Why AAX?

[huzzam]

Can anyone explain to me why Avid needed to create ANOTHER plug in format?

If RTAS & TDM are the things forcing us to stay 32 bit (seems plausible) & preventing us from offline rendering, couldn't you guys have switched to, say, Audio Units & VST, which work in 64-bit & can do faster than realtime, and ALREADY EXIST? Pretty much all of my plugins (except Massey) already include AU & VST versions, even, so transitioning would be completely painless.

With this move, you're making developers code for YET ANOTHER format (thereby raising prices they have to sell for, and increasing the odds of bugs, given limited debugging time)! For the foreseeable future, devs will have to develop AAX *alongside* RTAS at least, and probably TDM as well, to keep selling to the PT9 & 8 markets, plus AU & VST if they're cross-platform devs.

I think I see the reason: you want to keep selling HD systems, so you need a plug in format that works on your DSP chips.

cynically & somewhat discouraged,
~peter in oakland