Avid Media Composer 7

[M Most]

And, AFICT, MC 7's FrameFlex decisions don't get carried over in an AAF export to any finishing application.

Not yet....

4K? MC/Symphony can't even do 2K. That means letterboxed cropping to make a 2K DCP.

Sure, if you need to finish in 1080P only, you could finish in MC/Symphony. But the CC toolset is more than 12 years old. Just adding a vignette is PITA. The tracker is abysmal by modern standards. Symphony's secondaries are not nearly as precise as what you get with other finishing programs. The available noise reduction plugins are not near the quality of Neat Video. And the color math isn't 32 bit float, it's 12 or 16 bit integer depending on the how the CC effect is applied. I'm sure you've seen situations where a similar change is made is MC/Symphony, Baselight and Resolve... and the Avid grade just doesn't look as good as the Flimlight or DaVinci grades.

Honestly, this is just repeating what we all know over and over again. I said it's not a finishing tool, at least for feature work. Avid's current finishing tool is DS. That may or may not continue to be the case, and if and when it isn't the case, I would guess that you'll see a resolution independent Media Composer variant to replace it - possibly as a separate product, possibly as a new Symphony option, possibly across the board. But at this point in time, many, many television programs are finished - or at least conformed, titled, and final edited - on Media Composer and Symphony just fine. At the end of the business in which Avid dominates, there is very little color correction done in the editing program, and nobody really uses noise reduction there either. These things are done in other software and the result brought back to Avid for creation of the final master. This is the way it's done for at least 80-90% of the shows you see.

 

[M Most]

Editing VS Finishing is a 1990's concept. And AVID are just k$ll$ng us with that. It's all about $$$$, not technology.

No, it's all about knowing your market and serving it well in terms of providing what they need. Editing separately from finishing is the way nearly every professional television program and studio feature is done, in part **because of** new higher resolution formats. It is simply not practical to have a petabyte of storage simply to cut a movie, especially when the editorial team is likely to be on location during production, then back home during post. When features shoot formats like ArriRaw and, yes, Epic 5:1, they're generating multiple terabytes of material every day, often 3TB or more. And they often shoot for 40 days or more. To manage that and keep things fluid in an editorial environment is still completely impractical with today's level of storage technology, and will likely remain that way for some time to come. And that's not to mention the fact that in those market segments, the editor is not responsible for final titling, formatting, "fixes" (think things like removing mic booms and the like), and QCing the final delivery master. That's done by someone who specializes in those kind of things.

You state that "Avid are just killing us". Who is "us?" If you're talking about the "one man band" end of the industry, that is one market segment. And it's one that is well served by products like Final Cut X, Adobe's CC family, and others. But Avid's primary market is not that one. It is the collaborative post environment that involves multiple talents for multiple steps that Avid serves well. If you work alone, and really want one program to do it all, you really should look elsewhere because that's not Avid's focus. But criticizing them for being what they are is like criticizing a car for not being a truck. Or a bicycle for not being a motorcycle. Things may serve similar functions, they might even look similar, but are fundamentally different because they serve different purposes.

 

[Patrick Tresch]

Sorry a lot of commercials and shorts don't need petabyte of HD. You'r talking about feature films not what 90% of the market is.

Choice is not limiting people.

Don't be afraid of killing the industry. Highend tools have a place, where they belong.

Give us (one man band or not) the possibility to choose.

Pat

PS: I've been editing with FCP 1.20 and upwards, since 1996 with AVID : Xpress, Mediacomposer, Symphony and DS. (I also used a bit of Vegas in 1999, Matrox and Media100)

 

[MichaelP]

I am pretty sure Avid will get to resolution independence - one thing for sure is that they are not fast in getting there. Most likely due to legacy code since 1987. A lot of the newer tools don't have the legacy issue to deal with or they just give up at 2K, and move on to a totally different architecture and application UI and paradigm... And just so everyone is on the same page, 64bit support did not mean it was a total rewrite. It means it can run native on a 64 bit OS.

Plenty of commercials are edited on Media Composer - and I am sure plenty finish on Media Composer/Symphony as well. As many cable shows do - it depends on the market. But I have yet to turn down a job because I couldn't edit natively at 4K. For some reason there seems to be this "because you can you should mentality". Not saying that people need that or not, and if they do want to edit at 4K natively right off the bat, use Smoke, Avid DS, FCPx, PPro - there is plenty of choice, so saying there is no choice is a bit weird to me.

Avid does have the challenge of serving markets that vary wildly in their priorities - And Avid has the challenge of staying in business based on that and not have the support of a bigger company that has revenue coming from gadgets, or from a large graphic, web and publishing, or CAD. There used to be - Lightworks, Media 100, Montage, Ediflex, CMX, EditDroid, D-Vision (then *edit), etc. Bu they're all gone. Well Lightworks is now EditShare but that would be a company whose priority is not editing. Avid has lasted the test test of time for a reason. They've tried expanding into prosumer - didn't work (several tries). Even Technicolor just got out of the prosumer business after almost a year with their CineStyle software.

Could Avid be better? Absolutely! But serving broadcast and post shouldn't be a knock on them. As of now, my editing "kit" entails MC, smoke, Resolve, PhotoShop and After Effects. On my Windows side I have Eyeon and other dailies tools I use in my workflow. Who knows, if Autodesk continues adding "editing" as well as metadata, reporting, change management, and all the other things I rely on to serve my customers, it could very well become that one tool. Until it does the one or two things that it doesn't... and it all starts again.

So to me FrameFlex is a start - I would rather have that that waiting for the entire resolution independent pipeline to be done.


Michael

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

I'm fine with editorial and finishing operations happening in purpose built programs in collaborative infrastructures that leverage talent.

What drives me up the wall is the all the failure points in XML for things like speed changes, reverses, re-frames, transitions, composites, etc.

AVID, to their credit, has created metadata exchange protocols to address some issues, but like any proprietary approach it is dependent on other vendors.

At the end of the day, to me, the biggest attraction of an all-in-one solution is keeping the drama in the storytelling - not the conform.

Now if AVID co-developed a hybrid editorial and finishing toolset with FilmLight that allowed round tripping from MC7 to BaseLight with ALL formatting intact - at a competitive price point...

Cheers - #19

 

[MichaelP]

I have posted on several forums as well as the beta feedback that "Avid MC as a platform" is a strategy they should pursue rather than try to create everything for everyone. I would add "plug-ins" to your list of conform challenges.

Michael

 

[Peter Moretti]

Honestly, this is just repeating what we all know over and over again. ... At the end of the business in which Avid dominates, there is very little color correction done in the editing program, and nobody really uses noise reduction there either. These things are done in other software and the result brought back to Avid for creation of the final master. This is the way it's done for at least 80-90% of the shows you see.

Michael,

I'm sure you would agree that the Venn Diagram of Set A. Red camera owners and Set B. editors for TV has significant areas of non-overlap. :cheers2:

 

[Elsie N]

...

At the end of the day, to me, the biggest attraction of an all-in-one solution is keeping the drama in the storytelling - not the conform.

...
Cheers - #19

As an interested observer to the discussion, it hit me that this is why an all-in-one solution is important.

Maybe not now so much since there are well tested methods for getting the job done collaboratively, but I think those who make content on budgets that don't allow for the collaborative post environment, software that one can learn and then have all the tools available, including VFX, at their fingertips so he or she can tell the story with nuance will be in high demand.

I'm not talking about tentpoles or quick turn-a-round network shows, but the rest of the crowd.

 

[MichaelP]

...but I think those who make content on budgets that don't allow for the collaborative post environment, software that one can learn and then have all the tools available, including VFX, at their fingertips so he or she can tell the story with nuance will be in high demand.

And Autodesk smoke doesn't do that for you now? If so, why not?

Michael

 

[Elsie N]

And Autodesk smoke doesn't do that for you now? If so, why not?

Michael

Price '-)

 

[Mike Garrick]

In regards to why no 4k, I would say Avid knows it's market & that's Broadcast. Which then begs the question about "resolution independence' & the lack of it.....because broadcast is all about mixed formats.

Avid weakness & some would argue strength has been the need to need to "transcode" footage to play nice. Now before someone implies well I'm well I work on "big dick" production therefore I'm more professional than you & we transcode absolutely everything. Here's a thought, there's only a few of you practising at "your" level, Avid's market isn't you .....it can't afford to be you, because you are a very small niche of a very large market..Avid's market is about mass licensing and selling its product to the many not the privileged few.

So as someone who works in the mass market & who has worked in broadcast at a senior level. Transcoding pisses me right off, it is wasted productivity and effort. It doesn't happen magically, it involves a lot of machine time & manpower which = $$$$$ . Imo it's a 20th century concept still being practised in the 21st century .

So maybe that's why Avid is in financial difficulty at the moment. Something to ponder when we're working those Avid non resolution independent timelines.

P.S There will always be the need to delivery dailies , h264 flavours etc...this another issue entirely.

 

[MichaelP]

And that's the conundrum - all the engineering to develop high level creative and quality control of pixal, frames, layers, 2D, 3D, compositing, paint, graphics, versions, etc. at any resolution, and raster independence fully color managed for input, monitoring, and output for any codec with 100% conform from any other editing system (just in case) and end consumption devices. And do all of that for... less than $1K? The issue is the ROI for that usually doesn't add up unless it has some halo other part of the company - FCPx is obvious, Resolve supports hardware I/O, RedCine X for R3D from their own cameras, etc. Maybe manufacturers can take a page from independent producers and get engineers to do it for the "credit" and not for pay- Maybe start an IMDB for engineering development...

Michael

 

[MichaelP]

In regards to why no 4k, I would say Avid knows it's market & that's Broadcast. Which then begs the question about "resolution independence' & the lack of it.....because broadcast is all about mixed formats.

Avid weakness & some would argue strength has been the need to need to "transcode" footage to play nice. Now before someone implies well I'm well I work on "big dick" production therefore I'm more professional than you & we transcode absolutely everything. Here's a thought, there's only a few of you practising at "your" level, Avid's market isn't you .....it can't afford to be you, because you are a very small niche of a very large market..Avid's market is about mass licensing and selling its product to the many not the privileged few.

So as someone who works in the mass market & who has worked in broadcast at a senior level. Transcoding pisses me right off, it is wasted productivity and effort. It doesn't happen magically, it involves a lot of machine time & manpower which = $$$$$ . Imo it's a 20th century concept still being practised in the 21st century .

So maybe that's why Avid is in financial difficulty at the moment. Something to ponder when we're working those Avid non resolution independent timelines.

P.S There will always be the need to delivery dailies , h264 flavours etc...this another issue entirely.

I mostly agree with the concept, but many of the "broadcast" formats have become native Avid codecs over time - and all of those "broadcast formats are 1920 x 1080 4:2:2 Rec.709. Cable shows, reality shows and such all shoot similar 35 or 50 m/bs type formats and even then, due to the sheer amount of footage being shot still transcode to a 15:1 SD resolution as they don't want to pay for the storage of 4000-5000 hours per season.

Programs shooting 2K+ type formats follow a different need, and I do think there will be a change in offline at finished codec for broadcast at either ProRes to DNxHD as soon as they too want to pay for the 5x storage. But I see that happening for savings in other areas. And in the end, editing at 4K to deliver HD or edit HD with any pixel access to the 4K is pretty much a wash. 4K delivery requirement is on the horizon; YouTube can stream 4K so that people can watch it scaled to their 1920 x 1080/2000 monitors... But they can zoom in when they need to.

At the end of the day, to each their own tools and workflows. The tools are there. Now the fact that they are not all free is another issue.

Michael

 

[Blair S. Paulsen]

Small digression...

Small digression...

Having editorial and finishing toolsets each elegantly designed for their respective tasks is understandably attractive. It's just that XML appears to have been designed with the premise that anything but straight cuts and simple cross dissolves are VFX that are going require manipulation in speciality environments. I'm sorry, but speed changes and reframes shouldn't require DPX image sequences and a Flame artist (or even a trip to AE).

FWIW, I often create a "selects" timeline with handles for grading, import the hero media back into the NLE and finish there. Crude, but functional.

Cheers - #19

 

[Mike Garrick]

@ Blair
Which is why Resolve 10 could be very promising....from what little I've heard.

 

[MichaelP]

It will be interesting to see what the fluidmotion algorithm looks like as all systems kind of do their own tweaks and such between MC and Resolve.

Michael

 

[M Most]

In regards to why no 4k, I would say Avid knows it's market & that's Broadcast.

Although I would point out that the vast, vast majority of studio level features are also cut on Avid, regardless of origination format. And broadcast may involve mixed formats, but I don't know of a current case where any of those formats are larger than 1920x1080.

And to Michael's point about the cost of development of all of this rather sophisticated software for a market that's almost completely intolerant of bugs and omissions, I would state that calling a $3500 "does everything" product like Smoke "expensive" only indicates to me that those who feel this way think that anything that's not free is "too expansive." And I suppose that for do-it-yourselfers and non-professionals, that might well be the case. But for the professional finishing world, that price is a fraction of what nearly all tools of that caliber cost only 3 years ago. And something that can pay itself off in one or two jobs. So in my mind, it's not only not "expensive", it's ridiculously cheap. I guess it depends on your experience level and point of view.

And regarding transcoding "pissing you off" and being a "20th century concept," I would point out two things. First, I would think that needing to store everything you shoot in its original form, thus taking up who-knows-how-many terabytes of storage would piss you off even more, because even in 2013, storage technology has not caught up to the demands of a 3-4 TB per shooting day workflow, at least not in terms of fluid editing and reliable storage. Thus why offline/online - or, I guess in more modern terms, proxy/finish - still has its place, certainly in long form work. And second, I would point out that transcoding is not a 20th century concept because for the most part, video work in the 20th century was largely tape based. There was no transcoding because widespread use of file based working methods has only been around since about 1998 or later. And workflows of the type you're likely referring to have only been around since about 2003, and even then, not on cheap desktops.

 

[Mike Garrick]

@ M Most
Surely you store both originals & transcodes on HDs....or do junk the original ?

In regards to 20th century transcoding evolved in the late 90's as a form of offline/online to minimise data loads on NLE computers. Avid championed the concept then released in the zeros with Express editing in DV25 or worse (?) then upgrade to Adrenalin to edit SD and then upgrade the edit to Nitrous HD (?) ( not nitris ) for large projects. This is what I was referring too.

Smoke @ 4k is cheap, if your referring to a previous post, I was complaining not about the cost but the price discrimination between the US & Australian markets.

There is a place for transcoding just like there is a place for "downscaling' raw files without transcoding. I hope my need for transcoding or lack of it cannot & should not be in anyway a description of level of professionalism which you seem to imply.

 

[M Most]

@ M Most
Surely you store both originals & transcodes on HDs....or do junk the original ?

in the case of most studio level features shooting on "big data" formats, the data is backed up and stored on multiple LTO tapes until required for the DI conform. Spinning drives are not commonly used for that purpose. The editorial files (what you're calling transcodes) are usually put on an editorial SAN and used for creative editorial, as well as previews in some cases.

There is a place for transcoding just like there is a place for "downscaling' raw files without transcoding. I hope my need for transcoding or lack of it cannot & should not be in anyway a description of level of professionalism which you seem to imply.

i was only stating that on large projects, editing directly off big data files is not sensible and does not really provide for a lot of fluidity in the editing process.

 

[Marc Wielage]

Useless huh? I'm working on a $50 million dollar movie right now that doesn't find Avid useless. There's a thing called conform and it has worked for years. I have no issue with those who insist on working in 4k the whole way through but to say it's useless to work in practical editing codecs and conform/export high res at the end I don't get that attitude.

Thanks for saying this so well, Steve!

Although I would point out that the vast, vast majority of studio level features are also cut on Avid, regardless of origination format. And broadcast may involve mixed formats, but I don't know of a current case where any of those formats are larger than 1920x1080.

Sony is finishing their current network TV series in 4K on the lot, but I'd bet all the offline is done in DNxHD, the broadcast delivery is 1080HD, and then they only go back weeks later (at a relatively leisurely pace) and finish the show in 4K. I agree with you: I don't think a pure 4K workflow is practical for the breakneck pace of network TV. Even for features, the delivery schedules are shrinking so much, there's just no time to run backups and do renders in 4K except in unusual situations. And there are a great many 4K features that are only finishing in 2K -- up to and including The Hobbit.A lot depends on the pipeline; just because the cameras and software can deal with 4K doesn't mean the pipeline can realistically handle 4K.

I agree with you that transcoding and conforming have always been a normal part of the workflow, and they're not the big deal a lot of neophytes think they are. And I also agree that calling the $3000 Smoke "expensive" is kind of bewildering, but then I come from a world that had $500,000 Infernos that we thought were miraculous, 10 years ago.

I'd be curious for anybody here who's completely shot, edited, color-timed, composited, rendered, and delivered a full-length feature film entirely in 4K to step forward. I'd be sincerely interested in hearing how they pulled it off economically and met all the delivery dates. It's still challenging and time-consuming in 2K, even in 2013. Come the day that facilities have 10 petabytes of storage and have transfer feeds 10 times faster than fiber channel, we'll be ready to go.