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Editing scenario
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[Jeremy Garchow] “Obviously, both you and Walter didn’t read my earlier posts.”
Wait, what?
I did read your posts (I try to read all of yours posts here because there is a lot about FCPX that I can learn from you), and I thought that we were all in agreement that you can perform this edit in FCPX, and that you do it differently in FCPX than you do in FCP7.
I thought the question was if there was a way to use FCPX’s unique features to organize the edit such that timeline acrobatics we unnecessary to accommodate these change, and it I thought that the general consensus there was no, timeline acrobatics are required in both models.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Walter Soyka] “Apple designed the software and could have included persistent/remembered/whatever IO points if they wanted to. Why might they choose not to? How is it better for the user to have their IO point decisions blasted away if they click off a clip without first making it their selection a favorite range?”
As I’ve mentioned before, the range selection process is a holdover from iMovie and there may be some fundamental residual design issues that are hampering the provision of persistent IO.
I would suggest that IO functionality was grafted on to the underlying range selection process but IO doesn’t “exist” in the same way as in the past – it’s merely a keyboard way of delineating the start and end of a range that “mimics” the mouse action.
BUT – the point that keeps getting lost in this whole discussion is that what’s really important is not persistent I and O but rather persistent I or O. Yes, you can more or less cope with the lack of persistent IO “ranges” by using the favorite function. But there is no way of simply keeping EITHER an I OR an O.
And this for me and I’m sure many, many others is far more of a pain. I don’t believe I mark BOTH I and O in the browser more than 20% of the time (probably more like 10% but I’m being very generous). On the other hand I rely on using EITHER a single I OR a single O on every other occasion.
If I use Favorites as a way of trying to keep this functionality, each new Favorite extends all the way to the beginning or the end of the entire clip, thereby overwriting any previously assigned favorite or favorites. Because you can’t have overlapping favorites as everybody knows. That’s a really significant thing.
So to reiterate, please let’s stop arguing about persistent I and O, and let’s start a discussion about persistent I only. Or persistent O only. The difference between AND and OR is the crucial one. FCPX allows for AND (kind of) but won’t allow OR in any useful sense.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Walter Soyka] “Let me turn the question around. Apple designed the software and could have included persistent/remembered/whatever IO points if they wanted to. Why might they choose not to? How is it better for the user to have their IO point decisions blasted away if they click off a clip without first making it their selection a favorite range?”
I think Philip Hodgetts explains it best from here: https://www.philiphodgetts.com/2012/04/some-final-cut-pro-x-data-points/
Phillip hodgetts:
“Actually it would be more difficult than you think as it’s a desire to a throwback of a design that only allowed one in and out on any give clip. FCP X has unlimited in and out via keywords.
Therefore an old-style I and O retained would be a backward step. As Greg said, if it’s important range to be retained, throw a favorite or keyword on it.
And non-programmers generally have a very bad idea of how much work something is to implement.”Phillip Hodgetts:
“From the programming point of view you’d have to create a third category to go with “Favorite” and “Keyword Range” that would be “Persistent I/O” points. How do they relate to the other two? Are you prepared for a complete rebuild of the database structure to accommodate it?What happens when a Favorite and I/O range coincide (there’s an existing bug related to two keyword ranges covering exactly the same frames losing notes, for example).
In my opinion it’s a throwback thought for people who haven’t yet made the mental transition to FCP X”
Phillip Hodgetts:
…the more we’ve thought and talked about this, the more Greg and I are convinced that it is a deliberate decision to NOT have In and Out points. The more we’ve talked about it, the more we realize how impossible it would be to code around, but much more importantly how complex this would become for users.[[???]]
…Does FCP X edit the keyword range to the Project, or the In/Out range? Or some intersection of the two? When does I/O take precedence over a Favorite or keyword range?
It becomes an incredibly complex matrix of when one takes priority and in an app, from a company where the main focus is “simplify”, that would be anathema.The more we discussed it last night, the more obvious it was that this is a deliberate decision and that it is the right decision.
And this is my point. FCPX does do this, it’s just people, for whatever reason, don’t want to use it. So, you have a choice. If another NLE works in that exact way that FCP7 does, and ins/out function is the deciding factor on choosing a new NLE, then there’s your decision. In the mean time, I will use favorites that are very handy and are actually more powerful than an in/out that sort of hangs around. The use of them is the same, every time I go back to that clip, I can review the previous choices I’ve made, or choose to remove them, just like 7.
[Walter Soyka] “Follow-up question — how long did it take you between launching the app for the first time and getting burned by this particular design decision? 5 minutes? With such a low Mean Time to First Burn (MTFB, not to be confused with MTBF), don’t you think this was the sort of thing that Apple heard about immediately in beta testing with real users?”
I honestly don’t remember. In my article that I wrote soon after FCPX was released, I mentioned favorites. I have been using them since probably day2. I remember it coming up very soon after the release in this very forum. Also, since then, if you choose to name a favorite, it is now text searchable. That has changed and it didn’t used to be that way, so more function has been added to this very conundrum since release.
The rest of your questions I think are summed up by Phlip H.
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[Walter Soyka] “Wait, what?”
Oliver asked if it was “better”.
I responded to David in a much earlier post about the jury still out being better.
I can try and track it down.
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For me the answer to Jeremy’s question is “Bussing FX.” That’s why I find it important to keep the FX on the FX pseudo track and so on. I really like creating a compound clip out of several groups of audio and then apply a single fx to the cc. Rather than applying the same individual effect to numerous clips.
Back in October, this was the real eye opener, for me, that Jim posted: bussing in X.
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[Simon Ubsdell] “So to reiterate, please let’s stop arguing about persistent I and O, and let’s start a discussion about persistent I only. Or persistent O only. The difference between AND and OR is the crucial one. FCPX allows for AND (kind of) but won’t allow OR in any useful sense.”
This is a totally different discussion.
In that earlier Andy thread, I said that you can still do three point edits in FCPX. So while you have to mark on O with your I, or an I with your O, you still have three point capability from either the in or the out.
Jeremy
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[Jeremy Garchow] ”
This is a totally different discussion.In that earlier Andy thread, I said that you can still do three point edits in FCPX. So while you have to mark on O with your I, or an I with your O, you still have three point capability from either the in or the out.”
I don’t see how it’s a different discussion – could you explain?
And I’m absolutely sure I didn’t say you couldn’t do three point editing in FCPX.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com -
[Simon Ubsdell] “I don’t see how it’s a different discussion – could you explain?”
I guess I need to ask you. How do use i or o separately? Is it not to do a three point edit?
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[Simon Ubsdell] “let’s start a discussion about persistent I only. Or persistent O only. The difference between AND and OR is the crucial one. FCPX allows for AND (kind of) but won’t allow OR in any useful sense.”
I’m game.
What do you find lacking with FCPX’s three-point editing? What’s the harm in storing a single point as a range that extends to the media limit on the other side? Since FCP7 only offered a single set of persistent I/O point(s), what’s limiting about the overlapping favorite restriction in FCPX?
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
Creative Cow Forum Host: Live & Stage Events -
[Jeremy Garchow] “I guess I need to ask you. How do use i or o separately? Is it not to do a three point edit?”
Well, there are two parts to this answer.
One is that I often use I OR O as very temporary placeholders, as I’m sure a lot of editors do. I don’t want to have to use a favorite for this. Chiefly because using favorites for something so fleeting means continually having to Unfavorite (this gets very necessary when you are trying out different source edit points in the same clip which must be pretty common and certainly is in my experience) – and to worry about overwriting existing favorites which will always happen if I’m only interested in EITHER the I OR the O because the untended I or O will always default to either the beginning or the end of the clip.
The second point about three point editing in FCPX is that (unless it’s something I’ve been overlooking all this time) you can’t backtime a three point edit using only and I or an O in the Browser. (You can of course do this if you set a range in the Browser and use Shift/Edit Function, but that’s different.)
The point is that in FCPX every selection MUST be a range whether you like it or not. And a lot of the time I don’t actually want a range. I only want an I OR an O.
Simon Ubsdell
http://www.tokyo-uk.com
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