ref to post in the techniques forum re tracks

[David Lawrence]

[Carsten Orlt] “Thought this was a brilliant idea to show what tracks really are. just a bunch of story lines hard connected to time.”

Carsten — Thanks for posting this clip. This illustrates an idea that Simon Ubsdell and I discussed in the Techniques forum here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/344/3938

One big problem I have with FCPX is the constraint of a single “primary” storyline. If we could have any number of user created storylines, that maintain a fixed relationship to time in the window space, then many of my problems in FCPX go away. I think the idea of user-definable virtual tracks that are media-type agnostic would be very powerful and interesting.

My other big issue is gaps and fixed ripple mode. I believe the position tool is a workaround, not a true solution. I’ll explain why later in another post.

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[Erik Lundberg]

[David Lawrence] “One big problem I have with FCPX is the constraint of a single “primary” storyline. If we could have any number of user created storylines, that maintain a fixed relationship to time in the window space, then many of my problems in FCPX go away. I think the idea of user-definable virtual tracks that are media-type agnostic would be very powerful and interesting.”

I don’t just think this would be interesting. I think it would really make FCPX into the game changer apple would like it to be. What FCPX really needs is this sort of freedom from constraints, and should be the main focal point of apple for the near future(with ‘near’ being the key word). This includes OMF and the whole opening up to external editors (INCLUDING MOTION, mind you, apple!!!), freedom of using (or not using) tracks (or tracklike storylines), opening up to standard pro video interfaces/equipment e.t.c.

Erik Lundberg

Technical Director, Media Technology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

[Steve Connor]

I really can’t see how it would be difficult for Apple to implement this in software

“My Name is Steve and I’m an FCPX user”

[Erik Lundberg]

Me neither. On the other hand I’m not a software developer. But I’d say it should be the logical steps forward for apple to free the software as much as possible from locked down workflows. Which is the basic problem right now. And I’m sure they’re on to some of these constraints. Hopefully all. Or at least a lot of them. Not being able to roundtrip to even Motion seemes downright silly. That one is so obvious it must surely be fixed. In the wake of that fix I’d hope some of the other interoperability issues is taken care of as well.

But being able to chose at any time in any given project (or not chose) between tru trackless or enable more storylines with the exact same behaviour as the primary would be a feature worth waiting for. Just don’t hold it off too long…

Erik Lundberg

Technical Director, Media Technology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden