Angry Man Tilts at at Windmills

StudioDaily is hosting a rant from Scott Simmons about all those darned kids and their Final Cut Pro. He’s upset that us young punks don’t respect the old ways of doing things. While there is surely some truth in that, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing.

It’s a common criticism in many technical fields – essentially, it’s gotten too easy/affordable to do something that was once a protected trade. The influx of new users brings folks of all skill levels, and with all kinds of attitudes about the way the world should work. Final Cut makes it “too easy” to be an editor, so existing editors that have had to work hard for their skills feel threatened.

It’s worth a read, if only to get a rise out of people.

Avid knifes Xpress Pro, drops the price on Media Composer

Avid announced today that they’re discontinuing the Xpress Pro line of editing software, and cutting the price on Media Composer to $2495 from $4995. Students can purchase it for just $295.

Very interesting news. This means the least expensive Avid editing platform is double the cost of the Final Cut Studio bundle. Presumably for most folks in the business, $1200 isn’t a huge deciding factor one way or another, but it may be a sign that Avid doesn’t see as much value in the lowest end customers as they’d hoped.