Conductor complains about S3 Encoders

[teedeecee]

I have just finished a few days with the Conductor of a classical project we are working on and had an embarrassing moment.

Usually I will spend some time with the Conductor running through the work, checking all the editing and pre-mix work done to ensure they are happy the project is on track and the musicality is as they desire.

During this process I sometimes test out some moves to see what effect this has. After a few hours, the Conductor, who is switched on to audio, asked why I kept missing my target position when trying the automation out on a rotary encoder, and having to have a second pass at it.

After giving him a try he was astonished to see how erratic the encoders behaved to his input. Enough said...

Is there any comment from AVID regarding this long standing gripe?

[@tention]

Well let's add another story to this:

One of my business contacts in a large and established tv production who respects me for my technical knowledge recently turned to me and asked about a replacement for their dying WK Audio Id Controller for Nuendo on OS X.

I pointed him into the direction of the AVID S3 / Dock or Nuage.

Last week I received several calls for help.
To cut a long story short, they have spent 4 days trying to get the thing to work reliably. The dealer was there for 2 days and tried to help setting up the system. The operator, IT guy, even the head of their AVID video department tried everything possible to get the system to work reliably. We are talking about a combined effort of 60+ hrs in a production company that has deliver a weekly format.

The end of the story was that they had to return the units. They just could not get it to work reliably. Touching controls on the iPad app crashed the system, setting up jog/shuttle commands crashed the system, setting up custom key commands for cut head/tail/trim crashed the system. Pans showed really erratic behavior.

Avid support could not solve the problem as well.

We are talking about a € 7k system here that is advertised as working with Nuendo on the web page but is not even close to BETA state.

Congratulations.