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Olympics Editing (not FCP-X)
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[Chris Harlan] “Sorry. My fault. I wasn’t clear.”
i think I get what you’re saying.
You also don’t have to use the skimmer for this, you can simply shut it off and click and drag the CTI like any NLE.
What I do find is that I often hit play while skimming to immediately slow it down if I know I am getting close to what I need.
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[Herb Sevush] “To claim that Avid or Legend or X is “faster” overall is nonsensical.”
Agreed! The use for a whole NLE is so broad that there is no way to meaningfully compare speed of one to another in the general case.
But for specific tasks, I think we can show that a specific NLEs may have demonstrable advantages. After all, don’t we choose our NLEs by identifying the biggest advantages and smallest disadvantages for the set of tasks in our own workflows?
I think Steve’s claim is dancing on the line in between these. A broad reading makes it a general claim. A narrow reading makes it a specific claim.
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] “Do you disagree with the logic (perhaps I’ve left something out) or the assumptions (perhaps you think the skimmer is overrated)?”
Walter,
I haven’t used the skimmer, so I can’t rate it. I’m very sceptical of grandiose claims though. In the short forays into PPro that I’ve done, I don’t use hover scrub and don’t really anticipate using it (though I understand it is more limited than skimming in ways you’ve outlined).
[Walter Soyka] “… reviewing footage in isolation, making new edits, reviewing footage in the context of an edit or series of edits, and modifying existing edits.”
I’d say the first step is more “evaluating” where you say “reviewing”. I don’t really look at things “in isolation” – they’re always in context. But I think that’s the crux – there are very different approaches to making that evaluation or selection process. If you’re going through 10hrs of footage in 3hrs, that’s entirely different from 3 months of assembling 100 hours of footage. It’s a difference of approach, not just quantity.
I also make a distinction between “reviewing” (by which I mean screening, picture and sound, in real time) and maybe “searching” which is maybe where skimming comes in handy. It’s an important distinction to me when it comes to this statement:
[Walter Soyka] “… the skimmer offers improvements over other tools for review.”
I suppose part of the issue is how easy it is to easily maintain uniform “realtime” playback while skimming.
Franz.
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[Jeremy Garchow] ” If it breaks my creativity, it’s slower, even if it’s technically moving faster.”
That’s the end of the thread, don’t you think?
Franz.
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “I’d say the first step is more “evaluating” where you say “reviewing”. I don’t really look at things “in isolation” – they’re always in context. But I think that’s the crux – there are very different approaches to making that evaluation or selection process. If you’re going through 10hrs of footage in 3hrs, that’s entirely different from 3 months of assembling 100 hours of footage. It’s a difference of approach, not just quantity. I also make a distinction between “reviewing” (by which I mean screening, picture and sound, in real time) and maybe “searching” which is maybe where skimming comes in handy. “
Got it. I think we have largely have a difference in terminology.
Let’s describe it functionally: the skimmer facilities all non-realtime assessment of time-based media.
I think that the ability for an editor to step out of time when reviewing footage, either watching it more slowly or more quickly, offers benefits to the editor, no matter what your process, for visually searching and critically evaluating media and edits.
If you only ever watch footage in real time, the skimmer offers no benefit — but you are probably already wasting a lot of time rewatching footage and trimming, evaluating, and retrimming edits.
The more you jog or shuttle through media, and the more often you switch back and forth among sources for non-realtime assessment, the more benefit the skimmer offers.
[Franz Bieberkopf] “I suppose part of the issue is how easy it is to easily maintain uniform “realtime” playback while skimming.”
See my definition above — this is not what the skimmer is for. You can just hit the spacebar for play while skimming, and realtime playback will begin from the last skimmed frame. JL however you like, then K/Space to resume skimming.
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] “If it breaks my creativity, it’s slower, even if it’s technically moving faster.”
[Franz Bieberkopf] “That’s the end of the thread, don’t you think?”
FCPX or Not threads are never ended; they are only abandoned.
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] “But for specific tasks, I think we can show that a specific NLEs may have demonstrable advantages.”
Absolutely. But the tasks and workflow have to be specific to be meaningful. To “Get thru”, later redefined as to “view and evaluate” is a little too broad for my tastes.
In the specific case of the skimmer one problem is that I can’t compare it myself and have to go on the word of others. The other problem, as I said before, is that I never had a problem with the way other NLE’s timeline viewers worked so I have a hard time imagining how much better the skimmer can be. But you have piqued my interest in finding out.
No matter how good the skimmer is I’d still trade it in for an “un-lift” function.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Franz Bieberkopf] “That’s the end of the thread, don’t you think?”
Goonies never say die
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[Walter Soyka] “The more you jog or shuttle through media, and the more often you switch back and forth among sources for non-realtime assessment, the more benefit the skimmer offers.”
Walter,
I think this corroborates one of the distinctions I was trying to make. Sequence based editing (where all or most of your work is done in one sequence at a time) is quite different from clip based editing (which might not be a good name for it).
[Walter Soyka] “you are probably already wasting a lot of time rewatching footage and trimming, evaluating, and retrimming edits.”
Well, there’ll always be people who think I’m wasting time editing … but the word that gets said to my face is “fast”.
Franz.
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Forum name-change: The Neverending Thread?
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