@Another User said:
also personally i don't understand why one would need three (resp. in fact more than 3) methods to connect audio applications on the mac platform (AU as the preferred one from apple's side, VST, RTAS) whereas on windows VST seems to be sufficiently covering all needs.
i had no chance so far to see it *face-to-face*, but from what i've heard PT and VI doesn't run too bad side by side on PC (of course the absolute minority of PT systems).
Because Digidesigns closest competitor is Logic, and thus apple, and therefore consider AU a format of the competition. It's not strange why a company wants their own proprietary format for their platform: for the sake of monopoly and distinguishing their product from the competition with exclusive features and plugins, and for not being a slave to a format that is directly controlled by the closest competitor. Sadly, it's always us end-users that ends up suffering the most from this.
As for the more technical aspect of this discussion, I have asked you before what kind of problems the RTAS format was producing that has kept you from developing VI support for it, and must say I'm still a little puzzled by the responses that the format seemed to not be well suited for a plugin with the needs and functionallity of the VI. I mean, there are several other developers that have made plugins for RTAS that also handle large volumes of sample data without any trouble performance or stabillity-wise. Take Synthogy's "Ivory", which runs just as good as any VST instance and is still able to bring your S-ATA HD to its knees before the CPU meter hits 10-20%.
Also, it has come to my attention that Hans Zimmer is producing a big Virtual Orchestra plugin for Digidesign/AIR that will be in direct competition with Vienna products, so somehow it must be possible to get something out of the format. I read in an interview with him that he decided to make the library as a tool for his own writing, while making it a product available for regular customers that also use ProTools for composing, but have no sample library to use within the sequencer.
Fact remains that ProTools is the industry standard for recording and mixing with an aggresive stance on conquering the composing market, and that market has been wishing for quality composer's tools for ages now. If the market is big enough is of course up for you to determine, but there is without much doubt a rather large niche of the pro/semi-pro market that has unserved needs. [[[;)]]]
