We need a new PC for one of our Liquid editors, thus I requested a quote from the dealer that supplied our Liquid Chrome HD Elite suite. A part of the reply I received reads as follows: "I wanted to tell you ‘I believe liquid will be going away'... They are pushing dealers to up sell customers into Media Composer. I have been hearing many rumors but I can't confirm yet. One thing is Liquid may work but where is the future with updates and development?"

Well, exactly what does this "up sell into media Composer" entails? Although I used to receive a regular news letter from Avid and I signed up for a news letter from Pinnacle, I have not received any from either for a long time now. I read on one of the posts that someone said that he received an offer to upgrade his Liquid to Media Composer. I spoke to the local Avid support, but they are unaware of any upgrade from Liquid to MC. The local supplier of Liquid software also does not know of any such development. According to many posts as well as the above mentioned quote, there seems to be such an offer. Please allow me to give some reasons as to why I believe it will be impossible for me to make use of such an "upgrade" to MC.

I used to have two Avid Express Pro turnkey systems with mojo before I ordered my Avid Liquid Chrome HD Elite turnkey suite. I sold the two Avid systems at a great financial loss because it just could not do what I bought it for. In addition to the Chrome suite we have two Liquid Pro systems in our studios. I write about my experience in this regard just for in case it might help an owner of Liquid that does not know the Avid Express Pro/MC products and consider the offer by Avid to change from Liquid to MC at this stage. MC might be good for some and I have read one positive comment by a studio that did exchange all their Liquid systems for MC. It can work depending on the kind of work one does. However I believe it might be very frustrating to try and use it for those with the kind of applications that I have. A few years ago, when I was considering an upgrade to my Sony ES-3 system (built by Fast together with 601/Silver from where the present Liquid software evolved), the local Avid support advised me to buy Avid Express Pro. At first it did not work as expected, so I was told that with the Mojo it will deliver the real time and live output I am used to with the ES-3. I bought the Mojo but I could not see any significant improvement. When I now enquired about MC, I was informed that everything that troubled me with Avid Express Pro had been upgraded with MC and I will never look back again. Because Jan Piros explained in his keynote address that Next Gen will not deliver 10 bit and that it will indeed be downgraded to something, as I understand, that will definitely be inferior to the Avid products, I decided to go for a demo of Media Composer. What a disappointment. Except for a new feature or two I could not see any significant improvement. To be honest about what I learnt at this demonstration of MC: this system offers me the same as what I was used to with Avid Express Pro. Just as some cannot appreciate me enjoying every moment of working with Liquid, I also cannot understand how so many can be so fond of a system like MC. Some of the problems I experience with MC are:

1. I need to be able to see the audio wave forms while I am editing. While I am working on the ES-3 or Liquid, the wave forms are always "switched on" as it were. I am usually not editing directly from a script. Most of what I do is documentary reality kind of stuff where things happen spontaneously. Many a time I have to insert text of what is being said. Some are quotations where I have to copy a few paragraphs of text and insert a rolling title as the speaker might use a quote. The wave forms help me to locate where the title must be placed on the timeline. The wave forms further help me to know where to cut from one camera to the other or where to stop and cut to another scene, etc. I have to rely on the waves for almost everything I do whilst at the same time I do much of the audio editing as well. In Liquid the wave forms are always there even while one is stretching and shrinking the timeline continuously. It does not take any time to load. It is always immediately visible. I was told that that is now also the case with MC. At the demo, it was not. Although faster than in Avid Express Pro, it still takes time to load and display every time one does anything on the Time Line. Thus one has to switch it off while you are editing the video. The response I received is that a professional editor never uses the wave forms as I do. After post production the selected clips goes to the offline editor who does the final mixing. Someone else does the color correction, another does the titles - and why do you want to use so much titles in any case? For the editing of the audio the project is then sent to another pro that does it on Pro Tools.

This all sounds great except that today's world demands from many of us to be a one stop production house where we are responsible for the filming, the editing, the BD authoring and even the distribution through ipod, YouTube to HDTV broadcast all in one. We have to do everything ourselves. Sorry to say, but any program that does not supply all these different features in one, would be experienced as inferior to Liquid or at least to what we now expect Next Gen to offer. MC might be great for the offline editor that is trained on Avid Express Pro and will never investigate other software. Why bother if you are unaware of more recent developments? If you are working in an environment where you only need to do one aspect of the production, then MC can work for you. But just as with the solid state camcorders, the demand for one person-do-all is growing for more and more of us as videographers. I believe one can edit a video only project in a record time on MC. No doubt, but that is not to say that it cannot be done just as fast and even quicker by editing with Liquid.

2. This brings me to the following: On Liquid I can stretch and shrink the timeline continuously while the video is playing and I can watch and listen to it all the time while clicking or selecting items on the project. In MC everything comes to a stop the moment one touches anything. In Liquid, on the other hand, while I am playing the Time Line I can select a few audio clips and delete it whilst it still continues to play.

There are many examples like this that I can mention. When I started to use Avid Express Pro my first impression was that it must be the very first attempt to design editing software and that it was never further developed except for a few features that had been added annually to justify an upgrade. I could not believe it when I now discovered that MC is still the same. I have heard so much about it, even that it is offered as an upgrade to Liquid. While you print the end product to tape with MC you must be 100% careful that no one touches anything near the system because everything will come to a stop and you'll have to start all over. I am sure it can not be this difficult to upgrade this system in this respect. If the engineers did not think of it themselves, are they never investigating other products and learning anything? This is part of the reason why I say that I was very disappointed and frustrated with what I learnt at the demonstration of MC.

3. In Liquid the cursor position on the timeline moves to the end and then starts from the beginning again. I think this is normal. In MC it moves to the end and then disappears from the screen to go where to I do not know... MC now has the option to have the cursor stand in the center of the two screens while the Time Line moves continually. Why make it so difficult? Why can't it work like a normal system? The ever moving Time Line drives me nuts. I want to be in control of the Time Line. I think Liquid is super.

4. The Title Generator that came with Avid Express Pro was totally unusable for me. The titles were crying; tears ran down the TV screen and even on my Sony 20" monitor. It was definitely not broadcast quality. Was I only spoiled by the ES-3's Title Generator? The fact is that it hasn't even had the very elementary characteristics to be used with it. This was a big problem but then came the good news: Just then Avid released a new Title Generator for Avid Express Pro called the Marquee Tool. We could not wait for its arrival, but what a disappointment. With it one could do normal titles, but it could not be live output to the output monitors and you had to wait for a long time for it to be rendered. If you could succeed to do a long title, you would not be able to wait until the rendering was completed. It just took too long. Besides that you could not see any of it before the rendering was completed. Thus to adjust and readjust the position and length of the title till it was in the right position from where the speaker started the quote till where he ends it, was impossible. At the demonstration of MC I asked if the Marquee Tool was better now. The reply was that it is basically the same.

So I think MC is only for the professionals that only do one part of the editing, uses the minimum of titles and let that and the audio be done by another editor with different software.

In my experience I will not be able to make use of Avids' gracious upgrade offer to MC even if they would pay me to do it. Unfortunately I am not professional enough to be able to work with a system without at least a basic real time Title Generator.

5. I have been editing in HDV on Liquid for almost 18 months since I bought two Sony V1E camcorders. I never experienced any problems with editing HDV on Liquid. According to the Avid Express Pro/MC brochures on the internet, HDV editing is also part and parcel of these programs. Please understand, I am not saying anything about MC's ability to edit HDV. I have no personal experience with regard to MC and HDV. I just reflect on the response I received.

When I thought to investigate Avid's offer to change to MC and I mentioned HDV, I was asked: "Why do you want to edit in HDV? No one does that! It is sticky tacky stuff. We tried and tested it, but we do not recommend anyone to use it." A time ago one of my clients attended a school for videographers. He reported how it was stressed by one well known Avid editor that there is only one editing package to be used, namely Avid's Media Composer. During his lecture this editor explained to the students that they must never even try to edit in HDV. My client was very surprised because up to date he had edited many HDV projects. When he expressed his surprise and stated that he edits HDV without a problem, he was asked which software he was using. When he replied that he does it with Liquid, he was just ignored. I have experienced the same on different occasions. It is strange to me that so many will just not believe what we say about Liquid. Can they lose anything by genuinely taking an unbiased look at what Liquid does? Would it not be professional to do just that?

In favour of MC I am the first to acknowledge that there are many positive features that I enjoyed in Avid Express Pro whilst editing with it. The media management of Avid Express Pro /MC should be part of any system that runs on a PC. I can not foresee a release of Next Gen without it. Also when I edit in Liquid, I always wish that one could have all the markers with the different colors as in Avid Express Pro. Thus more features can be mentioned, but I believe that anyone can conclude from what was stated above, that the overall workflow of Avid Express Pro/MC is such that it cannot work for my application.

What I want to suggest to Avid is: If you want to discontinue Liquid Chrome and even Liquid, please do not expect from all of us to pay up for less. I know this is not what you think of MC, but this is the practical reality for me. I cannot consider a change to the MC kind of program. It will slow down the editing process of my products significantly and leave them without the titles that are a great part thereof. Perhaps you will have to consider something else to offer some of your clientele that you received with your take over of Pinnacle. There is a reason why we chose Liquid in the first place. What customers like me would like to see happen is that our Munich team can add to the Next Gen software the necessary hardware that we can keep on working with it as we are used to with Liquid. With the introduction of the new generation Solid State and XDCAM EX camcorders even being used for wedding applications today, an NLE that does not supply HD-SDI and HDMI in/out will not be worth much. Perhaps you can add to Next Gen the option to use some of Avid's mojos. That will surely be an interesting Upgrade option.

I sincerely hope this explanation about the reasons why MC can not be of use for my application, will be of some help to any who wants to investigate the possible change to MC. I further hope this will encourage the engineers at Munich to continue with their great work. I am looking forward to the release of Next Generation, but would very much like to see it implemented by Avid to its full potential.