The Death of Avid...

[Anderson Boyd]

EDIT: pardon the bad formatting, I'll try and correct when have more time.

Some interesting stats from latest Cinema Editor magazine, the Q2 edition. Keep in mind that only ACE members were polled so this is only sampling cinema, indie to big budget.

System: 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

Avid Adrenaline 12.35 % 22.63 % 27.69 % 37 % 51.4 %
Avid (Other) 2.47 % 10.22 % 6.92 % 23 % 25.7 %
Avid Nitris DX/Mojo DX 66.05 % 54.01 % 41.54 % 17 % -----
Avid Software 4.94 % ------- -------- ----- -----
Final Cut Pro 11.11 % 12.41 % 19.23 % 21 % 18.10 %
Other 3.09 % 0% 4.62 % 0% 3.9 %


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Platform:
2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

Mac 88.89 % 92.03 % 86.92 % 82 % 73.30 %
PC 10.49 % 7.97 % 13.08 % 15 % 21 %
Other 0.62 % ------- ------- 3 % 5.7 %


There are additional stats for Finishing Environment, Camera Original, Delivery Format, etc. but too much to type out. If anyone's curious ab a particular though I'll look it up.

Some other highlights:

Finishing Environment in 2011: 42 % Avid, and 25.8 % Digital Conform, only 5.66 % for Autodeskt (Smoke and Lustre)

Camera Original in 2011: 35mm 15.53 %, Digital (flash, drive, tape, HD 24p) 62.11 % --- as opposed to 2007: 35mm 60 %, Digital (flash, drive, tape) 2.90 %, HD 24p 21 %

The last five years have been an amazing turnaround. No small coincidence RED came to life around that time!

[nigelsmith]

Lol
Loved that objective assessment of Avid's market position and prospects on fcp.co -
"Aiming to be the number one final cut resource on the net".
So Apple abandon the pro market and Avid abandon the "prosumer".
What a surprise.
Terrible or great news - just depends where you stand ;)

[Anders Holck]

What I find interesting is that Avid disclose that their gross margin for Pro products is 60%

[Nathaniel Kramer]

Take a look at their balance sheet.. They are running out of cash.... unless they get bought by another company, i would they their future is uncertain at best..
http://www.thestreet.com/quote/AVID/...nce-sheet.html

[Nick Pasquariello]

...Why is this in the Hardware forum?

[Anderson Boyd]

The same reason you may have heard of Avid referred to as a proper noun. i.e. The Avid. At the professional level Avid has traditionally been proprietary hardware based non-linear editor. Nitris DX, Mojo DX, and Symphony were (are? debatable) its flagship machines. Often costing ridiculous amounts.

The fledgling and imperfect Media Composer software that you may use on your Mac or PC is a comparatively recent development. Avid (and Pro Tools) have been proprietary hardware dependent machines until awesome alternatives like the FCP of old and Adobe came into the mix and brought some much needed democracy to the table.

[Anderson Boyd]

+ isn't everything edited on hardware... it's all in the family. It's bit of a stretch if you were offering up a complaint.

[Mike Garrick]

Didn't need to be Einstien to see this coming.

MC 6 was meant to be the dawn of new age of NLE for Avid..... it isnt. It still has the same old nineties edit philsophy hidden behind a new UI. Start getting to sub menu land you see bloated menus a hangover from previous versions. Avid was the leader in the 90's then along came FCP in a new century & shut down's Avid profitable business model. To me Avid was always about selling boxes stuffed full of boards and charging astounding prices for the privilege. A hard ask in today's software environment.

Today Avid is not still "resolution independent". Its big claim is the software "knows where everything is" .......sure if everything is in the same format & same folders. To see how this philosophy works in a multi-format 21st environment, journey over to Creative Cow & read Walter Biscardi's run ins with Avid.....& this was meant to be Avid's flagship into the future.

To everyone still using Avid it is still a solid system (much like FCP 7) ......& yes Avid are haven't sold the family jewels ........yet. But things aren't looking good . So a question, if Avid are meant to be the best NLE, why are they loosing money ? Something to ponder when your working those non resolution independent timelines.

[Mark Toia]

I taught myself all of them...

FCP 7 is still the smoothest and easiest, But sadly dead... Premier is still a little bit clunky, but has a great future because ADOBE listen to consumers, Avid I jumped off some time ago, but I still update latest copies hoping to see something new, but sadly it's still the same. Feels so old and clunky when I get on it theses days... especially when you climb of FCPX, which is hideously fast and fluid, but with an silly interface made for kids on ipads.

I for one give them the gold medal to Avid for being first. It's a bit sad for them to fall so far behind, it's hard to see them catchup again. But I would like too see media composer reborn with the huge cpu power like FCPX and Premier have behind it.

Long live Avid i say.

[Nick Morrison]

I know Paul personally, and I know Avid workflow drives him crazy (he sees it as prehistoric and out of touch).


So I'm sure he'd love to see Avid die a slow, painless death!


I actually see this Avid announcement as a positive one. As everyone has said, it means they are focusing on the PRO market, and leaving the CONSUMER market to FCX, etc.

I have a different perspective on Avid that I'd like to share (it gets beat up quite a lot on these boards). I frequently work in a HUGE facility with 20 edit rooms that run day and night. We work with over 50+ TB's of raided footage, all for promo. Its a multi-multi million dollar facility.

In this situation, where we have literally 1000's of projects being shared by 100's of producers and editors, Avid works pretty much FLAWLESSLY. It's designed to work seamlessly in a 1080 world, both when mastering to tape, and working from digital media.

That being said - they need incorporate a better 4K workflow, as right now they are optimized for high volume, high end broadcast work, and not much else.

Hopefully, this announcement will lead to exactly that - Avid doubling down on the PRO future, which means greater 4k, 5k, and 6K workflows, etc.