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Small niggles in editing functionality – my list so far
Replace edit – it’s a real shame this doesn’t work like the replace edit we know from other NLE’s which was my most used editing tool! There are a couple of issues with this implementation for me:
First of all it doesn’t work using the sync reference from the source/record playback heads (to use antiquated terminology, sorry). Secondly, it is a ripple edit function (!) so that if your source clip is a different length from the destination it changes the length of your timeline. All this is a bit of a shame because it means that the nice Audition feature doesn’t work for me – I don’t want to have to go measuring the lengths of my source and record events all the time, that’s madness and undoes any advantage I get from Audition, to say the very least! OK, so Replace from Start and Replace from End don’t ripple, but the Replace and Add to Audition does. Or have I missed something here?
Gang – there is no sign of this, something I use all the time and really need a lot. I am wondering if the lack of a two monitor situation somehow precludes this, though it may later materialise n some form I guess.
Extend edit – this feels more cumbersome than it used to be and it used to be so good and I used it all the time. Now you have to select the edit point, move the playhead and the use Shift-X, whereas you used to be able to set the playhead and then select the transition and hit E. It’s sounds a small thing but operationally it makes a big difference – to me at least. Notice that if you try to do it the “old way”, the playhead skips back to the transition point!
Slip edit – I used to like to be able to park on the last frame a clip when performing slip edits (to check for flash frames and so on) but the playhead now skips back to the first frame always. I know you get a two monitor display if you drag, but I don’t like dragging!
Crop and Trim – the new Trim tool is what we used to call Crop which is fine but there are no feathering options for Crop as yet. Trim on the other enables you to scale your footage to full frame with one action which is a nice idea, but there are no controls to refine the behaviour, which is not so nice.
Transitions – not only can you not add a transition to a title (the only way to fade a title up or down seems to be to keyframe the opacity!!!!!!!!), you also don’t appear to be able to add transitions other than in the primary storyline. My way of working (and I’m sure a lot of other peoples’) is to stack options up vertically as I build up my edit, in other words not only editing on the primary storyline with second class citizen overlay “tracks” (or edit events or whatever we are now allowed to call them). I want my secondary storylines (yuk!) to be entirely as flexible as the primary one and in terms of transitions at least they clearly aren’t and I don’t like that.
Keyframes – these can only be linear which seems pretty limited right now.
Text – a warning not to try what I tried! If you’ve got a text layer beneath anything else (and you might actually want that, you never know!), you can’t get to the text to edit it even if the overlaid track has been disabled. You’d have to kill the overlay or move it temporarily out of the way.
As I say, mostly pretty small stuff but I thought it would be helpful to keep a tally in case it helps anybody else.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
15 Replies
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I would add the rippling transition thing to this list, see my other post on this subject!
Anybody else got anything to add?
Come on, you must all have a few by this time!
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Anybody else got anything to add?
“Not being able to apply transitions to an “upper” layer without converting it to a “storyline” first. It’s an annoying two step process, and I’m not to sure of the reasoning for it.
I was a little annoyed with how the magnetic timeline behaved, but once I discovered the “Position” tool, things worked a bit more familiar.
With regards to not being able to access text under another layer, you just need to go to the “Inspector” window and click on the “Text” tab and you should be able to edit the text there.
Also, you can turn the “Ripple Transitions” off in the program properties. Can’t understand why they would have this as a default.
Apple really needed to provide some decent basic training videos with this release.
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Would like to be able to apply a dissolve to the audio on the main storyline without having the picture dissolve. Only way I’ve been able to do it is expand the two clips and drag the audio to overlap then apply fades.
Best,
Geoff -
I don’t see any way of inputting text in the Inspector tab – it’s not referred to in the manual – I did look in the Inspector tab first off just out of habit and couldn’t find anything there.
No doubt my stupidity again.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Geoff Dills] “Would like to be able to apply a dissolve to the audio on the main storyline without having the picture dissolve. Only way I’ve been able to do it is expand the two clips and drag the audio to overlap then apply fades.”
Yep. That’s how you do it. I actually don’t mind it too much. It’s pretty simple – double click on the clip and adjust timing and fades. It’s one of the more intuitive and functional changes IMHO…
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[Stephen Bakopanos] “It’s one of the more intuitive and functional changes IMHO…”
I’d have to disagree – in FCP7 I have my audio dissolves mapped to a single key – instant result. Surely that was a quicker way of doing it?
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “I don’t see any way of inputting text in the Inspector tab – it’s not referred to in the manual – I did look in the Inspector tab first off just out of habit and couldn’t find anything there.”
Select the text, hit CMD+4 to bring up the inspector window, then there should be four tabs up top saying Tile, Text, Video, Info; select “Text” and you should get controls for editing the text content, font, sizing, kerning, etc…
I’m doing this using the “Custom” title preset…
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[Simon Ubsdell] “I’d have to disagree – in FCP7 I have my audio dissolves mapped to a single key – instant result. Surely that was a quicker way of doing it?”
I guess I’m speaking relatively – it’s more intuitive than any of the multitude of unintuitive features they’ve added. I tend to always adjust the lengths of my fades anyway, so it’s not really much of an extra burden – my mouse/pen would have been going there anyway…
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OK, cool – this text input box was not available in the one I was using namely Centered. I think I’ll send Custom to Motion and give it another name starting with “a” so it’s at the top of the list in future!
Annoying that you have to select a text template anyway though – you should just be able to select the text go and go right away. Another iMovie legacy, I’m afraid.
Simon Ubsdell
Director/Editor/Writer
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “Annoying that you have to select a text template anyway though – you should just be able to select the text go and go right away. Another iMovie legacy, I’m afraid.”
Anything, and I mean ANYTHING, has to be better than the text generator in FCP 7. Premiere is still miles ahead though…
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