My first experience with editing was on a JVC SVHS cuts only system. It was simple, yet clumsy, and I assembled my first 5 projects on it. Ever since then I have been looking for the perfect editing system. Something so revolutionary it redefines the very concept of editing into an elegant process simple enough for a child to understand, yet sophisticated enough that a real pro could use it to turn average or substandard footage into a brilliant masterwork. This is the chronicle of my journey.

My years in computer retail exposed me to a number of consumer level products. I will not even mention these products - they sucked harder then hooker at a vacuum convention. At that time really powerful software and hardware was available only to the elite few who had wads of money in their pockets and no hair on their heads. I remember one especially fidgety customer who came in to purchase the latest and greatest Macintosh computer in the world. We had to explain to him that the machine of his specifications had to be special ordered. He complained, had a tantrum, and paid on the spot. He claimed he needed it to do effects for Star Trek: The Next Generation. I thought he was a liar, but I took his money anyway. Back then all video editing was done on Macintoshes, with the help of about 5 coprocessor cards, usually from Avid. Rendering took days. I was unsatisfied mostly because I couldn’t afford anything nonlinear and was still stuck on tape.

Years passed and I finally got my hands on Adobe Premiere 4.2. Premiere had been around for a while, but it was considered a toy used by geeks to make toy movies. It was a toy, but a toy with immense potential. It had a terrible audio sync problem, but I found ways around it. The effects I was able to create would have taken me days to achieve on a linear system, so that made me happy. And with Photoshop I was able to create graphics equal to the best an Infinity could do. But the sync problem, speed issues, and effects limitations left me wanting more.

A few years later I help a friend, a local gal with ideas on producing videos for charities, put together a computer out of donated parts. On of those parts was a FAST AVMaster bundled with ULead MediaStudio. I hate them both almost immediately. The card was slow and I couldn’t get it to capture at a rate high enough to eliminate the artifacts, and as a result the video quality is trash. The software [rage builds in me as I write this] is total garbage. Oh, how I hated trying to learn, and then teach that software. Pity the poor fool stuck with an AVMaster with MediaStudio.

Apple introduces it new line of G3 computers, promoting them as the fastest thing in silicon. They put only 3 expansion slots in them and Avid starts building computers out of Wintel systems. I start to think Apple is run by madmen, but then they introduce the iMac DV, and I see their plan: World Domination! This stupid $1400 box can hook to a Firewire equipped camera and edit right out of the box. And then I get to play with one. IMovie has an annoyingly simple interface, but it gets the job done, and done well. It renders in the background, has enough storage for most tasks, and includes some features that you only see in really expansive software.

I like it for it’s simplicity, but I hate it for its lack of control. Too much is done automatically, no customizability, and a very limited number of tracks. And I know there will now be fewer jobs for us pros now that every hack with $2500 worth of camera and computer thinks he’s Quentin Tarantino. We will lose wedding jobs and industrial gigs to bozos that will then ruin the good name of event videographers everywhere.

I’ve also had my hands on a Media 100, Compaq platform. Pros: fast, high quality, totally professional interface. Cons: limited tracks forces the editor to use After Effects or Boris Effects, and way too expensive for my budget.

Right about now I got my hands on Premiere 5.1, and it solved the audio problem, added a whole lot more features, and it made me happy, for a while.

But as I said, because of the iMac I knew where Apple was heading. They wanted to control how movies and videos were made, and they didn’t want to partner with Avid to do it. They wanted total control all to themselves. When the G4 was released with FinalCut Pro I knew the 800lb. Gorilla had arrived. IMovie is for the hacks and FinalCut is for the pros. All bases are covered and Apple thinks it got it made. But the software costs $1000. Screw them.

Now I get my job in Hermosa Beach, and I am exposed to Play’s Trinity. [Anger swells again] I hated that AVMaster, but I want to throw the Trinity off the pier. If Play weren’t bankrupt and sold off I’d mail them a horse head. I hope whoever is responsible for the Trinity suffers a slow and agonizing death and rots in hell for all eternity. This blasphemous piece of crap crashes on me for any and all reasons. For $22,000 it’s slow, painful to use, unstable, hard on the eyes, and the video quality isn’t even that good. It’s not bad as a studio switcher or graphics generator, but the NLE stinks like last week’s fish.

So we’re replacing it. My facility is actually falling behind in its editing tasks because I can’t edit fast enough in that bastard Trinity. My DV300/Adobe Premiere system that cost me less than $3000 to build is faster and more stable than that $22,000 Trinity. So when I called up our video supplier for recommendations I was floored when she suggested a new system from FAST! I told her and her tech guy about my experience with the AVMaster, and I was told that the entire Master line had been canceled and so were the people responsible for it. I was gladdened. Then I was given a demo of the system they wanted to sell me. This new “purple.” is awesome. Similar to the “silver.” in almost every way, it kicks serious ass. It’s even faster than a dual processor G4 FinalCut system, and it costs less!

But I hate it because it’s not mine yet. I mean, it’s not available for me to use in the facility in which I work yet. (In the mean time I’ve become dissatisfied with my own system because I have seen what unbridled speed really is.) When I get the chance to work with it at length, and compare it to a FinalCut system, I’ll tell you all about it. Maybe then I’ll have fallen in love with a nonlinear editor and all this hatred for them will go away.

Then again, maybe I’ll finally get a girlfriend and stop all this emotional attachment towards machines.