Scrolling timeline while playing

[Andy Mees]

sorry John

not currenty possible in FCP
you can scroll the timeline yourself without stopping playback, but theres no setting to do it for you

best
Andy

[Paul Huppe]

I find the best way to scroll the timeline while playing is: “shift”+tracking wheel on mouse.

[John Steventon]

Ok, thanks for such a quick response.

I guess I keep looking at Final Cut hoping that I can do everything I was able to do on Avid with it. I’ve got to learn that it’s just different, most of time (personally) surprisingly, but it’s nothing I can’t accept and work-around.

This isn’t going to stop me firing questions in here for a while longer though…

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[John Steventon]

Ok, thanks for such a quick response.

I guess I keep looking at Final Cut hoping that I can do everything I was able to do on Avid with it. I’ve got to learn that it’s just different, most of time oddly so, but it’s nothing I can’t accept and work-around.

This isn’t going to stop me firing questions in here for a while longer though…

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[John Steventon]

Thanks for the tip Zeeton, didn’t know about that one. Works well.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[Bret Williams]

Hmmm. I find that FCP can do much more than Avid. Unless you’re talking DS. But yes, there are things it can’t do or does different. This scrolling timeline thing for example, was yet another thing I never let Avid do. It was really annoying to me. I’ve got the timeline where I want it and want it to stay there. Unless I say so. So FCP’s method of allowing me to move the timeline during playback allows much more control imho.

[John Steventon]

Hmm, when I posted that last post, I sat back and though “oops, have I just started another FCP v Avid argument by accident?”

I’m not saying the FCP timeline activity is wrong/bad or any other negative comment (apart from personally frustrating), what I am saying is that coming from an Avid point of view, the size of the expand/collapse control (the one next to the track height control) is frustratingly small – and the actions to expand/collapse the time timeline with the larger, main control on bottom of the timeline are, well, bugging. Simply because it doesn’t stay centred when you try to expand/collapse the size of the timeline.

Oh, and don’t get me started on all the blank space it adds to the end of the sequence (unless there’s something I’m doing wrong/a setting I have wrong – I’d like to be able to do a “fit to window” for the sequence on the timeline, rather than having to drag arrows/sliders all about the place.

I know that this frustration is purely as I’m a relative new comer to FCP (only been using it a few months) and this kind of comment is derived PURELY as it’s just ‘not an Avid’ – and I know that when you come down to it, you have to make sure programs have some differences, otherwise they’d all be the same, but I just find it frustrating. And if sharing frustrations like this may help other people who are migrating from Avid to FCP for the first time, then I feel I’ve done a service by sharing them.

I see this exactly in the same way as when I started to use CD’s as a Dj. For years I was a complete vinyl dinosaur – and just wouldn’t accept CD in my sets at all – and for the past couple of years I’ve rejected FCP at every turn. Now though, I’ve realised that Avid is as financially restricting as their codecs – and have made a side-switch to FCP for the HiDef work that comes through the company. I’m patiently coming up against issues like this – the timeline colour question I’ve already had, the hassles of ‘apply to all’ not being as easy – not being able to put a global effect across a top track, not being able to add audio transitions the way I’d like to – and a few other problems to come probably – but I understand that this is merely something that comes with using a different system – I’m not saying Avid is better/FCP is worse – I’m not judging either by the other – my comment is purely that of a gu who’s used Avid for the past 9 years, and finds it frustrating at times that things aren’t the same – and by sharing my thoughts on the small controls like this – maybe help another editor along the way.

Hmmm. This should be filed under “Things to do while rendering…”

All done now though. I hope you didn’t find this a preaching response, but as I’ll probably come back with a couple more “Avid did it this way, how does FCP deal with it?” posts, I want to make my point clear right now that these are merely posts of a frustrated editor who is working at 90% speed right now due to not knowing this system inside and out like I did with Avid.

Phew…

John.

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[Jerry Alto]

John- A couple of timeline navagation tips. Timeline fit to window: Shift Z. Zoom in/out with playhead centered: be sure NOTHING is selected then Apple =(+) for zoom in, Apple – for zoom out. For some reason the default is to zoom in on anything selected.
Jerry

[John Steventon]

Jerry – YOU ROCK!!!

Thanks so much for that tip. I’m sure had I read a manual (rather than approaching it like “It must be the same as an Avid”) I might have eventually picked that up – a year or two down the line….

Thanks very much for such a helpful reply. I’m even more amazed that you must have gotten to at least half-way down my last post to have found I was having that kind of problem though.

Thanks again.

John

Success is merely a failiure to imagine more…

[Paul Huppe]

You can literally customize the keyboard to do whatever you want. What I did when I first got on it, was to have the keyboard layout up all the time (tools/keyboard layout/customize). There’a a very handy search tool in it trhat you can use to find any shortcut you can think of, and then map it to the keyboard. Being an AVID / Media 100 guy, I was able to map all my favorite shortcuts from both systems. In that sense, FCP beats both AVID and Media 100 hands down.

There’s also a great book out for Avid editors who are trying to make the jump to FCP.

Title: FCP for Avid Editors
author: Diana Weynand
Apple Pro Training Series.

It’s a GREAT book, and well worth the money.

Good luck!

Paul