Re: [Avid-L2] And Now a Word About Online Finishing

two problems

#1

The online/offline workflow is now more about tools and shortcomings than people. In our shop we think of most post production as one process and we employee post production specialists to create edits from soup to nuts. That means graphic design, effects, color correction and etc. This is a good fit for a great majority of projects provided you have the right people. The short of it is...THERE IS NO MORE ONLINE...THERE IS NO MORE OFFLINE for most projects.

It is the machine which stands in the way. These post production artists in our shop and others are having to bounce out their NLE, be it FCP, Symphony or whatever to accomplish simple tasks. The level of graphic design, animation, effects and compositing which are the most common needs in most projects require invoking after effects or creative use of unwieldy stacks of plugs ins. Both of which make content revisions or minor tweaks difficult to perform within the NLE and that sort of kills an advantage of the NLE.

A project may not need a great deal of this and that makes adjusting workflow for a small need even a bigger bother. Soft shadow on DVE or key....NOPE. Scale or move a text title or picture with alpha...NOPE. Need a banding free vignette or feathered matte of some type...NOPE. Post key color correction...FORGET IT. Need a color corrector with something more than EZ BAKE controls...NOPE. ETC ETC ETC. The list is LONG.

#2

The separation of tools like DS and Symphony CANNOT BE QUALITY OF SIMPLE TASKS. The separation must be FEATURES. This is the old "anything worth doing is worth doing well" Scaling, shadows and visual quality of touted features must not be considered a HIGH END only function. IT POLLUTES THE BRAND. And ticks off editors trying to get something easy done.

If the majority of Sony Televisions were crap, what do you think would happen to the perceived value of an Sony XBR9.

If "Avids" are known to not be able to hack even simple effects folks (producers and purchasers) may be very shy to jump over to an Avid DS to do effects intensive work.

Discreet's reputation is far better in this area. And it is maybe why people are talking about software only Smoke more than they EVER talked about the software version of DS.

Then there is the issue of trust. I am not confident Avid won't kill DS or help those who invest in one with the sort of marketing support which is needed for a tool to gain widespread acceptance. Also not confident that Avid wouldn't inadvertently do something to either Composer or DS which hurts total conform.

BUT

I digress. The point is their should be no need to jump out of an "advanced" NLE to a "finishing box" to do simple things.

Avid once again is resting their chops on the needs of those who strictly work with long form narrative storytelling.

--- On Sat, 11/14/09, Marc Fisher <cav2ya@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> From: Marc Fisher <cav2ya@sbcglobal.net>
> Subject: Re: [Avid-L2] And Now a Word About Online Finishing
> To: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Saturday, November 14, 2009, 2:48 PM
> well, i have to argee and disagree
> with you about using the DS.
>
> it's not that hard use it for online, it's just a different
> interface. 
> if those who are willing to learn Smoke are reading this,
> then they 
> should be more willing to learn DS, as it does conform
> about 90%of 
> your avid timeline. and that 10% it doesn't ,like
> animattes, do you 
> really want to use a offline editors animatte, version
> using a 
> finishing tool to do that?
>
> As for Symph and composer, the tools are a joke for online.
> the 
> product lines needs to be slimmed down to 2, offline and
> online. symph 
> only has secondary color correctors over mc, so Symph needs
> to be 
> killed. R&D needs to go into DS, and make it where you
> introduce the 
> new features, then migrate them to the offline. having it
> reversed 
> like it is now is ridiculous.
>
> DS is a great tool, too bad Avid thinks it's the bastard
> step child. 
> as do most MC editors.
>
> marc
>
>
> On Nov 14, 2009, at 11:06 AM, chris magid wrote:
>
> > I have been reading the Smoke on Mac thread with great
> interest. It 
> > makes me think about how poor any Avid Composer based
> products are 
> > at true online finishing. Symphony is no exception.
> Simply put the 
> > tools are STILL NOT THERE to perform anything but the
> most basic on-
> > lines or finishes.
> > Things like natively scaling a title or alpha based
> graphic with 
> > acceptable quality. THIS CANNOT BE DONE in 2009 in an
> Avid product 
> > with results which can truly be called PROFESSIONAL.
> This same 
> > limitation applies to many DVE functions. Edge quality
> or workflow 
> > with any sort of matte work garbage or otherwise via
> Animatte is 
> > pretty poor too. The Spectramatte keyer is limited in
> its usefulness 
> > because it is a closed environment not allowing any
> other operations 
> > beyond the very limited Avid DVE  (no soft
> shadows, no additional 
> > matte operations, poor quality etc). The color
> corrector has not 
> > aged well and is limited compared to newer options.
> >
> > So lets see, that covers color correction, basic
> compositing, basic 
> > graphics, low level effects, etc. That is online. That
> is finishing.
> > Beyond core functionality and quality are many
> workflow issues like 
> > track to track alpha behavior, mixing native and plug
> in effects and 
> > very poor multiple effect stack management.
> > Seems to me, for anything beyond cuts, dissolves,
> moderate color 
> > correction and simple non-problem keys you are using
> Composer/
> > Symphony to really assemble material rendered
> somewhere else or you 
> > can use 3rd party plug ins for some tasks. And you
> better hope that 
> > your material created somewhere else doesn't need
> little 
> > adjustments...you will be making another round
> trip.  At that point 
> > does Avid vs FCP vs anything else matter.
> > It is a shame that Avid is blowing it by providing a
> flexible 
> > editing environment with improving frame rate and
> format support but 
> > not closing the deal with the tools necessary for
> real 
> > finishing...at least at a basic level. These are the
> capabilities 
> > which make Smoke attractive to people and to some
> degree DS. Once 
> > you have to leave your core NLE environment to turn
> the job over to 
> > another person or system Smoke vs DS makes little
> difference.
> > But isn't it time that Symphony provides for some of
> this without 
> > having to bailout to other applications or finishing
> editors.
> > For the record, it appears Avid is also blowing it
> with their DS 
> > game plan.
> > Chris MagidRTVF
> >
> > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> >
> >
> >
>
> Marc Fisher
> cav2ya@sbcglobal.net
>
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Search the offical complete Avid-L archives
> at:   http://archives.bengrosser.com/avid/
>
> Everything you MUST know about Color Correction in one
> book:   http://tinyurl.com/ColorCorectionforvideo   Get
> your copy todayYahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>     Avid-L2-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>

------------------------------------

Search the offical complete Avid-L archives at: http://archives.bengrosser.com/avid/

Everything you MUST know about Color Correction in one book: http://tinyurl.com/ColorCorectionforvideo Get your copy todayYahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Avid-L2/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Avid-L2/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
Avid-L2-digest@yahoogroups.com
Avid-L2-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
Avid-L2-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/