NLE Kick Off 2014

By Walter Biscardi

The beginning of a new year is always a great time to reflect back on where we’ve been and make some predictions on where we’re headed. In this case, I’m talking about Post Production since that is the heart of what I’ve done my entire career. From my perspective, here’s where I see our corner of the industry.

“What Should I Use?”
People are constantly writing and pinging me to ask “What should I use?” Well the answer is truly, “Any of them.” Your tool of choice is going to be predicated on many factors including your skill level, the type of work you produce, your typical turnaround time for a project, how large / small your projects are and the type of editorial environment you’re working in. Of course, the choice of tool to use is not always yours, especially if you’re a freelancer or an employee of a company.

First off, let me say that if you’re researching tools by reading articles, blogs, and tests from websites that are dedicated to a particular tool or system and you’re reading that “This tool is the one you MUST use or you’re not a professional” or “If you can’t get on board with this future, you’re hopeless” or “That other tool is so bad, you MUST use this tool or you’re not a professional” then take whatever is on that site with a grain of salt. Or looking through the website you can’t find anything negative written or shown about that particular tool or system, take everything on there with a grain of salt. A website that supports Adobe is going to downplay Avid and Apple for example and vice versa. You’ll get some great resources to use that particular tool on the site but you won’t get an unbiased opinion of the good, the bad and the ugly.

There is not a single tool in our industry that is perfect. Let me say that again, “NO SINGLE TOOL in our industry is perfect.” Everything we use has compromises somewhere. When those compromises and short comings are pointed out via comments or Twitter and folks react personally and attack the messenger, well I just don’t have the patience anymore to deal with that. “Fanboy syndrome” seems to have gotten stronger in the age of Twitter and name calling has just gotten so much worse it’s not worth the time or effort to try and correct some of these folks. That’s why we’re thankful for the Block feature on Twitter. So when reading articles, benchmarks, tests and reviews, just be aware of where the messages are coming from and the agendas being served when you read both the good and bad about products. read more...