First and foremost before I get into this post, I would like to send out a personal Thank You to all the users in the Sony forums for expressing their outrage on my behalf, although I know a lot of it has been deleted. Throughout the course of 8 years or better that I've been on the Sonic Foundry/Sony forums offering support to your questions, I did it because it was something I truly enjoyed, because I'm passionate about audio and was passionate about using their software. In that time, the simple reply that you gave of "Thanks Red" was all I ever needed in return. Never in a million years would I have imagined this support from you in return for the recent events that occurred. That's the part that does make me feel good in all this, that all my efforts where not truly in vain.
In Sony's Defense
Some may find this ironic, but I truly don't want this action by a certain Sony individual to alienate the entire Sony Media Software Team. I truly believe this was an individual that made these decisions. Unfortunately that individual ranks pretty high up there, where the rest of the folks fall under his jurisdiction and have to abide by his decisions. I think we can all relate that we have all worked under a boss, where we have had to scratch our heads and wonder, "how did you ever get where you are with these types of decision making skills?". Yes, it's true I have been a beta tester under a few of the Sony/SoFo products. Through this I have gotten to know the developers of their software a little better than the rest of the users when having discussions with them behind the scenes. They are truly an outstanding group of people that work very hard at what they do. It is for their personal benefit that I would come to the defense of Sony. Some of the most noteable names worth mentioning by their Sony forum usernames are SonyPCH, SonicJG,SonyDennis,Sonic,SonyChaboud,SonyMLogan and SonyJennL and quite a few others, that I don't know their usernames off the top of my head.
Other thoughts:
I see in this forum as well as the Sony forums a lot of people saying things on the matter that ever since Sony took over the Sonic Foundry suite of softare has not been up to par as what the users have come to expect under Sony's guidance. I don't totally agree with this. On the most part everyone from SoFo kept their jobs, and I have talked with many new faces under the Sony umbrella, so I think resources have increased. Sony has allowed them to maintain pretty much a business as usual plan. My personal feeling is that around that time not long after Sony took over, a long time employee of Sonic Foundry retired who was in charge of a lot of the decision making. Another person was promoted, and my own personal feeling is that might have more to do with it. This of course is my own personal belief, I very well could be wrong. Just an observation on my part. I don't work for Sony.....well at least nothing I've ever received a paycheck for anyway, so I don't know the inner structure of how things run over there. I'm just a long time user of their software.
Me Personally
Basically as part of a rash of recent bad PR events that are upsetting a lot of Sony users, I was contacted via email that due to my "forum activities". I have been removed from all beta teams that I was a part of, I would no longer receive any support of any of my Sony software I may have recieved through beta testing (I actually haven't contacted tech support once the entire time I've been using the products, and on the most part considered it the other way around). Further I could expect "most" if not "all" of my posts in the forums to be removed by this certain individual that contacted me. My forum user account will be removed, and if I decided to create new accounts and bring these actions into their forums, then they will highly consider pursuing legal action against me. Now I did have to sign a NDA when I became a beta tester, and I don't quite understand what I did wrong that would violate that NDA, that would bring legal actions against myself. Certainly, if I did violate it after an 8 year relationship, I would hope they would have contacted me and we could have worked the details out of where I may have gone wrong at that time. Afterall, I'm not a lawyer, I'm an audio engineer and I would hope we could have discussed matters like adults. Maybe it was a scare tatic on that individuals behalf? In either case, I really had no desire, to post in their forums to bring myself down to that type of behavior.
Email signature:
Some things Sony may not have been aware of:<name removed>
VP, Technology
Media Software Division
Sony Pictures Digital
1617 Sherman Ave.
Madison, WI 53704
On the most part as I previously mentioned I enjoy helping out audio users in their forums and usually go into as much detail as I can in doing so. Quite a few users have been frustrated with Sony support for one reason or another, where they feel like they're banging their head against a wall sometimes. Again, I don't blame Sony for this, I'm happy if they're spending more time on developing their products. Anyways there's been users that contact me directly via email with general user questions and opt to avoid the entire user forum discussions. I answer each and everyone of these and try to help out where I can, sometimes spending over an hour on a reply. So where Sony has been dropping the ball, I've been picking up some of the slack. So I guess now that all this has happened I should tell them "they are no longer entitled to support" and sould contact Sony in the matter. Nope that's not me, that's the childish behavior the individual over at Sony running the show.
What's been going on since the email notification?
Well a lot of my posts that I was having discussions with other users regarding Vegas 6 short comings on the audio side that we all agreed upon, and things we need to consider to overcome those obsticles, plus relieving a little frustration, started to have the body of "deleted by moderator" and entire threads started to get removed as I was promised. A lot of users saw this activity focused at myself and it seemed way out of norm so they started to contact me via email, asking "What the heck is going on?". So I had to tell them, Sony has basically banned me from using the forums and are currently deleting "Most" if not "all' my posts. So a lot of these users that I've helped out and had personal relationships with, started to post messages in the forum expressing to Sony to reconsider their actions because they valued my contributions. My email inbox has been constantly filled since then from quite a few users regarding this matter. To my further amazement, I even received an email from a journalist from a popular recording magazine, stating he happen to be browsing the forum posts and was wondering if I would like to do an interview on the matter. I was definately taken back by the offer, but told him I'm not looking to hang Sony, my feeling is that this is just some bad PR by an individual that is maybe under some strain at the moment and if things continue they'll eventually hang themselves, but I'll keep in touch if need be.
I do feel this individual should publicly apologize to the userbase for the recent bad PR problems and should consider focusing in a little more on the user needs, rather than an individual like myself. Therefore, in the end everyone can get back to being happy and focus more on what we want to do with the tools. Create wonderful sounding audio.
I'm sorry for such a long post, there's just been a lot of things been going on here. I think in all, the emails from users that I have received in my inbox speaks for itself as to what Sony has done lately. Names are ommitted to keep the innocent....well innocent and have been quoted, except where as noted with <>.
User1:
User2:at the fourm your pressence seems more powerful now than ever...
Sigh ( im disheartened)
i cant presume to know how you feel. but...if you feel frustrated or if you feel your vioce is being stifled then...it's not fair. period. you have supported Sony products since the begining. you also support thier customers....answering countless questions, offering Sony suggestions on improving thier products.....but hey "no good deed goes unpunished" Personally i didnt post much, cause..well,,,if theyre gonna lock the thread and delete posts then why bother? maybe alot of other vegas audio users feel the same. if i was going to post i would say that it seems like the voice of the vegas audio community is being muted. since vegas is now mainly a video app maybe next they'll just delete the whole vegas audio fourm alltogether.... i dunno, but looking at the way they're doing you...(sigh) it's not encouraging.
User3:I wonder if Im next. I am fighting everyone around me for the ability to at least use Vegas in parallel, but this release does nothing to help that situation. What did you say that made them so mad at the end?
User4:Apparently they are deleting controversial posts and all associated threads. Too bad. They are behaving like Pinnacle did back in 1999/2000 when they got fed up hearing complaints about zero tech support and zero compensation for people who bought the DC1000DV for 7,500$, only to see the price plummet to about 1999$ a month later.
I am not going to bother looking at V6 until it is into version 6c at least. Haven't had any troubles with SF8...so far. I think I bought it on your recommendation anyway. DVD-Architect appears to function properly.
User5:Hi Brian,
What the f--k happened???
Just about everything I've ever seen in your posts suggests that you are one of the more upstanding Sony forum members and a big supporter of the software line. Most of your criticisms of the software line are constructive.
User6:I'm getting a bit bored with the forums, same things again and again and think I'm going to spend my few free minutes a day over on B-Roll or DVD Makers.com. I've got 25 years video editing experience and don't do much fancy stuff effects-wise.
User7:Hey thx least i know i aint crazy ,you saved me the trouble of reinstalling vegas...goodness i hate re-registering. FWIW if i had 11 friends like you i would rule the world! Red thx again
Regrets,Tell you what, and maybe you'll disagree with me but... I think <Sony individual> is probably reacting to the "Sony Machine".
I think he's been given a mandate to make money with these apps, and quick. I don't think he had any choice but to release Vegas for NAB.
Debugged or not. Give Sony some major video upgrades to keep them happy, and patch it up in 6.0b.
Seems to me the SoFo crew have most always been fair. Even you've mentioned that regardless of the "spats" between you and <Sony Developer>, there was a mutual respect for each other's knowledge regarding the software and audio in general.
If I look at them now, it seems like they've got their balls between a rock and a hard place. I think they might be trying to keep Sony from pulling out. What do you think?
Mind if I speculate? It might even be wishful thinking on my part.
<Sony Developer> knew Vegas was going to become mostly a video editor. Obviously, he couldn't say so
Red
) :
Just keep on their asses about what we need Acid to become, before we start seeing Acid video loop libraries being sold. 