Cloud Collaboration cost

[tnipe]

500MB is not enough for one project, let alone 3. Looks like a really obvious way to make you get an extra plan or not use this at all. Should at least be 1 GB for already paying subscribers.

[taylor4814]

Originally Posted by dr_daw

Let the groaning begin....I'll start by saying I'll be sticking with Dropbox until they rethink their archaic pricing scheme.

Curious, re: Dropbox, do you work on sessions where the whole session folder itself lives in a local, Dropbox-synchronized folder, and updates/synchronizes with Dropbox cloud as you (and others) work... will Pro Tools run in that scenario?

[nigelpry]

Originally Posted by Carl Kolchak

The measly 500MB of free storage - I can completely understand, at least at this point in proceedings.

What I find utterly baffling though, is that even the premium plan is limited to only two additional collaborators (three users in total) per project.

I really hope that simply means two active collaborators at any one time.

In other words, a single project could have hundreds of collaborators passing through in total, but only two additional collaborators could be actively participating at any one time.

If it is limited to two in total, Avid have seriously hobbled themselves - and even if it simply means two active collaborators, that's scuppered any meaningful adoption of the service in the Film Post world.



Of course, PT12.5 is basically the public Beta of Cloud Collaboration, so we can expect major improvements (in terms of the number of collaborators, amount of free storage, and the development of the Artist Community) by the time we need to renew our support plans.

I read it differently first time ....

I thought that the free pack gets you two collaborators, while the premium pack gets you two ADDITIONAL collaborators ..... i.e. 4 collaborators in total. But going back and re-reading it, I see even the free pack uses the word 'additional', so it seems the premium packs don't get you any extra collaborators.

It also says 'per project', so each project can have two completely different collaborators.

When comparing it to Steinberg's version of cloud collaboration, this is obviously Avid's way of limiting data transfer, whereas Steinbrg doesn't limit the number of collaborators, but charges for data transfer once you've used your free allocation.

Personally, I prefer the flexibility of Steinberg's offering, but, in reality, I don't see myself using either company's facility all that much.

In fact, though, it is more likely I'll use Avid's, as the one scenario I can see is allowing my assistant to get started with initial editing work while I'm still tracking. In that case, data transfer throughput could be much higher, which new takes passing back and forth, and the main issue will be to comp and render edits efficiently to keep within data storage limits.

[dr_daw]

Originally Posted by taylor4814

Curious, re: Dropbox, do you work on sessions where the whole session folder itself lives in a local, Dropbox-synchronized folder, and updates/synchronizes with Dropbox cloud as you (and others) work... will Pro Tools run in that scenario?

No, how I work in Dropbox is in two scenario's. One I'm the mixing engineer, and the client records in a different DAW; so they upload truncated tracks into the Dropbox and then I load them into ProTools to mix. In this scenario, Collab is with PT is not relevant.

The second is I'm the recording engineer and someone else is mixing it. In the past, if they ran pro tools and had the same plugins, I would load the session with the files up. Generally, that's not the case, so as I complete tracking, I upload truncated tracks to the Dropbox for the mix engineer to load in their DAW of choice.

For those of you wondering, what's truncated?, it means all tracks start at the same Bar. That way whoever gets it can just load it in and have it line up. You have no idea how often I get tracks that are not like this.

It may not be as fast, but it's faster than the additional cost of going from 500mb free to 20g/month. Sometimes sessions take over a year! That's a huge expense, that I'm not carrying, that's billable. Clients won't like that! :P

[taylor4814]

Very cool, thanks, was wondering about that!

[Tom Graham]

Hi Guys,

Info posted here on the plans and pricing and how the lossless compression can make the 500MB free plan work as a starting point.

http://www.avidblogs.com/get-started...for-pro-tools/

We are working hard to make sure that everyone's experience with collab and the servers is a great one, so for now the limit of 2 collaborators and this set of offerings is where we feel we can ensure the best overall experience.

You can also see the videos that were part of the recent webinar.

Thanks much,
Tom

[nigelpry]

Well Tom, credit where credit's due .... The cloud collab functionality as shown in the blog videos is very impressive.

While I don't think I'll be a big user of it, I can certainly see that Avid has put a lot of thought into how to make this a genuinely viable workflow for people that need it. I can see one element of my workflow where this could be very useful, i.e. to allow an assistant to work on edits and comping while I continue tracking.

My main concern is what the effect of this major new feature set might be on the general stability of PT, especially as many of us continue to encounter a less than robust product as it is. And, of course, what impact correcting any issues with this new flagship functionality might have on the timsescales for fixing outstanding issues with the current (pre collab) feature set.

Nevertheless though, well done so far for coming up with a collab feature set that actually seems well thought out.

One question that does come to mind, given that we are limited to two additional collaborators .... Will it be possible, once a collaborator has competed his/her work, to 'delist' that collaborator, thereby opening up a slot for another collaborator to be added?

[Tom Graham]

Originally Posted by nigelpry

Well Tom, credit where credit's due .... The cloud collab functionality as shown in the blog videos is very impressive.

While I don't think I'll be a big user of it, I can certainly see that Avid has put a lot of thought into how to make this a genuinely viable workflow for people that need it. I can see one element of my workflow where this could be very useful, i.e. to allow an assistant to work on edits and comping while I continue tracking.

My main concern is what the effect of this major new feature set might be on the general stability of PT, especially as many of us continue to encounter a less than robust product as it is. And, of course, what impact correcting any issues with this new flagship functionality might have on the timsescales for fixing outstanding issues with the current (pre collab) feature set.

Nevertheless though, well done so far for coming up with a collab feature set that actually seems well thought out.

One question that does come to mind, given that we are limited to two additional collaborators .... Will it be possible, once a collaborator has competed his/her work, to 'delist' that collaborator, thereby opening up a slot for another collaborator to be added?

Thanks Nigel… I hope you get a chance to check out 12.5 in action when it ships. I have to say - the using it is a lot of fun and manages all the complex tweaks people like to do (after they've sent you something)!

Some might not know, but a trick to keep another version of Pro Tools side by side on Mac is to change the name of the app to say 'Pro Tools 12.4' and then 12.5 will install in addition to the old version. That way if you are concerned about stability - you can easily run either one without rebooting.

So yes - you can 'delist' a current collaborator and then invite a new one. And or - a person can leave as a collaborator on their own.

[Tom Graham]

PS - no ones made any jokes about my song yet…

[YYR123]

Originally Posted by Tom Graham

PS - no ones made any jokes about my song yet…

That would be mean wouldn't it?

Honestly I haven't seen it, but I am in the camp with Sir Nigel....glad you got it to work and wish you well but I am not planning on using the features

I have a setup in the country, and bank on people coming to me... :)

BTW - When are you gonna sell me your used D-Command ?



Cheers