Avid ‘User Group Meeting’ Showcases New Mac Film
Composer
by Scott
Janush
For those of you who missed the annual Avid User Group meeting, here’s the scoop: the event was held on August 30th at the Directors Guild and hosted by 3 Point Digital and LA Digital. Mike Cavanaugh of 3 Point Digital and Michael DeMucci of LA Digital were on hand to represent
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Avid’s new three-point strategy was expressed as follows: ‘Re-connect with Customers, Connect Products with Each Other, Connect Customers to Products’. The company also reiterated their new commitment to the Macintosh. But if you are like me, you tend to say "Hey, it sounds good, but what about the products?" Here’s a summary of what was shown at the meeting.
Film Composer Version 10
The film community has patiently waited for many years to see improvements in the Mac Film Composer. Alan Stewart demonstrated some of the new features in Version 10:
- ‘Meridien’ video board-set offers new
video resolutions that provide significantly better image
quality with only a slight increase in storage
requirements.
- Feature parity between Windows and
Mac
- Pulldown setting in software, not
on hardware interface.
- Tabbed settings palettes.
- Ability to play shots from
bin.
- Ability to loop line readings from
bin.
- Color coded clips show in timeline
(Tag your VFX or temp shots.)
- 8 locator colors-select while
digitizing.
- Easily find offline media.
- Locators are possible in fill
leader.
- Locators appear in EDL’s.
- Go to locator buttons.
- Search for black holes and flash
frames.
- Undo record events.
- JKL deck control.
- Ability to replace shots while
preserving dissolves that connect them.
- Expert render: if you extend a
dissolve, you only have to render the extension. Trimming
effects will not un-render them.
- ‘Tops and tails’: quick 1-click
trim.
- Ability to mix audio sample rates
in a sequence.
- Solo multiple tracks.
- AudioSuite plugins will create a
new masterclip for effected clips.
- 8 channel audio scrub.
- Multicam with up to 9 cameras.
- Cut lists and change lists are now
part of a standalone product (FilmScribe).
- 24P EDLs available in the
system.
- Allows for pan and scan decisions
to be saved and used in a Symphony online.
- Digitizing station will be
available late this year or early 2001.
- Media Recorder Telecine and Media
Reader will not be available until 2001.
Unity Media Networking
Unity is Avid’s new media and file sharing technology. It works via a Windows NT server that handles all storage administration.
- Ability to reconfigure storage on
the fly, without a restart.
- Full read/write privileges for all
users – ability to share bins across systems. No
more bin copying required.
- Ability to automatically restore a
crashed disk (but extra storage space is required for
this feature to work).
- Can handle up to 25 users at
online resolutions.
- 400 systems now in use with
approximately 1000 active seats.
- Will notify systems administrator
of problems via e-mail or beeper and can send
notification to Avid, as well.
- Version 10 Avids require Unity for
media sharing. Version 7.2 Avids can work with it but
don’t require it.
Pro Tools
- ‘AVoption’ hardware allows Pro Tools
editors to play Avid video media instead of chasing a
deck. Digi’s ‘FilmFrame’ feature is not
yet supported on Meridien hardware but it does work on
ABVB.
- Can’t yet play files directly
from Unity storage – they must be copied from Unity
to local storage. This is slated to change late this year
or early next year.
- DigiTranslator replaces the OMF
Tool. It offers better and more complete conversions from
Avid to Pro Tools (or vice versa).
- Single-keystroke shortcuts.
- New smart tools that change their
function according to context.
- ‘Snap to sync’ feature.
Symphony Version 3
Symphony is Avid’s nonlinear online editing system. New features include:
- Real time Ultimatte.
- Sophisticated color correction,
but unlike traditional gear, it is controlled with a
mouse rather than through a dedicated hardware
interface.
- Primary and secondary color
correction running concurrently with Ultimatte.
- Image stabilization, motion
tracking and realtime 3D.
- Archive to tape w/handles.
- Digitize optimization-continuous
digitize (no preroll).
- CD import direct to bin (it’s
not necessary to convert to SD2 or AIFF first).
- Export Quicktime reference
movie.
Avid BBS & AvidProNet.com
Many post-production people have found the Avid-l mailing list discussion group, hosted by Steve Koster of Calvin College, to be a valuable resource. In fact, some people credit the list with alerting Avid to unrest among editors, which may have influenced the company’s management shakeup. Avid recently acquired the list and hired Mr. Koster. He described Avid’s Business to Business Exchange strategy, which will help put businesses in contact with one another and help customers find services and prices more easily. He also described the company’s web-based applications. ‘Review and Approval’ allows editors to post clips on Avid’s site for viewing by others and offers a facility for adding comments to the clips that will appear in the editor’s timeline.
Customer Service
Customer service now reports to the sales division. You can purchase service on a per-incident basis as well as in ‘Call Packs’. Call hold times are reportedly down to an average of 3 minutes, but that is calculated by including all hours, including nighttime hours. Your mileage may vary.
The Bottom Line
Most people present were interested in Film Composer Version 10 and how it would affect them or their business, and many were anxiously looking at the upgrade equation. The path to the new systems is expensive. Existing Version 7 Film Composers will cost approximately $30,000 to upgrade. This includes a new computer and new video hardware. The only media networking possible is via Avid Unity. MediaShare Fibre Channel hardware and some Fibre drives won’t work (third-party shared storage may be available in the future). Unity costs much more than Fibre Channel – about $30,000 for the server, plus $4-5,000 per ‘seat’. Add the cost of Unity to the price of upgrading two machines and the total for a networked editor and assistant could rise above $100,000.
Avid’s presentation was the culmination of a series of events over the past couple of years that led to a big shakeup at Avid. Last year the company attempted to switch their customers to Windows NT and had a blow-out sale of their remaining Version 7 systems at about half price. Facilities and editors in LA didn’t see enough advantages to make it worth switching to Windows NT. The result was that the ABVB fire sale was too successful and the company lost a significant amount of upgrade revenue. Avid is clearly trying to make sure this doesn’t happen again. They’ve outlined a more focused upgrade path this time with full film support. But they now face new pressures. Low-cost editing systems are beginning to catch up to the Media Composer in both features and usability. The days of editing with expensive proprietary gear are coming to an end. The immediate question is whether the upgrade to Version 10 is worth the price, especially for networked systems. Editors at the meeting applauded many of the new features, but a number of attendees saw nothing so significant that they couldn’t live without it.
Rental houses now face a difficult question: if they upgrade, will they be able to recoup the upgrade cost in higher rental fees? There will clearly be two kinds of equipment available in the near future and Version 7 Film Composers will cost less than Version 10 models. But rental competition is fierce and many companies wonder whether they’ll be able to charge much of a premium over today’s prices for the upgraded machines. More likely, unless editors strongly demand Version 10, the price of the old systems may start drifting down. Avid’s mission at this ‘user group’ was to sell the people present on the value of the upgrade. They brought many of their top people to LA to do this. Only time will tell whether they succeeded.
Scott Janush is an assistant editor. His credits include
'8mm', 'End of Days' and currently, 'Jurassic Park III'.
He can be reached via email
Reprinted from
The Motion Picture Editors Guild Magazine
Vol. 21, No. 5 - September/October 2000
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