Re: Axio LE vs. Avid Adrenaline HD?

FischTale,

[FischTale] "Is there anyone here that converted from Avid to the Axio?"

Apparently not at this time, but everyone deserves an answer, even if it's not directly informed. I haven't used Avid, so take everything with a grain of salt. What I say is based on heavy duty research and discussions with folks who have used both.

[FischTale] "Right now I'm leaning towards the Axio because of price, and the excellent integration of all the Adobe software."

2 excellent reasons.

[FischTale] "Does the Axio LE system accelerate Adobe software as well as it claims? I saw a demo at NAB, but I've never actually been able to sit down and play with it."

Since the answer to that is yes, that's the 3rd excellent reason. If you don't run into a gotcha, you should be able to edit quicker and more interactively because of the Axio RT features than with the Avid.

There are "gotchas" to be had with any system but check and see if any of the PPro gotchas vis-a-vis Avid are show stoppers for you, and..., these are pretty much PPro gotchas as apposed to Axio gotchas.

Having edited with both you are no doubt aware that the PPro editing feature set isn't quite as comprehensive as Avid's. It's not gonna stop you from doing anything, but occassionally you'll find that some more sophisticated cutting operations are quicker with Avid. The Axio RT features and multi-proc enabled accellerated rendering more than make up for this, IMO. You also must be aware that the Adobe products still have less than ideal computer memory management resulting in the occassional crash or lockup. The Axio engineers have minimized this problem by warning you when memory is close to locking up, so that you can close and re-open PPro to free up memory without a catastrophic failure. Depending on the size and complexity of your editing projects, this makes the problem relatively minor.

What may or may not be of greater concern to you is that PPro doesn't yet play very nicely at all with the high end post world. Whereas Automatic Duck makes FCP and Avid play relatively well via AAF with each other, and you can pass projects back and forth with little loss, there's no such facility with PPro. Adobe and Automatic Duck are not on the same page, whoever's fault it is. Hopefully that will change, because I do know with certainty that the Adobe honchos are greatly concerned with addressing the higher end post universe. But..., "a bird in the hand...." Also PPro/Axio cannot handle the full 8 channel range of SDI embedded audio. Although he loves cutting on his AxioLE and is near expert on Avid and FCP as well, this has caused a friend of mine to reluctantly move on to something else. That's a huge oversight on Adobe's part, which we can only hope will be fixed in some way before the next version upgrade. It doesn't effect the great bulk of their users, but if higher end post is a goal, it cuts PPro off at the knees.

That's all I've got for the moment. Hope it helps. BTW, I'm going the AxioLE route when I can afford it, as the above concerns are unlikely to effect my work overly much, and the benefits outweigh them, but everyone's needs are different.

Ron Shook