| Many of you already know that Avid is in the process for dumping Mac support after the release of version 8.0 of Media Composer. MacInTouch has an excellent report on this issue that we encourage you to read.
An Observer named Stephen Pawley suggested we come up with alternatives to Avid's products for those interested in the video editing market. Mr. Pawley's letter:
Based on what I'm reading about Avid abandoning the high end of video editing solutions, I wonder if the mac on-line community shouldn't make an effort to find better solutions for the average iMac owner than Avid Cinema. I've been considering getting some form of video capture/editing software this year and was thinking that this would be the best deal, but I don't want to support a company that doesn't support the Mac.
Stephen Pawley
[email protected]
Observer Call: There are several companies competing in this arena and we ask the experts in this field to write to us with recommendations, evaluations, suggestions, hints, or any other helpful information in this area. This Observer Call includes information on consumer products as well as midrange and high-end products, so don't hold back. :-)
Write to us at [email protected].
The Mac Observer Spin: Avid has been an important part of why Apple has been such a dominant player in the video editing market, particularly in broadcast TV. It had little to with Apple as for many years Apple was not paying attention to customers in this market any more than they did their other customers.
Avid's defection could be quite a blow to Apple, but our prediction is that many editors will abandon Avid before they switch to Window's NT. There will be some losses to The Dark Side however and that is a lamentable situation.
The roots of this problem lie in the fact that both Intel and Avid have made sizable investments in Avid to get them to bring their product line to Windows NT. There is also the fact that Apple no longer has a 6 slot computer, a concept that Apple dismisses as unnecessary, and high-end video editing often requires a wealth of 3rd party PCI cards. The last 6 slot machine from Apple was the 8600/9600 line canceled over a year ago.
The reports from MacInTouch say that Apple and Avid have not been getting along as well.
Add that up and we have the current situation.
Observer Call
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