Report: Avid explores a sale of the company 5
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C Matador

Wow.How wrong can you be.

If you are interested in media management, collaboration, shared projects and work groups along with core edit functionality and interface response then NO NLE HAS SURPASSED AVID MEDIA COMPOSER, unfortunately.

C Matador

Scott, disagree strongly.

JKL shuttle, transport, and edit inputs on both source side and timeline is incredibly responsive in Media Composer compared to Premiere and that includes non-transcoded newer Sony AVC – MXF media. Stop means stop, low delay, etc. Avid trim mode is still the rock star of them all.

All you have to do is look through Premiere forums at the basic performance problems the application continues to have with shuttle and playback. A situation made worse when break out boxes are used. Even on top spec systems (like mine) folks still complain about video lag and dropping audio samples. (I hear the clicks often).

Avid timeline behavior like auto-patching and the ability to modify media parameters for clips already in sequence rivals Premiere and speeds work.

Basic organization is far more flexible. Premiere still doesn’t understand the relation between subclips and masterclips while inside a project and absolutely makes a mess of relinking – restoring archived media for multiple subclips from the same master clip on a finder level. .

The physical act of creating subclips is far more cumbersome in Premiere and illustrates how fragmented and over focused the interface is. Keyboard shortcuts are not “modal” and far harder to manage and use vs Avid. You really can’t effectively manage multiple user settings and preferences on the same install from inside the application either. Even things like bin views are buried deep inside OS system folders. Very difficult to share vs Avid.

Same with custom effects presets. Avid generally thinks of this stuff on a project by project and bin by bin basis. Premiere seems to more often think of things as a giant basket of everything on your computer.

Premiere is an ABSOLUTE DISASTER in managing metadata. XMP is hack-ish and does not work well. Creating,managing, using, and sharing custom bin columns, fields, and data in Media Composer is not only elegant but it works FANTASTIC. Premiere falls apart.

And let’s not even crack the door open on project sharing, projects with multiple editors, and bin sharing across different projects. This is just core base functionality with Avid. Premiere is very clumsy and inflexible whether through the grafted on teams or productions.

Keep in mind Media Composer’s foundation was designed by people that obviously paid close attention to the craft of editing, in an age when software like that cost 10’s of thousands of dollars (if broken out). Premiere is a pro-sumer application that grew up and has the feel of “software guys”. It is also aging and stretching as feature upon feature are plastered on. But it is much more of a Swiss Army Knife than Media Composer ever thought about being. It does an awful lot (integrated transcribing features, srt features, AI, etc). Resolve is catching up on basics while always been advanced on slick features (re-light).

The core of Media Composer is a robust database engine and media management architecture required when offline / online / cut-lists were the workflow.

This serves users very well today. It is why all you need to re-create or move an entire edit is ONLY the actual sequence, not a monolithic giant project (which Premiere can occasionally corrupts).

Everything used in an Avid sequence is LOCKED in the sequence. It is far too easy to have errors happen in Premiere. Any guesses what happens to references of clips in sequences if they accidentally get deleted or disappear on a project level in Premiere? GONE. Like they were never there.

Premiere seems to lose track of renders / pre-computes easier and doesn’t seem to be as robust on a frame by frame basis managing renders. Using helper apps like Media Encoder and “scripts” to mange transcoding, proxies, and even some imports – moving via Media Browser can cause havoc. Clips can literally have custom names reset. And there can be duplicate media issues.

While the Symphony color corrector is extremely old it’s ability to be RELATIONAL across clips, sequences, and cameras is unmatched, provided the color corrector gets you where you need to go. It also allows for surgical input via keyboard or numerically. Both things Lumetri cannot do, although Lumetri has far more features to actually do the grade. Resolve absolutely kicks Avid’s ass here.

Where you are right with functionality is Premiere’s greater video and audio effects flexibility which extends to titles, mogrts, and tie-ins with After Effects or etc. It is also far less restrictive than Media Composer when using multiple resolutions or non standard resolutions. And there are other areas where Premiere and certainly Resolve are far more contemporary, advanced, and integrated than Media Composer.

But IMHO you have colored the term “edit functionality” entirely wrong. In core, base, edit functionality and media management, nothing surpasses Avid product. Nothing even comes close in professional, non-single seat, environments. It does the BASICS better than anyone else and triumphs when used to edit large story driven projects like narratives, serial television, news – infotainment, and documentaries.

This is unfortunate. I use Premiere as much as Media Composer so I am well exposed. My choice of application is based on the project.

After many conversations with Adobe, they do not seem the least bit interested or capable in addressing long standing basic short comings. And in many cases they can’t even explain what the software is doing and why. And in their defense it is daunting task for either company to deal with aging architecture and legacy code base.

For me the basics and foundation matters. Avid had such a head start here it still rivals the field. Bells and whistles, that is another story.

Alex ‘4D’ Gollner

Sadly the specifics of one NLE being better than another – be it in media management or titling – is irrelevant if Media Composer doesn’t contribute to Avid’s profitability.

David

Let me be the first to shovel Avid into it’s well-deserved grave.

Scott,
I understand that a comment on a Facebook post doesn’t give permission for my take being credited, but I don’t mind being credited for my “Slight problem for Media Composer users” take.
Cheers!

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