Avid Pro Audio Community

soundasylum · #1 10-11-2004, 08:19 PM

Okay, so I'm the proud owner of two AVXLs with V10 upgrades. I've had one for over a year now. What the heck is going on. I've heard of vaporware, but for $10,000???

Anyone out there know anything about what's going on? Does it just not work or will it be released?

Who's got some dirt?

Thanks.

Chief Technician · #2 10-11-2004, 08:26 PM

If you define "not work" as not being able to scrub audio against picture on a video monitor, then yes, it doesn't work.

Richard Fairbanks · #3 10-12-2004, 05:23 AM

I'm sure it will be out very soon. All signs point this way. The hardware upgrade offer is currently scheduled to end at the end of November. Obviously, they will not end the offer before an upgrade is actually available. It will be soon, no doubt.

Mario C · #4 10-12-2004, 08:38 AM

My local rep says it will be announced at AES or therabouts.

I still won't be able to take advantage of it though, because I'm tied down to Avid Unity. And that won't be savvy on OSX until 1st quarter 2005.

feakerboo · #5 10-15-2004, 02:58 PM

Mario you sure about the Unity info. they been saying that for a few years now...

-feaks

Mario C · #6 10-18-2004, 08:15 AM

Quote:

Mario you sure about the Unity info. they been saying that for a few years now...

-feaks

As sure as one can be given that my sources are Digi reps who talked with Digidesign.

Of course, I take it all with caution, but when you're trying to budget/plan an upgrade, you've got to go with something, eh?

1150Post · #7 10-19-2004, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Okay, so I'm the proud owner of two AVXLs with V10 upgrades. I've had one for over a year now. What the heck is going on. I've heard of vaporware, but for $10,000???

Anyone out there know anything about what's going on? Does it just not work or will it be released?

Who's got some dirt?

Thanks.

Well,

From what I saw of the system we installed in our PC PTools room yesterday, I wouldn't be in too big of a rush to get it.

Even if you like the idea of having a stripped down Avid Symphony that you can run in your ProTools suite to digitize audio and video, you may still be disappointed.

In my opinion, even with the multiple file fromat support, etc.... It is still a far cry short of the standard set by the AVOptionXL.

For example. To load a 30 second promo delivered on Digi Beta requires one to exit ProTools, lauch the AV10 application, digitize the promo, export it, close the AV10 application, launch ProTools, open a new session (from a template or whatever) import the video, import the Audio OMF (which you might be able to do in the AV10 Application) then start working. In reality, this took us 10 minutes.

Additionally, the V10 does not recognize the Sync IO as a machine control device. Instead, you have to hook it up to COM1 on the back of the PC. So if you are then going to Lay Back the audio from ProTools, you need to either use COM1 or repatch machine control to use the Sync IO. I've not done any research to know for certain what the differences are. But I thought I was told that the Sync IO was better.

My first impressions are basically, "Wow! Waht a Kludge." But then again I didn't push the box hard. Just touch the surface actually.

And first reports this morning from that rooms normal operator are 6 crashes in the first hour, though I believe he was trying to work to quicktime by just importing the QT into ProTools, not going through the V10 by importing it there first and exporting it for PTools. Take this with a grain of salt, as both myself and today's operator are basically working with the manual open. It is possible we handled the QT completely wrong! But then again, shouldn't it be easy to import a QT and just go to work? I know it is with the Miro Card in another one of our suites.

Additinally, when PTools is hooked up to a deck in the Peripherals Dialogue, the V10 only outputs black. Now, I like that idea as a reminder to WATCH THE TAPE, NOT THE HARD DRIVE during layback , but it is a bit of a pain if you are going to be loading audio selects from a timed source, such as TC Dat, or the occasional In the Field VO to Beta SP, or whatever (we all know what and why we load from timed sources...)

Oh yeah, and you can only have 1 movie on the time line. It blows the old one away, so if you need to digitize additional video (like the next 4 promos in the series), you need to edit the video together in the V10 software.... I'm not sure about you, but I like the idea that we audio folk NOT have to edit video... The chances for mishap are just too great if I have to spot video and be certain it winds up at the same time code I found it at....

On the bright side, if it conforms in the same manner that the Symphony does, that aspect will be fantastic, and I imagine that it will also handle Unity the same way a Symphony does... or at least I am betting it will. By appearance, it looks just like a stripped down Symphony, so I would expect it is the very same. I'm not sure, however, how reconforms of picture might translate back to the media in ProTools. I would bet that you would still need to do the reconform of your audio in ProTools either by hand or with a seperate product.

Did I mention that the scrub window pops up very fast, and is moveable and sizeable to anything, and that scrubbing on the Video Monitor is also responsive, though on the quick project I did, scrubbing video to the monitor locked the system. I could still save and edit, I just couldn't play back the audio. So it won't cause you to lose any work, just time to reboot. Also, on occasion when booting PTools after running AV10, it will grey out your Analog outputs, but selecting default in the IO Setup page clears that back to your default setup.

Well, nice (or not) as it is, I still am leaning towards VVTR for my Mac suites here in our second facility. And I plan on keeping an old Media Composer around for conforms. But I figure can ride for a while with my AV/XL... maybe digi will get this worked out better.

FWIW.

Brad McIlvaine
Sr. Mixer/Designer
Henninger Media Services
Washington, DC 20036

FajitaTone · #8 10-19-2004, 08:55 AM

I saw a demo of it. It looks more like MCExpress or MOJO. One screen. Funny that it has Bins, but ProTools does not. We get "digibase" instead. Thanks. I suppose the logic behind V10 is that since most video editors think they can do audio, why not let the audio guys think they can do video.

that's what happens when computer guys want to be sound guys.

Richard Fairbanks · #9 10-19-2004, 11:51 AM

Oh no.

Brad, what version of the software are you using? As a Mac owner I have been waiting for V10's release for OSX, and hoping the feature set is altered away from V10's first implementations. Is the version you saw yesterday a new version?

1150Post · #10 10-20-2004, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Oh no.

Brad, what version of the software are you using? As a Mac owner I have been waiting for V10's release for OSX, and hoping the feature set is altered away from V10's first implementations. Is the version you saw yesterday a new version?

Sorry Richard.

We installed on a Win XP machine whatever the current rev for the PC system was. I was flat out not impressed. Seems like the workflow is not particularly elegant.... having to quit and start a new app to digitize is not the best way to make things work. It does have potential, but as Digi has handed off the development to Avid, one needs to be reasonable about expectations and promised features.

If we were strictly long form, then it's not such a hassle, and probably has lots of features that I didn't have time or opportunity to explore. But for our promo/spot work. It's a lot of hassle just to get 30 seconds of video into the box.

As for our Mac systems, we are waiting. Not sure for what, though.

Hope this helps.

Brad McIlvaine
Sr. Mixer/Designer
Henninger Media Services
Washington, DC 20036