Considering Resolve as my new edit platform- anyone else?

[Will Keir]

It's been said here for a while, and finally even the master of tech himself. When is Adobe going to get their shit together with customer support?

Adobe, on the other hand, has shit for support.

 

[Will Keir]

I hope they will. We need more competition in the NLE market.

The Blackmagic team has the advantage of seeing what others have done right (or wrong) and it seems like they are serious about continually developing it. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

 

[Eric Bowen]

It's been said here for a while, and finally even the master of tech himself. When is Adobe going to get their shit together with customer support?

As long as Adobe's support is that bad though our business is safe atleast. Just have to know where to get good support from for applications like Adobe and Avid if the support is not up to snuff. I do have to agree with Jeff. Adobe has the best performing apps right now and their support just doesnt compliment.

 

[M.Halsell]

Blackmagic Software

Blackmagic Software

I also like the fact, that for the moment, Blackmagic doesn't have a subscription model. Life seems a bit easier that way.

 

[Eric Bowen]

Unfortunately Blackmagic may become one of the few companies not to use the Cloud/sub model. The benefits of that to the software company are so good that the industry in general is heading that direction. Microsoft has been pushing this for years and with Apple looking to head that way I dont see any road blocks left to stop the entire software industry from moving to that.

 

[M.Halsell]

Unfortunately Blackmagic may become one of the few companies not to use the Cloud/sub model. The benefits of that to the software company are so good that the industry in general is heading that direction. Microsoft has been pushing this for years and with Apple looking to head that way I dont see any road blocks left to stop the entire software industry from moving to that.

The grass is not always greener, Adobe has experienced a fair amount of defection and hostility. Certainly the ambition is in the right place, the execution is always the trickiest. I would expect a cloud service to appear at some point. But, I think it works better if the cloud and subscription are marketed separately. Customer choice is better. Based on Blackmagic's software pricing, I would guess they are using the software to drive hardware sales.

 

[Eric Bowen]

The grass is not always greener, Adobe has experienced a fair amount of defection and hostility. Certainly the ambition is in the right place, the execution is always the trickiest. I would expect a cloud service to appear at some point. But, I think it works better if the cloud and subscription are marketed separately. Customer choice is better. Based on Blackmagic's software pricing, I would get they are using the software to hardware sales.

Adobe created most of the hostility toward this model by the constant changes and pricing models to the cloud besides making the move to cloud only to quickly. Had they been consistent with the pricing and had the support system to back it up then the response would have been much softer as a whole. The lesson here is get your ducks in a row before you make such a drastic pricing model change.

 

[Richard_D]

I know a stock photo house that just decided to use older versions of cs and hasn't gone to cloud versions. They are the target market for adobe and if they lost them as customers that is not a good sign. I'm looking forward to resolve 12 being more vaiable as an editor.

 

[Eric Bowen]

I know a stock photo house that just decided to use older versions of cs and hasn't gone to cloud versions. They are the target market for adobe and if they lost them as customers that is not a good sign. I'm looking forward to resolve 12 being more vaiable as an editor.

Well that target has changed as they have tried to pull in previous Avid and Final Cut editors. Their focus is film and broadcast now. That is why they made the move to cloud only so quickly. I think the general consensus was the houses would come along eventually since there really wasnt an alternate solution. Now the EDU market. That is hurting them.

 

[Meryem Ersoz]

I've never understood why Adobe is not offering both options - outright ownership as well as subscription. Best of both worlds instead of the worst of one. If BM is smart, they could capitalize by offering both options. I can't think of any good reason not to, unless Adobe implemented it to combat piracy - has that actually minimized it?

 

[Tim Morris]

Get Resolve for coloring!

 

[Eric Bowen]

I've never understood why Adobe is not offering both options - outright ownership as well as subscription. Best of both worlds instead of the worst of one. If BM is smart, they could capitalize by offering both options. I can't think of any good reason not to, unless Adobe implemented it to combat piracy - has that actually minimized it?

Yes it does minimize the piracy and that is a major reason for cloud only. The other was the pricing model for cloud. It's based on consistent revenue generation. If there was a purpetual license then the revenue generation would once again be sporadic. Therefor you cant allocate resources efficiently since you dont know what capital you will have for it long term. When the revenue stream is consistent then they can setup development and R&D teams based on expected revenue generation and support the cloud update capability as they intended. The primary benefit to the cloud for the client is updates on demand. Perpetual license software cant maintain that. Cloud can.

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

Yes it does minimize the piracy and that is a major reason for cloud only. The other was the pricing model for cloud. It's based on consistent revenue generation. If there was a purpetual license then the revenue generation would once again be sporadic. Therefor you cant allocate resources efficiently since you dont know what capital you will have for it long term. When the revenue stream is consistent then they can setup development and R&D teams based on expected revenue generation and support the cloud update capability as they intended. The primary benefit to the cloud for the client is updates on demand. Perpetual license software cant maintain that. Cloud can.

The biggest issue I have is that your archive of projects once done on CC means that you are chained for life to Adobe. You cannot open projects done on it with preceeding versions, even if it's only one month. That means I have a useless file unless I pay adobe again. This is fundamentally flawed. I don't want to have to pay someone else each time I want to look at my own work.
Further, piracy is not stopped. The same exact methods for cracking their programs still exist, starting only minutes after it first went online in the beginning. Therefore the real purpose of the Adobe decision is to cut the interval time between purchases. Pirated programs don't generally keep up with updates if they are on a monthly basis. So the reason someone would want to pay, is to stay on top of the game on a very regular basis, much more than yearly.
Speaking by accident with someone who works for Adobe, he told me that the internal policy towards piracy, (which he admitted was absolutely calculated into the formula these days) is: "Don't chastise. Convert ! " It's all about keeping you convinced and pleased, not policing. And of course about making you pay to the end of your days.

 

[Eric Bowen]

The biggest issue I have is that what cloud essentially means is that your archive of projects once done on CC means that you are chained for life to Adobe. You cannot open projects done on it with preceeding versions, even if it's only one month. That means I have a useless file unless I pay adobe. Regularly. This is fundamentally flawed.
Further, piracy is not stopped. The same exact methods for cracking their programs still exist, starting only minutes after it first went online in the beginning. Therefore the real purpose of the Adobe decision is to cut the interval time between purchases. Pirated programs don't generally keep up with updates if they are on a monthly basis. So the reason someone would want to pay, is to stay on top of the game on a very regular basis, much more than yearly.
Speaking by accident with someone who works for Adobe, he told me that the internal policy towards piracy, (which he admitted was absolutely calculated into the formula these days) is: "Don't chastise. Convert ! " It's all about keeping you convinced and pleased, not policing.

The methods for cracking were more complicated and forced many to setup virtual servers. Most of this is beyond your average user who would pirate the software or is to much trouble to bother with for those who do. So in essence it does reduce the piracy significantly. However your conversation with the Adobe employee mirrors others I have had as well.

 

[Phil Holland]

The biggest issue I have is that your archive of projects once done on CC means that you are chained for life to Adobe. You cannot open projects done on it with preceeding versions, even if it's only one month. That means I have a useless file unless I pay adobe again. This is fundamentally flawed. I don't want to have to pay someone else each time I want to look at my own work.
Further, piracy is not stopped. The same exact methods for cracking their programs still exist, starting only minutes after it first went online in the beginning. Therefore the real purpose of the Adobe decision is to cut the interval time between purchases. Pirated programs don't generally keep up with updates if they are on a monthly basis. So the reason someone would want to pay, is to stay on top of the game on a very regular basis, much more than yearly.
Speaking by accident with someone who works for Adobe, he told me that the internal policy towards piracy, (which he admitted was absolutely calculated into the formula these days) is: "Don't chastise. Convert ! " It's all about keeping you convinced and pleased, not policing. And of course about making you pay to the end of your days.

Piracy is not stopped completely (not yet), but Creative Cloud has effected "illegal use" a whole lot. Remember Adobe is a software only company in reality and it's their only source of revenue. Illegal use and piracy hits Adobe harder than a lot of companies as it's so prevalent. Anything to do to put a dent in those numbers is useful.

CC has allowed for pretty regular updates, which has actually been nice.

I've seen the argument you present about "paying to the end of your days". The reality is you can pay 3 years from now for one month and work on that archived project if you want.

I'm a long time Adobe user and did pay to upgrade my suites every year as technology advances. The CC model is still representing a good yearly deal at the moment and personally I'm using Adobe programs on a near daily basis. As long as CC pricing doesn't get way out of hand and regular updates come supporting/adding new features it's been pretty nice.

BMD has other sources of revenue which has allowed to explore the current model and that's the big difference. That and the dongle that is.

 

[Clayton Burkhart]

I've seen the argument you present about "paying to the end of your days". The reality is you can pay 3 years from now for one month and work on that archived project if you want.

Yes, but why shouldn't I have access to my work when I want without having to pay a gatekeeper each time? It is my work afterall. Why should I have to pay $50 just to open my project file a year from now? Especially if I am running another app. And what if Adobe goes out of business or makes a product that is no longer backwards convertible with say 3 years ago? Then what? Do you honestly think that you will be able to access your work ten years from now? (Not that I would want to, wince, wince) but I have my doubts.
Frankly, if Resolve or another program presents itself as a viable alternative, I will take it. In the meantime I am not handing future access to my archive over to Adobe. So things stay on the last pre-CC version until then.

Lastly, I tried CC a while back on a job because the editor preferred it. It crashed on a Friday night and we could not get it back up and running. We could not open it with a previous CC for the reasons I mentioned, nor with older versions of Premiere. The only way we could get it back up was by paying again on another's computer. And guess what? That project file and all the backups would not open on the new one. Never again.

 

[Phil Holland]

Yes, but why shouldn't I have access to my work when I want without having to pay a gatekeeper each time? It is my work afterall. And what if Adobe goes out of business or makes a product that is no longer backwards convertible with say 3 years ago? Then what? Do you honestly think that you will be able to access your work ten years from now? (Not that I would want to, wince, wince) but I have my doubts.
Frankly, if Resolve or another program presents itself as a viable alternative, I will take it. In the meantime I am not handing access to my future archive over to Adobe. So things stay on the last pre-CC version until then.

Lastly, I tried CC a while back on a job because the editor preferred it. It crashed on a Friday night and we could not get it back up and running. We could not open it with a previous CC for the reasons I mentioned, nor with older versions of Premiere. The only way we could get it back up was by paying again on another's computer. And guess what? That project file and all the backups would not open on the new one. Never again.

Considering I have Premiere 4.0 projects that are about 20 years old that open up, though rather painfully, but still bloody work I'm not truly concerned.

Especially since I export masters, EDL, and XML at the end of gigs. It's not like you're losing your footage or even your work for that matter.

I don't have a lot of the issues I've seen others write about. My project files seem to work on multiple machines just fine. I have some stuff that's spanned 5 different systems during the duration of post.

Again, long time user here. If I had major issues I would have jumped ship and sailed away to a far off land searching for greener pastures. However, the grass is pretty all right and seems to be constantly growing quickly on the Adobe front for me.

 

[Hugh Scully]

I just plunked down on CS6 CC. I've been a hold out but now that I have a Dragon I need to drink deep the Kool Aid Adobe is serving up. The most important investment I have is the hours I spent learning how to use it which is why I was so pissed off when they decided to go with the subscription. I like PP a lot. I don't need Dreamweaver, etc. I'm on Pro Tools for audio now so I don't even need Audition. It's AE that I need to hang on to.

Hopefully new options will open up. I hope Resolve continues to develop. Editing software isn't that hard to replace and sound and color grading are frequently done on other sofware and the workflow is well established.

I wish Nuke ran on a PC. I tried Media Composer, that's a pretty good option. I was also a big Sony Vegas fan, and if all I had to do was edit and didn't need AE, I think that'd be a good option. Hopefully, in a couple of years the landscape will change and we'll have more options.

 

[Barend Onneweer]

I wish Nuke ran on a PC.

Well, consider this your lucky day. It does. Has for a long time.

 

[Mike Garrick]

The real problem is many of us have legacy projects done years ago which need accessing in the future. Now unless something has changed within Adobe there is a real problem with restoring old projects as Adobe only keep a certain number of retro versions active ( 3 gens/ updates? ). The cloud erases older versions rendering old projects inert after a certain period of time.

Jeff is also right about the appalling call centre help lines and phantom billing issues which despite supposed addressing plague adobes subscription model.

In regards to Resolve as a primary NLE I'm not sure it's there yet but I'm sure it will one day. If Fusion comes online and can be accessed within the Resolve stream then it's all ups and no downs. May the disruption continue.