VizWorld.com

Professional video editing powerhouse Avid released their quarterly financials, and they’re nothing to brag about.  Opening with an $11M loss in the 2nd quarter, they’ve got lots of excuses:

Avid blames the net loss in the quarter on a wide variety of issues: amortization of intangible assets, stock-based compensation, loss on asset sales, a legal settlement, acquisition-related costs, restructuring recoveries, and charges and related tax adjustments. Even without these mitigating factors, Avid says it would have shown a net loss in the quarter of approximately $3.9 million.

Surprisingly, their product revenues were actually up just a bit this quarter, as were service revenues.  With any luck, this is just a 1-quarter hit from the issues above and not the first sign of an SGI-esque decline.

via GraphicSpeak » Avid posts $11 million second quarter net loss.

Graphics avid, financial

Another big announcement from NAB, Avid has announced their intent to acquire peripheral controller manufacturer Euphonix.  They plan to add the Euphonix offerings to Avid’s existing ICON solutions, improving interoperability with their EuCon high-speed ethernet protocol.

“This acquisition greatly expands our portfolio to offer customers a complementary set of workflow solutions — from independent producers creating music in their home studios to broadcasters preparing segments for national broadcast,” said Gary Greenfield, chairman and CEO, Avid.

How this will impact future Euphonix products or their tools like Media Composer, remains to be seen.  The transaction is expected to close later this month.

via Avid Announces Agreement to Acquire Euphonix.

Hardware avid, euphonix, nab

Digital Vision, Key Code Media, and Avid have been kind enough to send to all VizWorld readers an invitation to an upcoming demonstration and reception celebrating the brand new release of Nucoda 2009.1 for Color Grading and Phoenix Restoration platforms.

• You are invited to an exclusive evening event and presentation of the most efficient and powerful, non destructive, file based post workflow collaboration: the Nucoda Film Master and Avid Media Composer.
• Digital Vision Product Specialist, Gary Jackemuk and Key Code Media Director of Technology, David Sconyers will demonstrate the integrated workflow between Avid and Digital Vision, including Unity SAN collaboration, AAF, MXF based metadata round-trip and native digital camera format supports.
• This powerful release, along with the DVO Software enhancement and conversion tools, demonstrate once again why Digital Vision is the industry leader in color grading, mastering, and restoration.
• Digital Vision, the first company to deploy a functional and efficient end to end workflow with Avid, will also showcase the instant access to media and timeline metadata from Avid Unity Isis and Avid Interplay.

An impressive name of presenters and attendees is already building, but you’ll need to move fast and RSVP if you plan to attend as space is limited.  The event will be March 18th from 6pm – 8pm, at Key Code Media in Burbank, CA.  Full details, including RSVP instructions, after the break.

Read more…

Graphics avid, digital vision, invitation, key code media

The America Cinema Editors (ACE) board of directors has selected Avid’s Media Composer software for the organizations first-ever ACE Technical Excellence award.  Now, the award won’t actually be presented until February, but the organization is releasing the news now in order to drive some angst towards another company, Apple.

Harry B. Miller III, an ACE board member and head of the org’s technology committee, said Avid “has always had the superior product” among editing software packages, but recently the company has also gone out of its way to solicit feedback from editors and shape the product to their needs.

Apple, by contrast, has been slow to improve Final Cut Pro. Miller said, “Apple and Final Cut Pro doesn’t listen, doesn’t respond, doesn’t solicit our opinion.”

I know several people who have similar complaints about Apple’s slow response with Final Cut, specifically in the lack of HD editing & BluRAY authoring.

via ACE honors Avid’s Media Composer – Entertainment News, Film News, Media – Variety.

Graphics ace, apple, avid, award, finalcut, software