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Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

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Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#141

Post by entropicdrifter »

franky47 wrote: post #68
blobs wrote: post #46

This is what Avid sends you after creating an account: Your iLok account allows you to: - Use the free iLok License Manager application to manage your licenses - Take advantage of Zero Downtime and Theft & Loss Coverage premium services to help protect your investment Take advantage of Zero Downtime I never understand what they mean with this, but now it definitely lost all its meaning.

Zero Downtime is a paying option provided by PACE (makers of the iLok and the copy protection software) for extended support if one loses their licenses. It covers a broken/lost/stolen iLok, not sure how it would fit in this case. A few years back I was working for a company that used iLok protection and had a major outage like this, we nicknamed it the iLokalypse.

ZDT also covers RMA situations where you iLok broke. Instead of them sending you a new iLok after a couple of weeks that has whatever licenses they were able to recover off the old one, they send you a new one with all of the licenses from the old one the same day you send them the old one, so you end up with like a 24-48 hour turnaround instead of losing a week or two.

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#142

Post by mrpippy »

dagw wrote: post #103
dzhiurgis wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean bright LED's and transformer-like mods? I don't think so, seems like ALL gaming PC's are like that.

SGI workstations had hardly any lights. Their essential distinguishing feature where that they sometimes had slightly rounded corners and came in 'fun' colors. Kind of like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Tezro#/media/File:Silicone... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_Octane#/media/File:SgiOcta... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SGI_O2#/media/File:Silicon_Gra...

The Tezro and Octane both have prominent power-on lights, but I think they're tasteful and cool.

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#143

Post by lozaning »

org3432 wrote: post #12
flukus wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but their copy protection management tool/device driver - iLok. Maybe Hollywood will learn that DRM hurts legitimate users. But they probably won't, I won't be shedding any tears either way.

Ironically film tools have some of the most stringent copy protection systems, and big studios break the licenses agreements without hesitation when they need to get something done.

A huge color company out in the valley is notorious for calling up 120 days past the invoice date on NET30 terms and only offering to pay on a credit card. I swear some of these companies would spend a dollar to screw you out of 50 cents.

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#144

Post by jayd16 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #31

rule 1 of hollywood tech support: Always take what the editor says with a massive pinch of salt. I spent ten years in the movie industry, and the people that were the most forthright, and almost universally wrong about technical things were editors. "The monitor is out of grade" No, you've set the background lights to red. "The sound is out of sync" No, you've turned off the amp and somehow managed to get the crappy…

With the exception of the OSX update, most of these sound like technical issues they're just not bothered to fix themselves. My understanding is that editors don't usually set up their own workstations so why would they troubleshoot them?

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#145

Post by tlogan »

nkozyra wrote: post #51
KaiserPro wrote: post #31

rule 1 of hollywood tech support: Always take what the editor says with a massive pinch of salt. I spent ten years in the movie industry, and the people that were the most forthright, and almost universally wrong about technical things were editors. "The monitor is out of grade" No, you've set the background lights to red. "The sound is out of sync" No, you've turned off the amp and somehow managed to get the crappy…

What you're describing sounds like industry-specific anecdotes from a very common, cross-industry reality about non technical users.

Working with support issues for at lest 20 years...

My take on this is that there are two types of non-technical users:

- stupid ones

- intelligent one

The intelligent ones know what they don't know. Or at least they understand what is their area of expertise. They focus on explanation of the problem and they do not make random conclusions.

The stupid ones do not know what they do not know and, of course, they think they are smart and know everything. It is so hard to work with them.

It is interesting that education level, nationality, race, etc. does not give any reasonable indication whether a non-technical users is intelligent or not.

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#147

Post by wcfields »

fortran77 wrote: post #123
RealDinosaur wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, it's not just Avid. Some audio production software such as ReFX Nexus still uses a USB dongle. There is no way to use the software without it plugged in. It also has a policy where if you damage the dongle, you have to buy again and get a 10% discount off the FULL price of the VST. In the age of people gigging on laptops, I'm not entirely sure how they think they are gonna sell any more of them. I fancy it myself…

The problem is, there are some industries where the piracy rate would be 100% if it weren't for dongles. Music production software, for one. And another surprising one is church software! (They feel they shouldn't have to pay because they're a "church" and serve a higher purpose.) I go to the NAMM (musical instrument manufacturers) trade show every year and work with music, sound, and church software vendors.

Embroidery software is another ( https://www.wingsxp.com/ )

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#149

Post by josteink »

auslander wrote: post #10
foxhill wrote: post #2

yikes. having written aax plugins for a while, i have to say, i’m kind of surprised this came from AVID. from what it sounds like (having scraped the surface), it’s not their editing software (Pro Tools, et al.) but their copy protection management tool/device driver - iLok. i’m sure there are some very anxious engineers in the AVID offices today.

> their copy protection management tool/device driver - iLok MacOS Catalina makes running kernel extensions hard, they probably were testing new iLok version for Catalina.

> MacOS Catalina makes running kernel extensions hard

So it has bad compatibility?

Is that a good thing which we’re excusing now?

Re: Mysterious Avid Issue Knocks Out Mac Pro Workstations Across Hollywood

#150

Post by cjaybo »

Mindwipe wrote: post #80
ryanlol wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and lots of very smart designers have put lots of time over many decades into making trashcans look good. The apple trashcan certainly looks vastly better than other commercially available workstations.

> The apple trashcan certainly looks vastly better than other commercially available workstations. Not really, when given the tendency of them to roll around when being transported in production environments, they tend to end up bolted within wooden boxes with little wheels on the bottom. There's a reason Apple listened and put wheels on the new one.

To be fair, the machine's tendency to roll around during transport is irrelevant to the claim that it looks better than its competitors.
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