Re: One year later...

[Walter Soyka] "Put all the tools in your toolbox, and use the best one for the job at hand."

I mean no disrespect when I say this, but I can't see this happening.

The "buy them all and use them all" approach is unsustainable, not from a cost standpoint today, but from an management and data archive standpoint, and let's not forget the sanity standpoint as it's rather important.

This means that whatever system you go with, you will "forever" have to buy that system if your legacy projects mean anything to you. I understand that it's not "one app fits all", but to have potentially four NLEs and manage all of that for the next 5-10 years seems a bit nutty. Let alone the fact that you will have to stay current on 4 different NLEs.

Right now, there's a lot of parity in the NLE world between hardware, keyboard shortcut modifiers, and interchange languages (thanks in part to XML, and Quicktime, yikes). What if those world diverge? What if Avid's next move is to start over?

What if two years from you decide MC isn't the right way? Or PPro or FCPX?

This means that in two and a half years when the client calls about the project from two years ago, you will have to buy one of these applications just to maintain the archive. Seems like it's too much, or maybe I'm just a peon and it's just too much for me. My decision isn't going to be based on a filter set/tape transport alone. I still can't find an answer if Smoke 2013 has interchange out beyond OMF. Does it?

At least FCP7 left XML in it's wake and I will most likely be able to boot an old disk image on a future mac.

There's one thing I have learned "one year later" and that's make sure that your project can be saved in some other format than the proprietary .WhateverCompany project file. And it's yet another reason why we haven't moved much.

Jeremy