Did anyone watch today's avid hdx webinar

[Peter Groom]

Hi
I'm interested if anyone watched today's avid hex webinar fro abbey road studios.
I thought the abbey road contributor was excellent and really knowledgable, but I'm regularly underwhelmed by the technical and production values on broadcasts like these.
I really can't understand why we are subjected to standards less than we'd all expect on normal live tv.
Voices not clean fed and echo loops going unstable
Distortion on macs
Single cameras rather than properly vision mixed content
Less than studio grade lighting

Come on avid. Your audience are tv people! We see the difference. Avid pro tools and avid video are all about high end broadcasting.
Your broadcasts should be no different.
Peter

[AINSLIE]

I watched it. I don't care about its AV production values. Info was disseminated. Questions answered - that was enough. Avid staff present and answering live chat.

That said the audio feedback loop / echo was quite distracting. Not a difficult issue to resolve.

[Emcha_audio]

I was unfortunately unavailable at that time but wanted to see it *sighs* hope they will put a link somewhere to rewatch it if they did a recording of it.

[nst7]

They've made all their other ones available afterwards, so I would expect they'll do the same with this one.

[Emcha_audio]

True but we never know how policies can change.

[Eric Seaberg]

Originally Posted by Peter Groom

I really can't understand why we are subjected to standards less than we'd all expect on normal live tv.
Voices not clean fed and echo loops going unstable

I watched and even posted a question... "Can Tony MUTE his mic when he's not talking?" and never got a reply... obviously. Embarrassing. We could hardly understand the answers, between the accent and feedback fighting each other.

[Peter Groom]

I didnt have any problems with accents, but did find the incessant echo and feedback very distracting.

Im afraid I expect of others, the same standards than my clients expect of me. Its not good enough to say, oh well its only a webinar..... if its worth doing at all, its worth doing well.
Id think that every Pro Tools user appreciates the difference between top class and poor technical standards. Thats why we buy things like HDX. If you dont appreciate / care about the difference, there are hundreds of lesser products much cheaper and far easier to learn than PT.

Content-good, contributors-good, technical - poor at best.
BUT when he was explaining about the kit, the rooms etc etc etc id like to have seen footage of this (like on proper tv!!) Not difficult.
Peter

[musicman691]

Caught the webinar. First off the audio problems are pretty much the norm when using Skype for this type of thing. Pitiful. It's why people when using Skype really need to use a headset mic setup so you don't get the feedback and echoing like they got yesterday.

What was more interesting was watching the chat. Somebody asked in the chat when PT11 will be coming out and Avid person Collyer Spreen said 'this year for sure'. If you still have the link you clicked on for the webinar you can go there and by clicking the 'more info' thing in the chat window a few times you'll see what I'm talking about. It's fairly close after Tom Graham posted in the chat room about it being 15 minutes to show time and to post your questions now.

[Tom Graham]

Hi Guys,

I just wanted to drop a line and say a few things on this topic:

1. Apologies for the technical difficulties - something came up and I had to step in.

2. If you've attended any of my other Pro Mixing Webinars - you know that we normally do a 2 camera shoot, lav microphones, B-Roll video, etc... We take pride in producing the content and it takes a lot of time and money to prep them. (Yes - it may sound defensive - but that's how I feel).

3. It's live and cutting edge technology. We are dealing with many new variables. TriCaster software, internet connections, integrating a live chat component from another vendor and more. We've had problems in the past, but that is the nature of live webcasts. If we don't do it live - we lose the benefit of your interaction and questions, which is really what makes it great.

Thanks for your understanding - we'll keep trying to make it better.

Tom

[Peter Groom]

Thanks for responding Tom.
I hope matters all worked out for the best with Tony.

I appreciate that there were last minute changes, but really its the job of the broadcasts technical team to look after correct audio routing and basic issues like in ear monitors etc etc. There was a technical team right?

An Avid audience will always be a tough audience, as a hig number of us work in broadcasting every day, so wont be forgiving of even a camera wobble, a mis matched mic eq or a pop on a p.

The contributor from Abbey rd was very good though so 100% there.

Ill look out for the B roll and vision mix next time.
Peter