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FCP 5.5
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[Oliver Peters] “It’s the single biggest impedement I see to working as a power editor because it counteracts natural and intuitive ways of deleting and trimming in the timeline from the keyboard.”
Without examples it sounds very hollow. Besides there are no “other apps”. There is Avid. Discreet edit* is dead long time ago. Liquid combines the worst interface decisions from edit* and Avid and it is soon to be dead too. Velocity? Edius?
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[mishka] “Without examples it sounds very hollow.”
The problem is that A-S and the rules for linking, track patching and locking are all interrelated. This is the reason so many people complain that they have to lock tracks in order to get FCP to do what they want. The reason is that they do not have track A-S properly enabled/disabled to do the right thing. Even though there are keyboard shortcuts, it is several lkeystrokes more to do these tasks than in Avid and so people either never do them or never learn them in the first place. The consequence is developing a style based on workarounds rather than proper methods. In short – poor UI design, because it was written by software engineers and NOT editors. For example, to have “go to” and “clears” on modifier keys makes sense to a programmer, but NOT to an editor.
[mishka] “Liquid combines the worst interface decisions from edit* and Avid and it is soon to be dead too. Velocity? Edius?”
Of course everyone has their preferences. I think Avid has the best UI for editing, but there’s also M100 844/X, Smoke, Quantel and more. If you like Premiere Pro, it’s close to FCP but its delete/trim functions are even more lacking.
While we’re on the subject of suggestions for 5.5 how about these things:
– Separate user settings
– One global TL setting, not one that defaults to the preset with each new sequence
– Curves in color-correction tool
– User-defined UI colors
– Clips colors that change the clip on the TL, and not the thumbnail/name
– Sift functions in the bins
– Surround mixing
– True mixed codecs on the TL
– AAF supportSincerely,
OliverOliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
Nine out of ten FCP editors never got the idea of Replace edit. Does that mean it is poorly implemented in FCP? OK, ask a dozen Discreet edit* grey-beards to show you Q-edit and results will be similar. The only mistake Apple did with AutoSelect is the thing is turned on for all tracks by default. If it was off for all tracks people would respect FCP a bit more. The app is too forgiving to lousy work-style.
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>> Nine out of ten FCP editors never got the idea of Replace edit. Does that mean it is poorly implemented in FCP?<< You missed my point. Having a function or feature that isn't used doesn't mean poor design. Requiring more keystrokes to achieve a task is less efficient and therefore a weaker interface design than a more streamlined approach. There are plenty of more intelligent approaches out there. Take for example Match Frame. It honors the A-S hierarchy in FCP. Avid also takes a somewhat similar approach. Compare that to Velocity, where instead you simply hover the mouse cursor over the designated clip on any track and hit Match Frame. That clip pops up, whether it is on track 1 or track 10. No track enables or anything else required. Sincerely, Oliver Oliver Peters Post-Production & Interactive Media Orlando, FL http://www.oliverpeters.com
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Oliver, could you explain a little more in depth about A-S disabling? It sounds like there IS a way to edit without locking tracks?
For instance, if I turn OFF all the A-S widgets on my timeline and try to do a head trim, I still get “clip colllisiton on A1”. Again this is a final stereo mix that has no explicit relationship to my video. . . .
thanks!
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[CharlieX] “For instance, if I turn OFF all the A-S widgets on my timeline and try to do a head trim, I still get “clip colllisiton on A1″. Again this is a final stereo mix that has no explicit relationship to my video”
I think clip collisions are a fact of life. FCP is trying to maintain A/V sync and avoid conditions that force you to go out of sync. You’ll get a clip collision with a positive head trim on all clips except the last. Doesn’t seem to matter about A-S. When you do a minus head trim a slug is left in the audio which is the opposite effect. If you are familiar with Avid, it’s the same as editing with sync locks always turned on.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “Compare that to Velocity, where instead you simply hover the mouse cursor over the designated clip on any track and hit Match Frame.”
Does that mean the clip from the source monitor will go to the track the mouse cursor is hovering over with insert or overrecord command? What about a clip in pasteboard?
Also, what about the timeline cursor – the playhead? Match frame supposed to call up the exact frame, not just the master clip.
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[mishka] “Does that mean the clip from the source monitor will go to the track the mouse cursor is hovering over with insert or overrecord command? What about a clip in pasteboard?”
Timeline clip is loaded into the source player. It is parked at the point matching the timeline “playhead” and in a stack of several tracks, the one that the mouse cursor hovers over is the clip selected to be loaded. You can then insert or overwrite as needed.
Oliver
Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] “You can then insert or overwrite as needed.”
To what track? The one the mouse cursore is still hovering over? What about the clip loaded in source monitor from bin, not via Match Frame? Basically, is this “hovering cursor” used widely or is it just for Match Frame?
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[mishka] “To what track? The one the mouse cursore is still hovering over? What about the clip loaded in source monitor from bin, not via Match Frame? Basically, is this “hovering cursor” used widely or is it just for Match Frame?”
Sorry you’re having a tough time with this. The cursor as used in Velocity is very contextual. Many right-button menus functions that change depending on where you are in the UI. In the case of the Match Frame, it’s simply a pointer to the track that the Match Frame function is targeting. The matched clip is loaded as a source and the cursor has nothing to do with the target tracks for the edits. Those are assigned in standard track mapping used in that UI as in most others.
Oliver
Oliver Peters
Post-Production & Interactive Media
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com
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