This IS the Avid L2: Re: [Avid-L2] OTish: BBC and X

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Re: [Avid-L2] OTish: BBC and X

My experience is kind of similar to Tod's. I was an Avid editor for 15 years, then moved to FCP when I took over the in-house editing at a medium-sized ad agency. My Avid years were as an offline editor, with projects going off to color correct sessions, mixes, graphics and online finishing. At the agency, on the other hand, I found Final Cut to be superior as a combo online/offline tool. For the last two years I've been doing primarily corporate work, and once again FCP 7 seemed to have the efficiency advantage even though it was EOL. Unfortunately, it doesn't work very well now due to the old code. Crashes, restarts and out-of-memory errors have eliminated whatever speed advantages it used to have.

I tried FCP X for two jobs in the last year, but found it a PITA for my work. However, it might be just perfect for the BBC and news gathering in general. It's a pretty deep, impressive app with lots of tricks up its sleeve.

I'm back on Avid now, appreciating its stability, but I also find the handling of stills and audio mixing to be too cumbersome. Surprisingly, I'm not fond of Avid's current editing Modes and how they interact with trimming and moving clips around in the Timeline -- not terrible, but not slick and efficient. Many little annoyances I remember from 2007 are still part of Media Composer. Is the app too bloated and the code too complicated, making improvements overly difficult? Bottom line, I'm not sure I'll ever be as fast with Media Composer (as it stands) as I was with FCP 7 (when it worked).

Then there is Premiere Pro, which I've never tried. The assistant I was working with last week had just come from working at one of NYC's best ad agencies. The in-house post-production department there switched from FCP 7 to Premiere Pro; she reported that Premiere Pro was very easy to learn and everyone was happy with the switch. Hmmmmmm.

Take care -- Mark Block

---In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, <hoplist@...> wrote :

On Sep 6, 2014, at 2:52 PM, David Dodson davidadodson@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Out of curiosity, what is it about Avid that's making things so difficult in your shop?

That's a very complicated question. The very oversimplified answer is that Avid's strengths in customization and high-end workflows are of questionable value to us, while its weakness in ease of use have made many simple things more complicated. In short, Media Composer has decreased our productivity and I'm not confident this can be made up over time.

One good example of this is AMA linking, as already mentioned in this thread. Importing everything made perfect sense in a tape based world but not in a file based one. The vast majority of our raw footage comes to us in editable form. Transcoding is rarely useful to us. Media Composer is still way behind on file linking. Many functions of MC still do not work with AMA at all. AAF exports being one big one. You want to get your AMA linked sequence out of Avid, you must transcode.

Our project organization relies on drive level organization in files and folders. You cannot import this organization nor organize bins hierarchically to reflect such organization. I can't tell you how much this frustrates me. The ability to put bins in folders does not cut it. And while I'm at it, why do I have to have a bin open to drag clips into it?

Audio mixing in the timeline is a good example of a pervasive problem, feature bloat. Powerful, yes, but so bloody complicated. What the hell happened here? I'm still struggling trying to control the audio in my timeline after 6 months. Am I in "Clip" mode or "Auto" mode? Is this volume or gain? Why can't I add volume to this clip? Do I really need 100 keyframes for a 3 second fade?Why does MC sometimes ignores the volume settings making me look bad in front of the producers? Why can't I get any pan controls to work for this track? I mix in the timeline constantly. I need this to be better.

Media Composer has finally learned to link directly to still images, but manipulating them is complicated and buggy compared to other NLEs. This sounds like a small thing, but still images are very important to our documentary workflows. I am spending about four times as much time on every image now. Slug the clip. Drop the effect. Load the file. Wait. What was the file called? Dammit. Why does the file look so blurry? Oh, because it's not 72dpi. Well, of course it's not 72dpi. It is 2014 after all.

I am NOT saying MC is a bad NLE or that I hate it. It is an amazing and powerful product. But when that power is not needed, it's often in the way of just getting the job done quickly and efficiently.

Cheers,
tod

DD

On Sep 6, 2014, at 11:35 AM, hoplist@... [Avid-L2] <Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

Of course, that's also true for many of the Avid haters out there concerning Avid. They misunderstand it and fail to properly use its power.

I truly hope Avid is not dismissing the "Avid Haters."

I have been using FCP 7 for the past 6 years, but I used MC for the prior two decades and loved it. I've tried hard to make Media Composer work for my facility. It has been a thrash. Even after investing in four new Avid workstations, I am ready to give FCP X another serious try.

Cheers,
tod

Tod Hopkins
Hillmann & Carr Inc.

David Dodson
davidadodson@...