Pulled Plug on Feature Edit: Back To Avid

I just had to make the heartbreaking decision after a week of work on a SyFy feature to pull the plug and go back to Avid. I desperately wanted to cut this film natively with no transcoding, and the PP CS6 workflow sounded truly exciting. Unfortunately, the reality is that PP isn't quite ready for prime time. Here's my main issues:

1. Matchback is broken with Red Epic clips
2. No way to find audio timecode from merged clips for manually matching back shots
3. No way to automatically sort thumbnails in the bin
4. Timeline redraw issues when using merged clips
5. No audio rubber banding when using merged clips
6. No asynchronous trims (yet?)
7. My attempts at making an AAF from merged clips have failed
8. I simply don't have faith, after using it for a week, that I'll be able to make deliverables on this feature when the time comes.

Don't get me wrong, editing with PP CS6 is pretty neat. I was able to replicate many of my Avid key commands and it's FAST and FLUID! But the rough edges give me serious pause. I spent several sleepless nights wondering if I was making the right decision, sticking with PP.

In the future, I will definitely revisit it. In fact, I'll be using an AAF export from Avid to PP for doing my DPX pulls when it comes to delivering my VFX plates.

To Adobe, I'd recommend that you actually enlist the services of some top end Hollywood assistant editors, if you truly want to get into this field. The editors will fall in love with much of what you've done, but it's the assistants who can tell you what you haven't done that will get folks in trouble with deliverables and whatnot.

For what it's worth, I came to PP because Avid wasn't cutting it with their native Red workflow either. After two days of cutting, Avid starting choking on the Epic footage and I realized that simply wasn't going to work. So I came here seeking nirvana, LOL. In the end, I'm gonna bite the bullet and do what I've always done: transcode all my dailies and cut in Avid, where I know it'll get done the way it needs to get done.

I'll keep checking in, because I believe there is the potential for true greatness here. Just not quite yet.

Chris Conlee

Feature Editor

Mac Pro (4,1)

OS X 10.7.4

24Gb RAM

nVidia GTX 285 (CUDA 4.2.10)

Dual Monitors

Matrox Mini Max

PP 6.0.1