Re: Smoke pretty much describes it.

All good comments. smoke is awesome but requires constant infusions of cash to upgrade versions and hardware. High end post and FX houses can handle this and finish their projects fast and at very high quality. We are a community licensed Public TV station and our cash infusions ended about 3 years ago.

We are county funded for capital spending and they cut our budget so when hardware went end of life we started to hold our breath. We're two years past EOL on storage - 1 year EOL on fire and 6 months EOL on smoke (storage also 2 years EOL). So if you don't work for a high end operation you can't afford to buy it on your own and training gives you a good start but as one poster said, if you don't use it you forget it. It took me about 1.5 years to get up to speed from a Sony 9000 linear system because all the dialog with the system is brand new. I learned Discreet edit in a couple weeks and did 5 half hour programs in the first 6 months with Boris FX and Inscriber CG. Then I went to fire and smoke full time and love them but will go to FCStudio2 in the next month or so as I can't hold my breath any longer.

Del
fire*, smoke*, photoshopCS3
Charlotte Public Television
del underscore edits at wtvi dot org