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Are NLEs like bicycles?
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[James Culbertson] “[Shawn Miller] “[James Culbertson] “Premiere and FCP7 feel more engineer-driven now than they used to in comparison; I think students prove this point too.”
How so? Premiere Pro seems to have incorporated more user feedback into it’s design and functionality than ever before… certainly more so than in the pre CS days.”
More than feel or using of the interface than the features themselves.”
So, what in PPro CC 2014 feels like engineer driven design vs user driven design?
Shawn
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Now this is a thread that really brings back the debate header of this forum 🙂
I disagree though that it confirms the ‘why FCPX doesn’t work’. It would do so if Final cut X’s timeline would flow from right to left. This would be a fundamental messing with your brain scenario that would take years to master. Unless of course your native language wrights from right to left (which throws up the interesting question if people who’s native language is written right to left have problems in the beginning working with any NLE?)
When editing moved to the computer all what was there before had tracks. This was a physical given and not by choice. Physical machines can only have tracks (at least to my knowledge) So when translating this to a computer it was the reference to work from. The computer of course made it way more flexible to work with those tracks. But it still had the problems of tracks. Track assigning, Synch between tracks. Keeping video and audio that belongs to each other together. You as the user had to deal with them to not mess up the result. Of course you learned to deal with them and it looked like they were no problems anymore. But finding a way to deal with the problem doesn’t change the fact that it is a problem and requires work. If it wouldn’t be a problem NLE’s wouldn’t have invented sync indicators, auto track assigning etc. These were all inventions that tried to minimise the effect of the problem. But the problem remains. You can of course stop there and say you’re happy with the status quo. This would be the end of the debate 🙂
Now I think that Apple thought let’s look at these problems (and the rest of how you work with an NLE) and say ‘let’s see if we can come up with a model that avoids the above mentioned issues. The result is the magnetic timeline (bad name I think but that’s what it is)
Here now the debate. By creating a model that avoids track assignment, sync issues and video/audio pairing problems did they create bigger problems somewhere else? The answer to that lies with the user. For me definitely not. Quite the opposite. I actually gained a lot of possibilities that I didn’t have before. To be able to freely edit within a secondary to make music fit or edit soundbites without affecting the rest or loosing sync somewhere down the line are huge advantages in creative freedom. Of course you can get the same end result with a track based system, after all I edited just fine before, but now I do not have to think about a lot of stuff when I simply want to shorten a soundbite. I work only in the section I want to and don’t worry about anything 20 min down the line which I had to do before.
That audio is now sample based is one of the biggest advantages. And the clever way of clip containers where audio following video frames to stay in sync but be able to adjust audio still on a sample base at edit points or when applying keyframes for volume changes is just magical. Sync indicators rest in piece.But there is no free lunch of course. Having no tracks means no more easy visual feedback of content like where is the music and where is the fx. For me that is something I can easily live with because I do not need it when working in the section I’m in. I do not need the overview because it doesn’t inform my edit decisions. It might let me find the fx clip a fraction quicker if I want to change the volume but I loose 10x more time dealing with tracks overall e.g. when changing something at min 10 in a 50 min piece.
FCPX is not riding a bike with the steering reversed. It’s a bike where somebody modified the controls like gear change and bell to a position that they think is more economical when using it. I happen to agree 🙂
Happy editing
Carsten -
[Shawn Miller] “So, what in PPro CC 2014 feels like engineer driven design vs user driven design?”
Like I said it is a feel thing. FCPX feels more user friendly to me, more intuitive, more free form. It gets out of the way more and I just work.
I felt the same about FCP7 relative to AVID MC when I first took it up.
But then, this whole discussion is about how we each feel. There are no absolutes in this kind of comparison, so it comes down to personal preference.
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“[Bill Davis] “The largest barriers to wanting to use X are editors using it and not wanting to use it again, NOT how the software operates.””
well said Bill, well said.
https://vimeo.com/user1590967/videos http://www.ogallchoir.net promo producer/editor.grading/motion graphics
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[James Culbertson] “David, Why do you assume that they created the magnetic timeline just for clip collisions or to solve a problem? Did someone at Apple say that?”
I’m not assuming, this is exactly what Apple told the professional editing community when they revealed FCPX at NAB 2011. Here’s the proof:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77beFICSlI#t=15m35s
Some things to notice:
“I have no way of establishing relationships between primary and secondary content”
A laughable demo. Let’s make a sloppy selection and intentionally throw sync. Psst – ever heard of grouping clips? It works really well for keeping them together.
Plus, their notion of “primary” and “secondary” content is so full of assumption I don’t know where to begin. What do they mean by “primary? What do they mean by “secondary?” Do they understand that for many editors, establishing these relationships is a fluid, constantly shifting process? I have a feeling if they bothered to talk to someone like Herb S., they’d be surprised by how he thinks about “primary” and “secondary” content. Especially with audio.
Notice how many times he uses the word “problem”.
“in this situation, you’ve got a problem. You’ve got a collision in this track”
Clip collisions are a “problem”. Timelines are “fragile”. Editors are “mistake”prone. This is Apple’s language and these are the Apple’s assumptions which they propose to solve with the magnetic timeline.
What they fail to mention (or seem to understand) are the new problems the magnetic timeline creates for certain established workflows. If the engineers and UX designers had bothered to actually talk to FCP users during development, they might have made a much better, more universally accepted program.
This demo is classic marketing fluff. And despite the applause you hear at this sneak, the eventual release alienated a significant portion of the professional editing community for good reason.
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David Lawrence
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[David Lawrence] “I’m not assuming, this is exactly what Apple told the professional editing community when they revealed FCPX at NAB 2011. Here’s the proof:”
Interesting.
In practice, in my experience, the magnetic (and trackless) timeline is more important for its new more efficient (and freeform) way of allowing us to edit. Any problems it may or may not solve are secondary to me. Classic law of unintended consequences I guess.
In any case, this debate is entirely about personal preference. Nothing wrong with that; it is always interesting to hear how others experience things.
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The addition of value judgements to the discussion in some comments is something I wasn’t expecting.
In my original post I didn’t make, or imply, any value judgements and the video didn’t make or imply any value judgements about the modified bike vs the regular bike either. I assume that’s because that wasn’t the point of the exercise and they both appear to be fully functioning bikes. It’s not like the presenter made people ride a broken bike, he just made them ride a bike with right/left reversed. On the surface it sounds like an easy and predictable enough change to compensate for but obviously that’s not true.
Even though the riders clearly knew they needed to turn right for left and left for right they couldn’t do it effectively enough to keep the bike from tipping over. If someone learned and spent 20 years riding on the modified bike it would be just as hard for that person to switch to a regular bike. The issue isn’t inherent to the bike, it’s inherent to the people and what’s been ingrained into their neural pathways. It never dawned on me to contemplate if one bike was inherently better than the other since, well, that wasn’t the point of the exercise (and they both appear to be fully functional).
Now, I’m fully aware that is the debate forum and I did pause for a second before I posted the video but I ended saying to myself, “Nah, this is so benign that there’s no way people are going to read into it.” Obviously I was wrong and I’ll never de-value the ability of this forum to turn anything into a debate ever again. 😉
-Andrew
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[James Culbertson] “Interesting.
In practice, in my experience, the magnetic (and trackless) timeline is more important for its new more efficient (and freeform) way of allowing us to edit. Any problems it may or may not solve are secondary to me. Classic law of unintended consequences I guess.
In any case, this debate is entirely about personal preference. Nothing wrong with that; it is always interesting to hear how others experience things.”
Absolutely! 🙂
FCPX has come a long way since 2011. I like the fact that it now brings a new professional choice to the table. It’s great that editors like yourself have found a better way to work. I also like the fact that it’s been a catalyst for competing NLE vendors to really step up their game. I even use it myself now – well, the ingest and organizing parts at least. But that “editorial engine”… for me it’s still a backwards steering bike. Totally a preference thing!
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David Lawrence
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[Andrew Kimery] “Now, I’m fully aware that is the debate forum and I did pause for a second before I posted the video but I ended saying to myself, “Nah, this is so benign that there’s no way people are going to read into it.” Obviously I was wrong and I’ll never de-value the ability of this forum to turn anything into a debate ever again. ;)”
Which is exactly why the name of this forum is still perfect!!! 😉
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David Lawrence
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facebook.com/dlawrence
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vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Andrew Kimery] “The addition of value judgements to the discussion in some comments is something I wasn’t expecting.”
Wishful thinking perhaps. A bike analogy is not as good as a car or sports analogy when comparing NLEs. That is the unwritten law of this forum.
The fact that it wasn’t about the bike but patterned learning and brain conditioning seems to have missed the general audience, but hey that has never stopped opinionated “debate” before.
I appreciated the point however, but I have just finished a three part doco on brain training called “Redesign My Brain”. This is exactly what the doco deals with. Learning how to change from entrenched thinking. It is so much more than just muscle memory too. It is at a deep level about how we think. How we process pain and fear – something that perhaps some of us here need to consider.
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