Comments on: Companies come, companies go

By: ajmetz

ajmetz — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 08:02:47 +0000

Great to find this thread. I bought up M100 7.5 on the cheap, and am using it to produce my first commercial production. I know M100 is on the mend now it has been bought up by Boris, but I did really wonder how on earth it had gone down hill in the past few years, when it used to be right up there with the best of them.

Are any of you lot excited about the Boris led revival of Media100? Personally, am thinking of getting a Mac Pro next year, with Universal Binary M100 HDe with an AJA Kona board, on dual boot with FCP. ^_^. =P Er….that’s if I get enough profit from my current project to pay for it all. ^_^. Lol. Peace out.
xx

By: Dave C

Dave C — Mon, 29 May 2006 21:34:26 +0000

Howdy,

it is a true pity the 844/x has died in the arse, it was a promising PC editing platform. As for M100 it was always an overpriced product, especially with its care packs – they were ridiculously priced. The handfull of resellers for the hardware was not enough to support the product properly, and the hourly rates for support or repairs were simply cruel to M100 users. Hope some gets their hands on the 844/x and sells their cards for under 3K US for the MS XP OS.

Dave

By: Duncan Harvey

Duncan Harvey — Sun, 06 Mar 2005 18:07:27 +0000

As one of the more mature members- can anyone say Ampex -Editec Mark II. My senior years editng and working with video were wonderful because of Media100 and the friends I made amongst the younger crowd who helped me along to understanding just what a dynamic production tool Media100 was, but for me is. I have FCP, I do use it, however my M100, 7.5I, and the 8.2. is for me like my once blue 57 Chevy. Its my first love in NLE and always will be. I am hopefull some enginer(s) somewhere will keep the M100 flame buring for repairs. But if not I indend to keep mine buring as long as possible, both on my 9.2.2 and my OSX.. Thanks Philip for the insight, excellent as usual. See you all at NAB. Fondly Dunc

By: Philip

Philip — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 07:05:40 +0000

Bobcat… The codename that changed the history of NLE. Maybe. For those who haven’t the foggiest idea of what Carey alludes to – Bobcat was Media 100’s internal code name for the integration between the Vincent Hardware and Macromedia’s Key Grip software (at least on Windows, possible on both platforms Key Grip supported). Key Grip, for those who don’t look at creator codes in Mac software, ultimately became Final Cut Pro.

That Media 100 never bought Final Cut (as it was then named) from Macromedia in early 1999 when Macromedia were shopping it for sale, is probably the worst decision CEO John Molinari made, although perhaps understandable given that the KeyGrip/FC team had not been able to deliver in the latter half of 1997/early 1998 which really hurt Media 100’s share price. Still, what would history have been if Media 100 had purchase Final Cut and integrated it with their hardware…

Somewhere, in a a parallel universe people are editing with Final Cut software integrated with the 844/X hardware. I envy them.

Philip

By: Carey Dissmore

Carey Dissmore — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 03:40:25 +0000

Oh, just one quick additional comment. nobody ever heard me echoing the chorus of the many folks who strongly disliked (or reviled) JM. Quite the contrary, I felt John was indeed a visionary. While we weren’t best friends, I found plenty there that was worthy of respect. I felt he made some bad decisions, and squandered some time in getting 844x to market, but ultimately I don’t come away from this hating the guy. I have no idea what he’s doing now, but certainly wish him well. There was just so much talent at that company…in the end…I think their success in some ways was their undoing. For example, a huge revenue stream for them was large income from platinum contracts, but the net effect of this was that this easy money was addictive in some ways and lulled M100 from feeling the need to innovate more quickly and become lean and mean to compete in a market where average selling prices fell through the floor in a very short period of time. Sadly, they couldn’t react. Oh, if things had gone differently with bobcat…

By: Carey Dissmore

Carey Dissmore — Fri, 04 Mar 2005 03:34:21 +0000

I think you pretty much hit it Philip, my experiences with my many friends within the Media 100 organization gave me a slightly different take-away, but in the end, I’m just sad…very sad.

carey

By: Dan Kinoy

Dan Kinoy — Thu, 03 Mar 2005 21:14:41 +0000

I often thought Media 100 was only a few good moves from breaking into real success, but strangely the moves were never made. I actually hoped the acquisition of Terran was a first step in a digital media master plan. But somehow it didn’t happen.
Although I was never privy to the inner workings, I figured that navigating a course from a closely held family firm to a more agile and aggressive organization was an internal challenge that just couldn’t be overcome. Perhaps there just wasn’t enough energy and capital left over to forge ahead as needed.
Concentrating on Media 100 vs. 844 would be the right move – if we could roll back time about six or seven years. As a film-turned-computer guy I always preferred the simple, mouse-oriented editing style. Just a couple more video tracks at about version 2.6 would have kept me happy for a long time.
I do hope we’re wrong and they make a go of it — but I wouldn’t bet the house on it.

By: john buck

john buck — Tue, 01 Mar 2005 04:10:44 +0000

Sadly I tip my hat in complete agreement with you Phil.

what a complete balls up at Media 100 by the new CEO Uzi Breier.

I thought John Molinari did some stoopid things in his time but Breier’s actions in sacking the 844 team and his board’s approval of this highly immoral act make JM’s actions look perhaps like the actions of a misguided zealot and not that of a highly qualified fool.

i too have Mark and Evan to thank at Adimex for getting me involved but i guess for them the fallout from Optibase’s management is much harder to swallow.

we get on with editing on another platform –

what do they sell for their livelihoods?

john