We’ve been here before…

buttonpusher.tv by Ben

Last Friday I came across this bit of news:

Avid today announced that renowned television production company, Bunim/Murray Productions, has selected Avid Media Composer® 6 and Avid Symphony® 6 editing software for all of its programs beginning in early 2012. Bunim/Murray joins a growing number of professional users who have returned to using Avid solutions from Final Cut Pro to meet their production workflow requirements. Additionally, as part of this implementation, Bunim/Murray also plans to deploy an Avid ISIS® 5000 shared storage system to effectively store and share media across its organization.

On the surface it seems like a no-brainer. Apple has forsaken the broadcast editor to release an application that is more in line with the company’s minimalist approach. In doing so, they have effectively removed the application from consideration by many editors who need things like: deck control, import and export of interchange formats (omf), manual media management and self-determined timeline configuration (i.e. manual assignment of tracks). Editors who don’t need those things have a very fine tool at their disposal. Editors who do need them, are looking elsewhere. FCP-X may deliver those things in time. Certainly there are third-party solutions that make it serviceable enough now, but that’s not acceptable to a large operation like Bunim-Murray or to most professional editors, who don’t want to have to “roll their own” features.

Hence a huge production company like Bunim-Murray is going to drop FCP in favor of Avid Media Composer. It’s going to start happening more and more. FCP-X just can’t fit into existing workflows for delivery of broadcast material. More companies are going to switch. Many will go to Avid. Some will go to Premiere Pro. There are some production companies out there, however, that won’t be able or willing to make the switch. And this is the history-repeating-itself part, this switch is going to kill those companies off. read more...