RedShark News: Opinion: Which are the best NLEs right now?

[David Mathis]

John,

I totally agree with you. Started playing around with the editing tools in Resolve and it felt kind of weird. Something familiar yet “odd” at the same time — tracks! Patching tracks, clip collision, something going out of synch, all of which is why I prefer to the FCP X way of doing things. I can focus on telling a story rather then spend time on the logic of mechanics. With that said, I do believe that one should, rather, must learn the mechanics of editing. They will have a sense of what is going on in the background and why. This will make the editor more efficient and effective. In addition, it will make them more appreciative of how things have progressed since the age of the cave man and the invention of the wheel.

Organizing is also much better. Keywords, collections and events are a much more logical approach. Pretty sure that Spock will agree with this one! Much faster and efficient of finding things, less time wasted as opposed to the traditional bin approach.

This approach might not be for everyone but at least something to consider. I am glad I made the switch, editing is fun again!

[Steve Connor]

I’m a big fan of FCPX, been using it since the beginning and it’s almost always my first choice for projects, however I absolutely do NOT buy in to the idea that tracks in NLEs “get in the way” of storytelling or the editing process in general, it’s just a different way of working.

[Tony West]

[John Rofrano] “They are telling a story where events happen in a particular order and these events have corresponding things that all happen together (e.g., a video clip with a video overlay, and a sound effect with music accompaniment) and when you move the video to alter the story, the fact that the sound fx and music and overlays and whatever else is associated with it moves with it is pure genius.”

I agree John, I love working this way.

I usually don’t try to convince others they should switch to this way though. They know what they want.

If they want to work with tracks have at it.

When folks ask me about it at work I tell them what I like about it. Most times they are interested in hearing more and want to try it. The folks I am dealing with have never seen X or tried it so they are an open book to me.

I do agree with you in that they wanted to break from tradition, that they said, why does the audio and video need to be separate from each other by default at this point in time. You recorded them together keep them together until you need them apart.

[Charlie Austin]

[Herb Sevush] “Other editors are troubled by such freedoms, which require worrying about things like sync, and are thrilled that they can have their hands held as they move their locked-together media around the timeline.”

Seriously?

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Charlie Austin]

[Michael Gissing] “The retrofitting of Roles showed that a totally unrelated trackless system had serious limitations.”

There was no “retrofitting” Roles, like a lot of other features, just weren’t implemented when X first came out. You think thy added multi-cam as an afterthought too?

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Charlie Austin]

[Steve Connor] “I absolutely do NOT buy in to the idea that tracks in NLEs “get in the way” of storytelling or the editing process in general, it’s just a different way of working.”

With you 100%. X isn’t really a “new paradigm”. You still edit just like you always have. Source I/O, cut into sequence, repeat. It’s just different. I like the difference, some don’t.

People who mock FCP X as “dumbed down” are just as ridiculous as the people who imply editors that don’t like X are “dinosaurs”.

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~ My FCPX Babbling blog ~
~”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.”~
~”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented”~

[Daniel Frome]

[John Rofrano] “the fact that the sound fx and music and overlays and whatever else is associated with it moves with it is pure genius.”

Can someone explain how this is different than grouping a series of elements on the Premiere Pro timeline? If I group, then moving something will keep them together in much the same way, no?

[John Rofrano]

[Daniel Frome] “Can someone explain how this is different than grouping a series of elements on the Premiere Pro timeline? If I group, then moving something will keep them together in much the same way, no?”

I’ve never used Premiere Pro but I did come from Sony Vegas Pro and I’ll tell you how it’s different than groups in Vegas Pro but first I must explain how groups work in Vegas Pro and then you can decide if this is the same in Premiere Pro.

In Vegas Pro when you group a clip with a lower third and perhaps music, the group always stays fixed as a whole. That is to say, if I move the lower third, the clip and the music move too. If I move the music, the clip and the lower third move too. If I move the clip the lower third and the music moves to. They always stick together like glue.

That’s NOT the behavior of Connected Clips in FCP X. With connected clips if I move the clip, the lower third and the music move too. If, however, I move the lower third, then just the lower third moves. If I move the music, just the music moves. The only time everything moves together is when I move the clip. This allows me to adjust the position of the lower third or music without having to ungroup, move, then regroup. Very different behavior. Almost a master/slave behavior where the connected clips are slaved to follow the master clip that they are connected to but not the other way around.

I don’t know if that’s how groups work in Premiere Pro but that’s the difference between groups in Vegas Pro and connected clips in Final Cut Pro X. BTW, Vegas Pro has since tried to implement a similar construct they call “Sync Link” but it is poorly implemented and not as intuitive as what Apple has done. They even added a “Shuffle” tool to simulate the magnetic timeline but it falls far short because the “tracks” get in the way and mess the position of the sync linked clips up.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Tony West]

[Daniel Frome] “Can someone explain how this is different than grouping a series of elements on the Premiere Pro timeline? If I group, then moving something will keep them together in much the same way, no?”

In X, I’m not selecting anything. Not even the main clip. I’m just grabbing it. I don’t have to select the b-roll or the sound from the b-roll or the music or font or any of that.

By grabbing one clip everything with that clip is going to go “automatically”

Are you saying that’ how Prp works? How would it know which tracks you want moved if you didn’t tell it at some point.

I also like that X is anticipating where I might want the group move to end up by putting up that blue line at each section.

It’s saying “are you trying to put that here?”

Me “yes”

Then I let it drop and I don’t even have to be that close to it.

Once again it’s that duel argument.

The X timeline is too different, but when that difference is explained as an advantage to some, then the argument is that’s the same as the NLE

X can’t be different and exactly the same at the same time. It’s one or the other : )

[Daniel Frome]

[tony west] “By grabbing one clip everything with that clip is going to go “automatically”

Are you saying that’ how Prp works? How would it know which tracks you want moved if you didn’t tell it at some point.”

Yeah, it sort of does, let me explain:
Pretend I have a complex arrangement of transitions, music, FX, and videoclips on my timeline. I first select them all and “group.” From now on, whenever I select any one of those components, all the items in the group are selected, allowing me to move around, delete, etc, the whole arrangement more or less as if it was one clip.

As for “how does it know which tracks?” – it relies on the the mouse pointer. The click/drag function will let you keep everything on the same tracks, or slide everything up/down some tracks if you are dragging it there. I think the idea of tracks probably does not make it as efficient as FCPX here, but it’s honestly hardly ever an issue.