Avid in trouble?

I've no idea if stock price really does mean that a company is in trouble. However this site reports financial woes at Avid. www.macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/17543/

It's actually old news, but it's picking up. This came on the heals of news that Avid pulled out of NAB (the big US Broadcasting and video trade fair) in order to "focus on other ways of reaching their clients" (Apple also pulled out of NAB this year, though neither had big product launches to promote anyway). Since then Avid slashed the price of the software only version of Media Composer, in order to compete with FCP in the low budget market. (Avid also has the lowest price for student packages, though the educational licence is FAR more restrictive on use than the Apple education price licence, which is basically just the usual retail licence at a discount.)

MacDaily is right that FCP is gaining traction in the higher budget TV and Film world, but it's got nowhere near the dominance that Avid has. Apple has the lowest price and has kitted out Final Cut Suite with a treasure trove of additional software, but still cannot challenge Avid for rock solid media management. There is also the issue that there many film school and self trained Final Cut editors with lots of experience, but only in a capture-cut-'n'-export DV projects are getting work but without the proper training in workflow and data management that's required in a professional environment.

Walter Murch on editing, continued.

The final parts of the Walter Murch interview I featured before are now online. Murch continues to discusses his move from film to NLE editing, particularly his early experience with Avid systems, to his decisions to move from the industry standard Avid, to adopt Final Cut Pro for all his films so far since Cold Mountain (his next film, he maintains, will be edited on FCP).

Part 4

Part 5

Walter Murch on the History of Editing

A fascinating interview: apparently, film editing was invented in Brighton, and non-linear hard disc based computer editing was in use in 1969!

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

I love the sound of his still image gallery database, a frame selected from every set up taken in the film, and then printed out, while also stored in a database and cross referenced to other edit log notes (you can see this in use in the documentary The Cutting Edge.) Someone needs to add this feature to Final Cut Pro or Avid, and SOON! How about a tool that allows you to output poster frames from QuickTime to iPhoto (soon to be on PC too), where you could then send them off to be printed by your local photo developing company of choice.