Having come across another tool, Combustion by Discreet, which seemed to do everything I needed and more, I switched over to that. I loved combustion (and still do) but kind of felt a little guilty (believe it or not) that I stopped using the FXHome products because it was a small UK business startup, but combustion was everything that I needed at the time. Then, AutoDesk bought Discreet and almost instantly killed off combustion. In 2009 my relationship with Windows PCs came to an end, and I replaced all my computers with Macs. Why? Because I wanted a reliable computing platform that was geared towards creativity based on a sensible operating system, Unix. I would have preferred a Linux system but the software for image manipulation, video & audio editing, and compositing, just wasn’t there or so readily available. In addition to this, most of the software that I had purchased on Windows would also install and run on the Mac Platform.

The only software that I didn’t have a Mac Version of was Combustion, and as AutoDesk had killed it, I decided that I should probably switch over to the Mac Standard of Apple Shake, which I bought together with FCS6 and LogicPro. I was then in for a shock when about 1 month after I had practically sold my soul to Apple, that ‘Shake’ was discontinued. So straight away on the Mac platform I seemed to have a white elephant in the form of Shake, and although I had just bought it (and still have it) I thought that there was no point in learning another system that has been murdered by a big IT company. So next on the list was naturally Adobe After Effects. What an amazing program this is, truly amazing, it has so many features, so many resources and tutorials, and works so well. Over the years I have taken the updates and felt secure that I have a decent stable desktop compositing tool. Next, Apple decided that instead of upgrading FCS from 7 to 8, it would kill it off and offer up FCP X which had far less features. Like many others, I couldn’t lose functionality and wanted an upgrade path to something that was more sustainable. In comes Adobe again, flying the flag that they are fully committed to video professionals and artists, so I switched editors to Adobe Premiere Pro also.

Now in 2013, yet again, a large IT company has stepped in an effectively killed off all it’s products, as far as I’m concerned anyway. Sure, Adobe will make their products better and more feature rich, and professionals will continue to use them, and if I was doing video production as full time business, then perhaps Creative Cloud would make sense, but I’m not, I do occasional paid work and mostly spare time projects. For me, I simply don’t like the idea of renting things that I use all the time. Sure, If i needed something very highly specialised, renting is a good choice, but for software that I need to create, rework, and edit, I don’t think the rental model is right. I also don’t like the idea that the software can change under my feet and I have no control over it, i.e. can’t revert an upgrade etc. I don’t know any developer that would work without a version control system, and for good reason, you need to go badkwards and forwards and know the state of your system. Video tools are that too. Note the lack of support in modern editing software for capturing and logging tape based media. We all know that digital media is where we are at, but I have loads of tape based media, so having old copies or versions of software to be able to log and capture that is essential, as is having a couple of old tape decks!! So the idea that I may have a project now that future versions of the software can’t deal with, but I don’t have a perpetually licensed and physical copy of the software, fills me with dread. In particular, I don’t like the way some software companies are heading in restricting our control and choice of how to work. I think they have stopped listening, got too large and way too powerful.

Back to the point of this blog entry and more importantly, HitFilm. So following the Creative Cloud announcement I searched for ‘After Effects alternatives’ in Google, and HitFilm came up. I instantly remembered that I had looked at HitFilm before having seen that Imagineer Systems has a Mocha version for HitFilm, and thought at the time ‘Wow these guys are still going and they have created an awesome product, so much so that Mocha have made a version of their product for it, but wait, oh what a shame, only for Windows platform’. A shame because like I said, I switched over to Mac in 2009. Had they supported Linux, that too would be quite all right with me, but I’m afraid Windows, for me, is wrong on so many levels. What sort of operating system has so many inconsistencies, such as not being able to create files starting with a dot from explorer, but you can from a CMD prompt, then they can be seen and worked with in explorer? And that was one of the minor issues, Windows is not a viable OS for me. Anyway, I digress, so I thought I would click on HitFilm again and take another look. Wow, this company is lean, agile, and right on the money. Here is a company that had not only developed a feature rich compositor/editor and 3D tool, but they are responding so honestly to it’s user base. Yes they too are developers that need feeding, but instead of holding a gun to their customers heads they suggest, ‘Look, if you want a Mac version, we’ll do it, but hey we need paying, would you sponsor us to do it?’. So my answer is yes. Here is a firm that wants to build a relationship with it’s user base and because they are a small business, each customer is important. I sincerely hope that they go from strength to strength and get the following and support they deserve from their users.