Avid's Decsision to Obsolete RTAS and TDM plugins is Stupid

[losttimestudios]

By choosing to ditch TDM and RTAS with PT 11 that means that all the 3rd party plugs and instruments that most of use will no longer work and have to be upgraded, that is if an upgrade is even available. What a royal pain. Avid is imposing its will on third party developers to redevelop or upgrade to the AAX format. In this economy, do these companies have the funds to commit that kind R&D. What is PT 11 going to be released and everything is ready to go? Of course not. Look how long it took Native Instruments and Spectrasonics to get up-to-date. Put aside the hassle factor, no doubt these companies will have to pass on their development costs to the customer. For those who have been working in PT for years and have a pretty good collection of plugs and instruments, there will likely be substantial costs. Why? RTAS and TDM ain't broke. Why the hell is Avid trying to fix it.

[WKG]

RTAS works just fine on PT 10 and earlier and will continue to do so. PT 11 will be an entirely optional upgrade when it comes so the transition to AAX will only affect those who decide to upgrade. Nothing will change for those who decide not to. Besides it remains to be seen how 3rd party developers will handle it. McDSP for one has already announced AAX support will be a free update for v5.

[Dism]

Originally Posted by losttimestudios

By choosing to ditch TDM and RTAS with PT 11 that means that all the 3rd party plugs and instruments that most of use will no longer work and have to be upgraded, that is if an upgrade is even available. What a royal pain. Avid is imposing its will on third party developers to redevelop or upgrade to the AAX format. In this economy, do these companies have the funds to commit that kind R&D. What is PT 11 going to be released and everything is ready to go? Of course not. Look how long it took Native Instruments and Spectrasonics to get up-to-date. Put aside the hassle factor, no doubt these companies will have to pass on their development costs to the customer. For those who have been working in PT for years and have a pretty good collection of plugs and instruments, there will likely be substantial costs. Why? RTAS and TDM ain't broke. Why the hell is Avid trying to fix it.

If RTAS and TDM don't go extinct, then Pro Tools goes extinct. The software cannot progress to 64 bit and beyond without dropping the old formats.

[Andy R]

Personally, I know a whole lot of nothing about software programming, but arguably, something like Apple's '32-bit bridge' or VEP could extend the life of RTAS and TDM.

If someone creates this 'bridge', and charges a couple hundred bucks for it, they'll make a bunch of dough. :) (Are you listening, programmers? )

That said, PT's plugin formats and hardware needed to evolve. I, and many others, are thrilled with the new system and AAX, despite the inconvenience involved. For example, I'd bet Virus won't make it to AAX, and that will be a royal pain for me, but you just can't have it all... nor should you expect too, IMHO.

[kaiserpathos]

Possibly, it's clear Avid thinks a 'bridge' technology is entirely the wrong path...instead opting to create the AAX which can run in 32-bit sessions (in PT10) or 64-bit sessions (in PT11).

I've heard about how Logic's bridge & 32-bit AUs don't do well in large 64-bit sessions. And it could also be argued that the 'Bridge' in Logic actually slowed development of 64-bit plug-ins. Avid's strategy is probably to avoid this, and have the platform-shift pain now during the RTAS/TDM-sunset era. This era is gonna last a couple years (even if PT11 comes out next year). It allows plug-in manufacturers time to adjust to AAX, though the sooner they adjust the better for competition's sake. The problem is, during this adjustment period if we users don't have any kind of upgrade coverage with them (WUP, etc) then they can elect to charge us to cover their AAX re-write efforts. That's what a lot of people are concerned about.

But anyway, by not allowing a "bridge to old RTAS" they're putting pressure on the plug-in ecosystem to adapt.

Will be interested to see how this all plays out...

[25ghosts]

Originally Posted by losttimestudios

By choosing to ditch TDM and RTAS with PT 11 that means that all the 3rd party plugs and instruments that most of use will no longer work and have to be upgraded, that is if an upgrade is even available. What a royal pain. Avid is imposing its will on third party developers to redevelop or upgrade to the AAX format. In this economy, do these companies have the funds to commit that kind R&D. What is PT 11 going to be released and everything is ready to go? Of course not. Look how long it took Native Instruments and Spectrasonics to get up-to-date. Put aside the hassle factor, no doubt these companies will have to pass on their development costs to the customer. For those who have been working in PT for years and have a pretty good collection of plugs and instruments, there will likely be substantial costs. Why? RTAS and TDM ain't broke. Why the hell is Avid trying to fix it.

Lots of people have been complaining about RTAS incl. Me... Now they are doing something about it... I like that.

A transition always takes time. Remember OS X... Anyway, I advocate for AAX.. Seem to work VERY smooth. So if this going to eventually cure RTAS VIs short comings, then I am ALL for it.

I personally dont think that the 3rd pty "Problem" is going to arise. Time will tell

[Carl Lie]

I just hope AAX is more efficient than RTAS.

No one seems to be able to confirm this. That's the thing about RTAS I don't like.

I'm glad they did it if it offers better performance, especially with VI's.

If it doesn't offer any advantage and it's just to be able to switch between native and HDx then I won't be so impressed.

C

[Craig F]

Andy, lots of things are posable to do but is it an efficient use of resources is the question.
Current HD cards started life in OS9.
So could some bridging software be made to make them work? probably
Is it a good use of recourses? NO

[Draulym]

Faster than real-time bounce??.... see ya RTAS & TDM!!

[Andy R]

Originally Posted by Craig F

Andy, lots of things are posable to do but is it an efficient use of resources is the question.
Current HD cards started life in OS9.
So could some bridging software be made to make them work? probably
Is it a good use of recourses? NO

I meant a software emulation/rewire of TDM by some third party, but I totally agree: it's not worth doing... In hindsight, my POV was being colored by the probable loss of Virus, which is TDM only.

The only real reason to 'create a bridge' is for the rare instance where a TDM plugin is made untenable by AAX, which may turn out to be very rare, indeed.