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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Guess Who Holds the Keys to 4K Television and Broadcast?

Peter Moretti

Peter Moretti

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It's not Sony, Pansonic, Apple, Fox News, SMPTE or any of the players you'd normally think of.

It's a moderately sized company ($400 million market capitalization).

It's company who back in the day Red ignored, but that's ancient history.

It's a company that's been downsizing and struggling to turn a profit, but it just did announce a GAAP profit.

It's a company that is passionately loved but also reviled.

It's not in Asia or Silicon Valley.

It's Avid.

The fact of the matter is that until Media Composer and Symphony can work in full 4K resolution, there will be no 4K TV.
 
Unfortunately, no, you can't. MC 6 is still a 1080P app.
 
Somebody "passionately loves" Avid?
 
The argument is more than feeble.

It is based on the fact that the offline editing software has to also be the finishing tool.

Sorry. I don't buy this for a moment. You might want to rethink your position.

But I give you credit for an inticing thread title. :)

David
 
In the broadcast world, Media Composer, Symphony and News Cutter ARE used as finishing tools.

Avid is the backbone of broadcast for all intents and purposes. And until Avid becomes 4K, broadcast won't either.


P.S. Marc, LOL!!
 
Peter Moretti said:
It's not Sony, Pansonic, Apple, Fox News, SMPTE or any of the players you'd normally think of.

It's a moderately sized company ($400 million market capitalization).

It's company who back in the day Red ignored, but that's ancient history.

It's a company that's been downsizing and struggling to turn a profit, but it just did announce a GAAP profit.

It's a company that is passionately loved but also reviled.

It's not in Asia or Silicon Valley.

It's Avid.

The fact of the matter is that until Media Composer and Symphony can work in full 4K resolution, there will be no 4K TV.
Click to expand...

Perhaps you might check out products from Adobe and Discreet, also Sony Vegas, Blackmagic Resolve and keep on eye on what Apple are up to. I appologice for the companies offering 4K tools Ive missed. No disrespect to Avid, they make great tools but the 4k future isnt hinged on them by any means.
 
AVID is with a dinausore mindset. Their editing tool should incorporation the DS hability to interplay what ever material 2/4k pictures different codecs... we do not speak about online/offline here. Give us 4k dnx 120...
They lost 5 years of technological developpment. It s a pitty.


I agree with Peter.

Pat

Ps none will ever use tools that dont exist.
 
Broadcast TV will never be 4K. It would take an act of congress to change the broadcast specs and they are never going to do that again. The last digital transition was too painful. No congressman is going to vote to break his contituent's TVs again. 4K is going to happen via the Internet and the current TV stations aren't going to have anything to do with it.
 
Jim Collins said:
Broadcast TV will never be 4K. It would take an act of congress to change the broadcast specs and they are never going to do that again. The last digital transition was too painful. No congressman is going to vote to break his contituent's TVs again. 4K is going to happen via the Internet and the current TV stations aren't going to have anything to do with it.
Click to expand...

Now there's a sensible statement.

The notion that Avid somehow controls the format future is a bit nonsensical. Avid Media Composer is an offline cutting tool and has been since it was introduced. The only people who think of a Media Composer as a finishing tool are individuals users (who don't actually work on network level programs) and some reality shows, although in the latter case, it would likely be either Symphony or DS, not Media Composer. There is no need for high resolutions for offline editing on television programs, just as there is no need for it on features. In case nobody noticed, essentially all features cut on Media Composer - which is almost all studio features - are either cut in standard def (a surprising number) or HD, usually in the form of either DNxHD36 or DNxHD115. Rarely if ever is anything larger chosen for basic editorial. The systems that handle DI finishing are the ones that require - and have - resolution independence. That would include things like Smoke, Quantel iQ/Pablo, Lustre, Resolve, Baselight, Film Master, Scratch, Mistika, and some others, including Avid DS. But NOT Media Composer.

And while Avid does supply a lot of broadcast automation equipment, they are not the leader in on air servers. That would be Omneon.
 
TV stations certainly didn't drive the transition to HD. Many (a lot) of stations still don't have HD capabilities other than passing the network feed to the transmitter. Content is king, that will drive 4K to the home, but not likely via broadcast. MHO.
 
Peter Moretti said:
It's company who back in the day Red ignored, but that's ancient history.


.
Click to expand...

I just ponder the agenda behind a statement like this...RED is what, five or six years old?? What "back in the day" are you talking about? Three years ago? Four?

I believe RED is the company which quite a few of the larger companies tried to ignore...disdain...mock...at least, until they couldn't.

These revisionist histories just make me shake my head....
 
The idea that Avid dictates technology trends in broadcast doesn't sit right with me. In over five years as an offline editor in the UK for the BBC, Channel 4, Discovery Channel and Animal Planet, I've spent three months cutting on Avid and all other jobs have been FCP. Many of these programmes have been onlined on FCP. The BBC jumped ship from Avid for a large proportion of their output five years ago and shifted to FCP, presumably because of the huge savings. They've now invested in quite a few Premiere suites so who knows what the future will be. At the end of the day, I'm sure the broadcasters will make decisions based on what is best for them and not just accept what Avid can give them, especially if other software companies are able to meet broadcaster demands. Perhaps once upon a time people thought the same about Lightworks, but Avid came out trumps and who would have thought FCP could have done so well?
 
M Most said:
Now there's a sensible statement.

The notion that Avid somehow controls the format future is a bit nonsensical. Avid Media Composer is an offline cutting tool and has been since it was introduced. The only people who think of a Media Composer as a finishing tool are individuals users (who don't actually work on network level programs) and some reality shows, although in the latter case, it would likely be either Symphony or DS, not Media Composer. There is no need for high resolutions for offline editing on television programs, just as there is no need for it on features. In case nobody noticed, essentially all features cut on Media Composer - which is almost all studio features - are either cut in standard def (a surprising number) or HD, usually in the form of either DNxHD36 or DNxHD115. Rarely if ever is anything larger chosen for basic editorial. The systems that handle DI finishing are the ones that require - and have - resolution independence. That would include things like Smoke, Quantel iQ/Pablo, Lustre, Resolve, Baselight, Film Master, Scratch, Mistika, and some others, including Avid DS. But NOT Media Composer.

And while Avid does supply a lot of broadcast automation equipment, they are not the leader in on air servers. That would be Omneon.
Click to expand...

Michael, you are looking at Avid from the perspective of professional post for film and dramatic TV. If Avid were simply offline Media Composer, it would have gone out of business a long time ago. I stated that MC needs to be able to do 4K because MC is the foundation of Symphony and NewsCutter. These three programs are essentially the interfaces for Avid's broadcast and media asset management solutions. There are certainly other players in the broadcast market, but Avid is a central one. A strong argument can be made that Avid is more of a broadcast company than a professional post company.

From the perspective of shows that are offlined and onlined, you are absolutely correct, MC and (to a lesser extent) Symphony are not seen as finishing tools, so since the show is being cut on DNxHD 36 or SD, the cutting IQ/resolution has no beraing on the finished resolution (as long as you can match back to the source files). But a lot what we see on TV doesn't go through this type of workflow. For many broadcast applications, Symphony *is* a finishing tool. And when you watch the news, Saturday Night Live, MLB/NFL/NBA the Olympics, etc. there is no offline/online as you've described it. Could you imagine a use for Scratch in the Olympics? And while DS, Avid's only 4K capable tool, can certainly cut and finish Olympic promos at 4K resolution, it's not going to take the place of Avid's other products. Avid DS does not make a 4K Olympics possible, nor does Baselight, etc..

For broadcast to be 4K, you need to have a 4K workflow that works w/ live or near live shows like news, major sports leagues, talk shows, the Olympics, etc. This area is Avid's strong suit. There is simply no way to have a viable 4K network if Avid doesn't do 4K.
 
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