Well Terence. Its like this.
I was once a Dallas Cowboys fan. Ask me what I think about Owner Jerry Jones,
the likes of former Coach Wade Phillips and years of politicized organizational
ineptitude? Not much.
Fans boo sometimes. Sometimes a lot.
Oddly enough the Cowboys are a lot like Avid. Many years have passed since they
have flashed class and brilliance. Therefore it takes a lot more than hiring a
new coach and jumping out to a fast start to get doubters back on board.
Although we do watch with great interest.
To move closer to your zip code where football fortunes are even dimmer, think
about the lowly Oakland Raiders. How silly does that giant Commitment to
Excellence banner look draped across the sideline on game day? For the record
they are the first NFL team to loose at least 11 games in 7 straight seasons.
Thats some special brand of excellence.
Folks still turn out to fill the black hole and dream of Kenny Stabler.
Why is this on topic?
Talk is cheap. So are early leads. Getting excited over .500 seasons gets a
little old.
Its not water under the bridge until something tangible is delivered or real
results come from a new company direction.
Hopefully this is sooner rather than later. Then I'll have more to praise, be
thankful for and evangelize. And I will do it!
However watching Symphony die on the vine twice, going through the sham of the
original Adrenaline launch and poor solutions to things important to me have
spent Avid's credit. Superior engineering in similarly priced products doesn't
help either. So, I'm much quicker to criticize and be skeptical.
The checks I write are payable to Avid. Not Gary, Frank or anyone else. Like I
mentioned before. All seem like decent folks and they all may have fantastic
attitudes and stellar ideas.
However, I don't really know them. I know the firm only on an institutional
level. The only way I can grade the company is by its products. The ones I have
used and the ones available now.
My remarks certainly aren't meant to be berating or personal. Just criticism
from a frustrated and often disappointed user.
I'm not privy to any inside information so I have yet to see the light...64bit
or otherwise.
For me, I've been staring at and dealing with a lot of the same limitations for
a very long time.
My comments were cautionary. Avid must fix some core issues before offering a
once again improved Symphony. Many of those improvements should be part of the
core Composer toolset.
I don't think my position is all that out of line with many other users. Think a
lot of folks don't see a path where Symphony makes sense as a separate product.
Others think there is a room. Just a difference of opinion.
Guess it all depends on what it does and what it costs.
Think I've gone on record volunteering to pay more for a product that does more
and does it well. I don't believe in the race to the bottom.
If there is value, quality and performance which justifies a higher price point,
I'm the guy who gladly buys that box.
There are simple things we have to do daily that a higher end box should do
easily. Things I have never seen any Composer based offering do well, yet.
Doesn't mean it couldn't. It just hasn't. And until it has, it hasn't. Sounds
like something Forest Gump might say.
Just how excited should we get over an announcement such as:
"Avid will continue working on ways to differentiate between MC and Symphony."
Not exactly actionable intelligence.
"Continue"?
Very little has changed for Symphony which hasn't changed for the entire
Composer product line, so far.
The color corrector is the same one we have been looking at for 10 years, the
DVE has some pretty major flaws, there is no effective method for post key color
correction, as Ken pointed out simple titles are a chore to get to look decent.
Heck, isn't even phrase find and scrip sync paid options. Script sync? Are we
going backwards here?
YOU ARE RIGHT. There have been some very nice developments
recently. Underpinnings like AMA and a good implementation of the RED SDK.
Mix-match frame rates. Better stability. Etc. All absolutely needed to keep the
core product competitive. I really don't see anything which you could reserve
for a high end only product without sacrificing the competitiveness of the base
offering. Pre-requisites.
Terence, as one who confesses to doubting, can you see how others not in the
know may still doubt until they have reason to do otherwise?
Think I remember you being pretty ticked about the lack of an HD Symphony few
years back. So perhaps you can relate.
In that frame, this seems like legitimate criticism. I think I've earned the
right to be skeptical. Yet I do have my hopes up that 6.0 turns out to be a
breakthrough release.
And that is my talk. And it is cheap too. We are all just sharing opinions here,
not gospel.
C.A. Magid
RTVF
________________________________
From: Terence Curren <tcurren@aol.com>
To: Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, May 16, 2011 2:28:27 PM
Subject: [Avid-L2] Re: Hopeful news for Symphony
--- In Avid-L2@yahoogroups.com, chris magid <chris_rtvf@...> wrote:
<<We have a 7 seat Windows based Avid workgroup so any reactionary changes would
> mean substantial investment. 4 Symphonys and 3 Composers. All current. (We also
>
> have one lonely OS X Smoke). >>
So in other words, you prefer the devil you know to the devil you don't know.
And that is not a bad way to go about it. You know I am as frustrated with the
lack of Symphony development as you are. But that is water under the bridge. So
now the question is, how do we get more done?
I guarantee you continuing to berate Avid over the past behavior while ignoring
the positive results of the current team isn't a good way to go. I am feeling as
positive as is possible about the future of the product line at this point. That
outlook has to peppered with the economic realities of a new paradigm for post
that is continuing to be revised by Apple.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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