Young Editors And Product Development

(From The Avid Yahoo User's Group)

FINAL CUT PRO (FCP), for the moment anyway, is a pile of steaming canine waste. But, it's hip and cool.

APPLE is constantly adding functionality and links to other compositing, DVD and audio applications.

It's a different interface than AVID, but the functionality is there.

The young 'un up and comers are only interested in
"HOW MUCH" they can do, not in "HOW" they do it.

As I've said a million times before, the success of
AVID SYMPHONY is directly, inextricably and 100% connected to AVID's domination of offline.

Once TOTAL CONFORM is taken off the table, SYMPHONY is, for the most part, neutralized.

FCP will have TOTAL CONFORM (eventually).

This point is huge.

I recently showed the latest version of AVID XPRESS PRO to some friends still in college and they HATED it.

They had all learned FCP (the school has a Mac lab) and
were used to just dragging everything they needed to.

The AVID "old school" method of 3-point editing wasn't
"very intuitive," they said.

I disagreed and went on about linear editing, film cutting, etc.

They laughed and said, "Yah, and you used to use teletype machines, then fax machines, and now you email, pdfs, etc.

All three do the same thing, which would you rather use?

What is going to happen to AVID, desperately clinging onto the MEDIA COMPOSER interface like RICK SPRINGFIELD is to JESSIE'S GIRL, is that they are going to stand still rather than upset their user base, and because of that -- watch it slowly dwindle as more people find their media solutions elsewhere.

That's Business 101.

If you don't grow and improve, then you will be left behind.

The young 'uns ARE the future. If they are happy with FCP (ugh), then that's what they will be working on.