Walter Biscardi on Changing Up the Post Pipeline

Studio Daily by Bryant Frazer

Walter Biscardi, founder of Biscardi Creative Media in Buford, GA, was so turned off by the new approach to editing in Apple's Final Cut Pro X that he resolved to find a replacement for his former favorite NLE. While he was at it, he started looking at alternatives to the Mac Pros that have been his workhorses, including iMacs and even Windows workstations. We asked him about his research process, what he's learned so far, and his advice for other facilities with new pipelines on their mind.

1) When did you realize you were going to have to start investigating using NLEs other than Final Cut Pro?

The moment I saw FCP X demo'd at the SuperMeet 2011. It was obvious Apple was taking the consumer approach to the professional software. "We will tell you what you need to do your work and you will like it." That doesn't work for professionals and X also created an island that was incompatible with other software we used. I have no patience for a company that takes 11 years of workflow and throws it out with no input from the professional community.

At that moment too I decided I would never be dependent on one vendor for everything moving forward. So that led me to Avid and Adobe since they are cross platform.

2) How did you evaluate competing platforms? Have you standardized on one?

Testing, testing, testing and even there we got burned by not testing enough read more...