Last Minute Final Cut Speculation from a Panel of Industry Pros

With what is anticipated to be mere hours before we see the next version of Final Cut (if that's still the name) we've done our share of speculating here in the halls of TDL. It's interesting to get the take from a panel of industry experts, one of which has actually played with the software.

The Editor's Lounge brought together several editors and production house execs for their annual Pre-NAB show. This year, the first part of the panel was dedicated to thoughts on Final Cut. If you're a Final Cut user, and the suspense is killing you, here are some professional prognostications to fill another 20 minutes:

PreNAB Editors' Lounge 2011 Part 1 from Editors' Lounge on Vimeo.

Book Review: Final Cut Pro Power Skills

For the last four years, there's been only one name I trust for Final Cut training: Larry Jordan. Larry's lynda trainings, live seminars and monthly newsletters are the final word in FCP instruction.

Now, Larry's tips for Final Cut Pro 7 are in handy book form in "Final Cut Pro Power Skills." The 264 page paperback may have a slightly misleading name: from the title you might think it's geared for the heavy Final Cut user. In reality, the tips are presented in a way that's very approachable, assuming you've had some experience with Final Cut, while some of it might also be too obvious or old hat for real power users.

This isn't a book for FCP like several others that set out to teach you to edit. Rather, this books shows tips and tricks from media management/drive setup to solving nagging problems like fades that almost go to black. If you've ever listened to Larry, or attended any of his trainings, you will hear his voice come through in these tips. Each tip is less than a page in length. The book serves as a much thinner and concise version of the old manuals that used to be supplied with FCP, and includes simple to follow, full color screenshots showing how to implement the tips.

If you use Final Cut Pro more than once a week, "Final Cut Pro Power Skills" will help you get the most out of the experience, and might even break you of a few bad habits at the same time (pay close attention to the info on media management.) 

This isn't the book to learn to edit, but it will make your time with Final Cut Pro more enjoyable, and allow you to focus more on editing, than system setup, working around quirks in the software, etc.

Could Apple Have an NAB Trick Up Its Sleeve?

This week marks the NAB Show in Las Vegas. In the past, Apple has used the event to demo updates to Final Cut, DVD Studio, Color, Motion, etc. This year Apple is sitting out the event, without a booth on the exhibit floor. But does that mean they don't have a surprise in store?

The current Final Cut Studio suite is full of what seems like all the tools a video editor/DVD author/ effects person could want. Of course it seemed that way before they even added Color, which was quite a jaw dropper. And FCS 2 has been out for two years now, beyond the traditional update cycle for the software. As a matter of fact, there's been an update or addition to the pro video apps every year since 2001, except for 2008. 

Maybe Snow Leopard is holding up the delay of a new addition. Or maybe, just maybe, we're closer to seeing a new version than we think. All the way back to 2006 there was talk of a rumored suite codenamed "Phenomenon" which would resemble today's suite, but include the functionality of Shake, Apple's high-end (and largely un-updated) compositing software. At the time, the software was expected in 2008. Overdue, or abandoned? We might know by the end of the week...

Avid reorganizes, plans more 3rd party openness

In a letter to customers today, Avid Technology CEO Gary Greenfield outlined changes coming to Avid, both in terms of strategy, and organization. While the letter didn't mention any kind of staff reductions, it does indicate a re-alignment within the company:

We have established a new corporate strategy designed to meet the continuously evolving needs of the marketplace and enable our customers to achieve success. Part of this strategy means realigning ourselves in a way that will further integrate a range of video and audio point products into more collaborative media production solutions. It also means gaining a deeper understanding of the workflow challenges customers face everyday and helping to address them with a mix of both Avid solutions -- and systems from third-party vendors.

The heart of our strategy and the focus for the immediate future come as a direct result of the many conversations I have had with customers:
Build competitive tools with differentiated performance, at the right price;

Translate customer feedback into flexible, reliable, high-quality solutions;

Become more "open," offering greater interoperability between Avid systems and third-party products;

Refresh our product lines more frequently; and

Better leverage the innovation from all areas within the company to advance the market competitiveness of our offerings.

Aligning Our Structure to the Strategy

A critical component to executing our strategy is to make sure that we have the right leadership team in place. As a result, we have made several changes to the senior management team. One of the most obvious changes to the structure is that the leadership team will no longer center around separate, independent business units. Instead, we are creating a much more integrated customer-centric structure that will facilitate our goal of operating as a single company. Here's a snapshot of the new leadership team:
We are combining all of our sales, marketing and service across the company into one common organization: Customer Operations - led by Kirk Arnold. Customer Operations will act as a single, integrated unit representing the majority of the customer facing teams - such as sales, marketing, product marketing and service - for all of the top-level markets we serve, including Video, Audio, and Education.

We are re-aligning our business units to have their full attention and focus on product development. These units will include a Video Business Unit - led by Paul Lypaczewski and an Audio Business Unit - led by Tex Schenkkan. Paul joins Avid with more than 25 years of deep industry experience, having held leadership positions at ATI and Autodesk Media and Entertainment, and Tex is assuming this leadership role having been the COO of the Audio group for the past two and a half years. Both the Video BU, which now includes all of our professional and consumer video lines and the Audio group which includes Digidesign, M-Audio and Sibelius, will be integrated teams comprised of both engineering and product management.

On the service and support side, we've created a new Customer Success organization, led by Beth Martinko. Customer Success is an integrated team chartered with our technical service and support efforts for all of our offerings - from professional to consumer, and video to audio.

We also have a new Chief Technology Officer - Dave Lebolt. Dave, who moves over from GM of the Audio Group, has very strong technical knowledge of our entire company's audio and video product portfolio. As we move forward, Dave will play a pivotal role in ensuring that we continue our history of innovation in the digital media space. He'll ensure that we set the right priorities, align our resources to deliver new and emerging product solutions, and deliver an exceptional user experience that enhances the way our customers work in the future.

We have created an Administrative Operations organization - led by Ken Sexton. Ken has been overseeing our Finance, HR, IT and Legal functions since he joined the company earlier this year. Ken's group will now include Operations (e.g., manufacturing, quality assurance, strategic supply chain, etc.) for all of our lines - from professional to consumer, and video to audio.

Our Corporate Development organization will continue to examine Avid's growth strategy with respect to addressing industry trends through acquisition, third-party partnerships and other strategic business development opportunities.

We'll see if this means a more competitive Avid in the consumer video space, a threat to Final Cut, o rnot much at all.