC v7 seat or several years of V8.

Now, I could be wrong. Avid may have some other reason to be balking, but If the problem isn't the licensing cost then what's the hold up? The subscription model?

Pete O

POP Pictures

Orlando

From: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2014 2:10 PM
To: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Avid-L2] Phrase find & Script Sync update?

Well, I'd disagree with calling it "minutia."

You are correct that it is the same voice recognition. It's the same voice recognition that powers ScriptSync as well. But there is the Nexidia part of the patents (the people that do the actual "listening" to the phonetics) and then there's the Avid side, that ties the phonetics to the script or that allows the links in the audio to call up actual clips.

With Get and Soundbite, you have to run these as EXTERNAL operations. You also have to SHOW it the media you want to look at. If all your media isn't in one place, then it doesn't look at it at all. With Avid, the phonetic search runs in the background at all times, so your audio is constantly analyzed and searched. With Get and Soundbite, you have to run these searches and allow them time to do their thing. In Avid, it's much more instantaneous.

Also, with Get and Soundbite, you search for CLIPS that have the audio, THEN you search for the words inside those clips. Then you have to export those searches back into Final Cut or whatever app you're using. So it's a FOUR step process to get to your searched word: 1) launch a separate app, 2) point to a limited media selection and find a clip, 3) search for the word inside the clip, 4) export markers back to your app. And if you wanted to you could claim it's more like an 9 step process: 1) leave NLE, 2) Launch Soundbite, 3) point to specific folder of limited media (as opposed to ALL of your media, potentially in Avid), 4) run search to find clips, 5) run search inside a specific clip to find words, 6) Hop between clips to find more words, 7) Export the markers for each clip, 8) Import the markers for each clip into NLE, 9) search through markers again to find specific instance of soundbite you wanted.

In Avid, this is a much faster 3 step process: 1) command-F to launch a search, 2)run the search word, 3) click on the found soundbite.

The issue is definitely the llcensing from Nexidia. But we are not privvy to those negotiations so it's a little hard to criticize them. Maybe Nexidia knows it has Avid over a barrel with one of their key features. Maybe they felt like they got hosed in previous negotiations and are trying to make good now. Maybe they have multiple suitors for their technology and are realizing the value of their end of the patent. Maybe Avid is broke. Maybe Avid's lawyers are stuck on a single small part of the agreement. Maybe Nexidia has poured a lot more into the R&D of their side of the product, making it more valuable and successful.

But Avid definitely integrates their technology far better than anyone else does, so I refuse to recognize that as "minutia." You use Soundbite, and I'll use PhraseFind for a project and then we'll add up all the lost hours you spent and subtract them from your family time or your ability to do actual creative work and talk again about "minutia."

Steve Hullfish

On Jul 26, 2014, at 1:38 PM, 'Pete Opotowsky' popix@cfl.rr.com [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Minutia. It's the same voice recognition patents being licensed. Which is what we're being led to believe is the issue.

Pete O

POP Pictures

Orlando

From:Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com [mailto:Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2014 1:23 PM
To: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Avid-L2] Re: Phrase find & Script Sync update?

Soundbite equates only to PhraseFind. It offers no direct interaction with the NLE, but only sends markers back to the NLE from an external search. You can't originate the search from within the NLE. I don't believe it can search MXF files, but I could be wrong on that.

- Oliver