Scrolling Timeline in FCP – Hack???

[Steve Eisen]

You will have to wait for a future update to have this feature in FCP. This is a frequent request. You too can contribute and send your your feedback to Apple via FCP menu.

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Josh Evans]

Sorry for my lack of help, and what is probably a dumb question but What exactly does it mean to have your timeline update to your playhead?

[Kevin Monahan]

Playhead stays still. Clips rush by. Many other systems do this, including Avid. I agree, I missed it when I first went to FCP. Still do.

Must not be all that possible with the existing code, as I think they should’ve figured this out by now.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Ed Dooley]

You mean this feature in FCP 6.0.2?
>>Scroll to Playhead: Horizontally scrolls the Timeline so that the playhead is centered in the window.<<< [Jake Hawkes] “I realize why this was probably removed (processing power), but from the perspective of a Autodesk editor coming into the Final Cut fold this feature, or lack there of, is drivng him crazy…
“

[Kevin Monahan]

Well, Scroll to Playhead is only a temporary state. When you invoke it, the playhead stops. That’s good for finding your playhead in the middle of your timeline but it won’t stay there when you press play once more. You can tap the page up key, but most editors coming from Avid want this automated.

Long time feature request.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Ed Dooley]

As do us old Media100 hacks. 🙂
Ed

[David Roth weiss]

[Kevin Monahan] “Must not be all that possible with the existing code, as I think they should’ve figured this out by now.”

Kevin,

As I recall, Larry Jordan adressed this at meeting of the LAFCPUG several months back. According to Larry, the rapid graphics updating required to display the scrolling timeline is such a resource hog that it would compromize realtime performance.

As you have probably noticed, in version 6, the Apple engineeers took particular pains to optimize realtime capabilities. A scrolling timeline would significantly degrade that realtime performance, and as I seem to remember, Larry explained it was ultimately thought to be a step backward rather than an enhancement.

David

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, and Indie Film & Documentary forums.

[Tom Wolsky]

This is a canard. Things can be done to mitigate graphics overhead, especially in these days of large amounts of available RAM. Many applications could do this in days when RAM was less, processor power was much slower, and graphics card had nowhere near the capabilities they have now. Bottom line appears to be that Apple just doesn’t seem to think this is a significant enhancement. They continue to come up other “features” what no one requested, which they feel are more important. BTW, even Premiere can do this today, and there is nothing in their timeline interface that is less complex than FCP’s, in fact it’s more complex.

All the best,

Tom

Class on Demand DVDs “Complete Training for FCP6,” “Basic Training for FCS2” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy”
Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 3.5 HD Editing Workshop”

[Kevin Monahan]

Yes David, I agree that it would take extra resources to pull this off. But who cares? I want a button I can turn on or off that does this. Macs are much more powerful these days and can handle a stream or two with this feature on.

If other software packages can do it, why not FCP? Avid Media Composer runs w/o hardware these days and their playhead scrolls. That is why I still think it’s not possible with the current code.

Kevin Monahan
http://www.fcpworld.com
Author – Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro

[Zak Mussig]

It may not seem quite as elegant, but you can manually scroll the timeline during playback by holding shift and using your mouse wheel. Depending on how far out you’re zoomed, you may not need to do it so often. I use this all the time, since you can usually see the issue and know immediately what you need to change if you can see the edit while watching it.

Hope that helps,

Zak

“You can’t fix coverage in post.”