Protools 10HD upgrade to from 9 is 999.99 ..... WHY

[psmworld]

guys, they've calculated 1/3 of the existing users to buy the upgrade for 999,- or go hdnative or hdx. so by 2/3 not buying it's the same income than all buying for 299,-.

with the unworthy value to exchange the hardware right now plus the feature limited update i doubt they reach 1/3.

[TLarvenz]

Max,

I think Avid shot themselves in the foot with the HD software upgrade price. There are many of us who simply won't upgrade until the cards are shipping but who probably would have paid the price for the software alone update if it had been reasonably priced. Given that until recently upgrades were 1/3 of the current price, are we to assume that previous reasonably-priced upgrades were put out half baked or didn't have the same number of features or the price of programming labor has gone up considerably despite the layoffs of programmers in 2008 and 2010? Maybe the cost of the development tools skyrocketed despite many of them being included for free with most OS releases these days? Maybe programming 64 bit took such a huge chunk of programming resources that the price had to triple? Oh wait, scratch that last one... Maybe you guys are struggling to find a way to keep Avid's CEO salary at his annual level of $1,339,600 (that $400,000 bonus this year was well earned given what the stock price has done!). Whatever the reason for the upgrade price, it's price is so astronomically out of line with anything that Avid has ever charged for a ProTools upgrade that it seems totally absurd. I can't imagine that it makes any business sense to scrap a large number of sales that would have occurred at previous upgrade prices in favor of selling much fewer copies at $1k (not to mention the ill will that resulted). It appears that you're simply pricing this to keep it out of the hands of the masses. And I believe that at this price you will succeed.

[Capta¡nHook]

Originally Posted by andy_cytomic

The AAX Native and the RTAS run at the same cpu. The unoptimised AAX DSP The Glue taking around 95% on 1 of the 18 texas instruments chips on an HDX card while running at 48 kHz. I expect to be able to drop to around 50% of a single chip

Does this worry anyone?

I just did a test on my iMac (that has had 2 updates since i got it) with 24/441 session.

I had 200 instances of The Glue and at a buffer of 1024 my cpu in PT was at about 40%. Activity monitor showed 310% usage. At 64 buffer it was around 60% or 410% usage.

This was on top of running my screen capture software, and having Mail, two web browsers, and itunes open.

Video proof (1080p - prob best to right click and download) - http://www.captainhook.co.nz/TheGlue.mov

If there's 18(?)chips on a HDx card, and Andy is hoping to be able to get just two instances of the glue per chip (@48k), my 2-generations-old iMac is already well out-performing an HDx card.

If this is indicative of the "power" of HDx, and how optimized plugin devs can go, native definitely looks more appealing.

[losttimestudios]

Max

No doubt a lot of time and talent went Into upgrade. That does not justify the totally absurd upgrade cost for HD. I hope that Avid doesn't go bust. Wtf were you people thinking?

[airon]

Ladies and gentlemen, relax.

HD7 was toast years ago in direct comparisons to native systems.

If you do not need the features HDX cards offer, you should not invest in them.

Is 32 I/O enough for you ? (Protools 9 limit and I assume Protools 10 limitation as well)

Is monitoring with plugins at 0.7 ms latency NOT necessary for your workflow ?

Take a look at the differences to a native system and figure out if you want the specific features these cards offer. And if not, don't worry.

You sure don't need HDX cards to get lots of plugins up and running. The cost/benefit ratio for that particular task is all in favour of native systems and has been for years.

[Teej]

It's to punish users like me who decided to buy an ilok with an HD9 license instead of pay $2000 for VCA faders. I already owned regular Pro Tools 9. I can update my HD license, but Avid wants to see $1000 from me instead of the base 9 to 10 upgrade price.

Not going to happen soon. I would pay $500 though. If it was $300, I'd have already bought it.

Funny thing is, completely legitimate HD users who don't want to upgrade hardware are pissed off too.

[b1daly]

Max,
I appreciate that you are attempting to address the frustration and disappointment expressed on this thread. Your arguing within your constraints as an Avid rep. I agree that the HDX systems offer good value. But there are two aspects of an argument: the substance and the emotional. What everyone on this thread is upset about is the $1000 upgrade. It hurts now and portends ominous trends in Avid's pricing policy. By not at least acknowledging the validity of people's feelings on this you upset us more! It is this tone deafness that makes me dubious about the wisdom of making the jump to PT 11 when it comes.
Another thing that is a little unclear is the roadmap for PT HD Native. Will it remain a first class citizen going forward? If so, why is it necessary to stop supporting the Blue line interfaces in PT 11 at least for the HD Native card? I don't get it. The interfaces are basically converters.
A fundamental issue brewing under this the native vs DSP issue. The TDM systems were a real lock in, and made it harder for users to take advantage of the very powerful new CPUs. Now there is a new system that is expensive and is another lock in DSP system. I'm actually surprised about this. It seems like a very robust native system would offer huge value to many PT users. If PT HD Native is going to be continued to be developed then speaking to this would at least present another upgrade path to users who can't or won't make the jump to HDX.

[abt]

Originally Posted by b1daly

...Another thing that is a little unclear is the roadmap for PT HD Native. Will it remain a first class citizen going forward?...

I'd really like to know this too, I only bought mine a few months ago.

HD Native to HDX (card only): HDX Card + PT10HD upgrade= $7,499

Until I read this I was only upset that I'm looking at a $1k upgrade, native cards are going to stay supported right?

[ggegan]

I recently did a test running a feature film mix session that had maxed out my HD6 system on a PT9 HD Native system running on an 8 core Westmere Mac Pro and the HD Native system outgunned my HD6 pretty decisively. Avid claims that one HDX card has approximately 5 times the processing power of an HD1. If this is correct, then an HD Native system running on a high speed computer with lots of RAM is likely more powerful than a single HDX card. It seems to me that unless you anticipate buying two HDX cards, you are better off with HD Native. Maybe that's why the upgrade price for the software is so expensive.

[FilterDecay]

Originally Posted by ggegan

I recently did a test running a feature film mix session that had maxed out my HD6 system on a PT9 HD Native system running on an 8 core Westmere Mac Pro and the HD Native system outgunned my HD6 pretty decisively. Avid claims that one HDX card has approximately 5 times the processing power of an HD1. If this is correct, then an HD Native system running on a high speed computer with lots of RAM is likely more powerful than a single HDX card. It seems to me that unless you anticipate buying two HDX cards, you are better off with HD Native. Maybe that's why the upgrade price for the software is so expensive.

This is true.