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The Mother of All NLE Demos
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Really now? 😉
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Really, DRW, kind of a cheap shot here.
Most sound editors I know don’t do their work in any NLE – they use Pro Tools or some other audio-specific editing/mixing software. So dissing an NLE for not adhering to film/tv industry audio conventions is just silly. Especially when outputting audio in a conventional track format for sound turnover is almost trivially easy (particularly in X…see Mike Matzdorff’s discussions re: Focus). But I think you already know that.
I have no problem with audio tracks at all. Been using them since I got into radio and audio work in high school. Still use them more than 40 years later. Video track are fine, too. Been using them for over 30 years. All “professional” work, and almost exclusively in this rather small and narrowly-focused part of the overall audio/video world called the broadcast and motion picture industry. Making a good living doing it. (I won’t bring up industry awards, because that would make Timmy Auld’s head explode.)
That said, I love working in X. More than Avid. More than Resolve. More than Lightworks. More than VideoCube. More than D-Vision. More than EMC. Way more than CMX or GVG.
And including audio editing/mixing as part of a complete A/V project. Though I’d probably not make X or any NLE my first choice for mixing or sweetening. Then again, I’ve never tried it for that purpose. Have you? Has anyone else? If so, I’m genuinely interested in his/her thoughts.
Those of us with industry backgrounds as deep as yours and mine (and most others on this forum) have good reason to respect the workflows used in Avid, et al. There’s no desire to toss them out on their collective ear.
Leaving aside some unknown personal animosity, why does Bill’s enthusiasm engender such obvious hostility? Is he excited? Yes. Is he sometimes prone to overstatement? Yes. Is he a “fanboi?” Hardly. Is he simply wrong and deluded? Nope.
I don’t think I’m any of the above, either, yet I agree with most of what he says. So what does that make me?
Not really trying to bash you, personally. I suspect you’re really a very reasonable person, based on your years of posting on the COW. (Unlike many of the usual suspects, who just seem…umm…whatever…) I truly wish you could a) cut Bill some slack and b) make a real effort to get to know X in its current version with all the third party helper apps that are available for professionals. Your considered perspective on this particular NLE would be, IMHO, very valuable.
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What does that have to do with my point? I love and value Herb. But it’s been four years that he’s been kicking the metaphoracal tires on X and participating constantly in the “but can it do THIS better. Well, can it?” parade. With a few hours of real study a week, honestly after four years, he’d know all the answers for himself because he’d be an expert. You too my friend. After a certain period has passed, standing on the outside and criticizing something you don’t really understand is just not very useful. It’s precisely why you never hear me criticize the way any other NLE edits. I talk about X because I’ve studied it and understand it and pretty well. Odd that X’s biggest critics seem to be mostly people who don’t have all that much real world seat time with it. That’s all.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Well Andrew, thanks at least for responding on the points I raised – rather than making it all about ME. I appreciate it.
Sorry to be abrupt but I have to find some goats to sacrifice because I hear I’m now a Scientologist plus appear to have Catholic Priests somewhere lighting censors to send aloft incense born pleas for my immortal doom. Busy weekend ahead!Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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Herb –
Based on what you’ve described, I think PPro may be the only NLE that can currently accomplish the kind of audio bussing that you require. Can’t do it on Avid, couldn’t do it in FCP 7, nor can you do it in Resolve or Lightworks (AFAIK).
So one can look at this situation as a specific positive feature of PPro, or as a failing of all other current NLEs. And unrelated to the tracks vs. trackless discussion.
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[Andrew Kimery] “To be fair, no NLE does this as well as Avid does.”
As far as I know, only Avid has this kind of shared project workflow. Maybe Lightworks? I don’t see X as any better or worse than another non-Avid system in implementing a multi-user workflow.
I’ve worked with Unity/ISIS systems for many years. It’s a great setup. But while the Avid shared workflow is rightly touted as a standard, I rarely hear any discussion of the precise daily must-have features. Perhaps the COW member best able to address this is Mark Raudonis, as he has direct experience with Avid and non-Avid large scale workflow.
Here’s an example of what I mean:
On an Avid ISIS system, I can work on any sequence in the project, as long as someone hasn’t opened it first. If I want to work simultaneously on “my” version of the sequence, I need to make a copy of it from the locked bin into a different bin. In most cases, I’m not likely to directly modify someone else’s cut, unless specifically asked to. So in practical, daily use, I’m usually going to work from a copy of the original sequence. At some point, one version of the cut will become the preferred “current” version, or they’ll be merged by one person into another, newer version.
Compare this to shared workflow in a non-Avid setup. To work on someone else’s sequence, I need to copy it into my own project/library. The big difference is really the requirement to have another library open (MY library, if you will) to do the work. In practical use, it’s one more step compared to the Avid workflow. Much has been written describing how to set up such a system of a common “master” library that gets updated as work progresses.
Certainly, Avid’s system is more elegant. And there may be more chance for error (like forgetting to transfer the updated sequence from my library to the master library) by relying on transfer bins/events. But it’s hardly unworkable or so cumbersome as to be impractical.
Given the many benefits I find with X, the lack of a Unity/ISIS shared project is far from a deal breaker. Much as with Herb’s need to buss his audio for efx requires PPro, the shared workflow situation is a specific strength of Avid, rather than a fatal weakness of X that is, in fact, shared by all non-Avid systems. And even shared by Avid, if used without the very expensive ISIS add-on.
[Andrew Kimery] “having an NLE that’s cross platform”
Of course, a failing also of FCP Legacy, which, as I recall, never got the level of abuse X has, except perhaps by Avid users in the first few years. 😉
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Oliver –
In regard to adjustment tracks and vertical cha cha:
Yes, editing via connected clips, using the keyboard command, puts the new clip at the highest level in the hierarchy. This can be problematic when an adjustment layer has already been added. However, if a clip is connected by dragging it from the browser onto the timeline, you can place it underneath the adjustment layer. Granted, I prefer the keyboard command for speed, but the vertical cha cha is not insurmountable. And, of course, editing into the primary makes the point moot, as the adjustment is always a connected clip.
Backing up a bit, though, I don’t usually need to add the adjustment layer first, while I’m still making basic edit decisions. I’ll usually add it later, after I’ve got the structure down. Particularly on Avid, if it’s not a beefy modern CPU, I find an adjustment layer often makes editing sluggish because of having to process everything through that adjustment. And if the adjustment is an effect that must be rendered, forget it! Put it on at the end.
One of my feature requests has been the ability to “pin” a clip to an absolute time on the timeline. Seems adding the ability to pin a clip to the top level might also be useful.
Regarding audio:
As I suggested in response to Herb, the kind of audio bussing you’re talking about is currently available only in PPro. Avid doesn’t have it either, unless you can do it with RTAS (which I’ve never used). I would love to see the ability to expand a compound clip in place, either audio or video, just like an Avid collapsed video clip. (Not to mention, I wish Avid could collapse audio clips!) This would effectively solve the problem of having to step into the compound to make adjustments (and thus losing the context of the timeline).
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[Bill Davis] “We X folk are merely zombies. It’s surprising we can get out of our beds and do useful work without magnetic closets and pattern collision avoiding wardrobes. Yet we struggle on. Shrugging off all attempt to mock us by linking us rhetorically to the clueless and stupid.”
Now you’ve gone and made me feel guilty about my little gibe. I do apologize. Your not like a Scientologist. I might have gone a little overboard there.
Sorry.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Jeff Markgraf] “So one can look at this situation as a specific positive feature of PPro, or as a failing of all other current NLEs. And unrelated to the tracks vs. trackless discussion.”
First of all I don’t know for sure that no other NLE can do this, I’m thinking Vegas, with it’s history of starting as a DAW, might have a complete mixer built in.
Second, the difference is that the structure of a tracked NLE allows for this possibility – FCP Legend had a track mixer built in, it would have been simple to upgrade it to Ppro’s capabilities (FCP 8.0 ?) – whereas with a trackless design, even with a roles based mixer, you would constantly have to go through the bother of assigning and un-assigning roles to a clip every time you wanted the change.
Finally, and most importantly, I was responding to this specific line by Carsten:
” There is nothing in the FCP X timeline that you can’t do because of not having ‘rigid’ tracks but so much more exactly because you don’t have them.”I was not the one arguing the pro’s or weaknesses of FCPX, I was merely responding to this bit of hyperbole. Of course when I point out that instead of “nothing” there is “something” that X can’t do because of it’s structure we are told that my something doesn’t count because Carsten had decided that it’s not meeting his definition of “real” editing. This bit of circular reasoning is similar to Bill’s continuing observation that:
“And while I do not have equivalent experience with AVID or Premier or Vegas, lots of editors I know and talk with DO – and to a one, those who’ve actually learned to use X at a truly professional level DO NOT want to switch back.”
Which means that Oliver Peters and Steve Connor, according to Bill, have not”actually learned to use X at a professional level” because if they had they would feint at the thought of using any other NLE. So no matter what your actual experience, if you don’t love it you haven’t “learned it.”
Refuting this sort of self-defining circular nonsense is at the heart of my comments.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “Now you’ve gone and made me feel guilty about my little gibe. I do apologize. Your not like a Scientologist. I might have gone a little overboard there.”
(sarcasm overload alert) Of course *I* alone have obviously NEVER gone overboard in the heat of rhetorical battle! (alert off)
Don’t sweat it. I have always have appreciated your contributions here, and always will.
Know someone who teaches video editing in elementary school, high school or college? Tell them to check out http://www.StartEditingNow.com – video editing curriculum complete with licensed practice content.
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