David Cherniack
Forum Replies Created
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[Dave Friend] ” If Adobe would just listen to ME then I’m sure they would be on the way to perfection. ;)”
They couldn’t go wrong there. I’ll tell them to call.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
Marisu, It may be best to lay your b-roll on a seperate video track to avoid that.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Mike Cohen] “How about something which is in fact a basic function of Windows”
How ’bout an explorer interface for the project window. I believe that was actually removed from Premiere 6.5. Like the source window, talk about backward steps in useability.
Another of my pet peeves is trying to go to the head of a timeline when a clip is selected. Hitting the home key takes you to the head of the clip. You have to deselect it before you can go to the head of the timeline. Couldn’t there be a Windows ctl-home function that takes you there regardless? You’ve gotta wonder if their designers ever talked to users.
Or this happens to me frequently. I’m editing near the end of a timeline (a common editing situation, eh). I’ve played the last bit I’ve worked on and I change an effect in the last shot. The cursor is resting at the end and I mistakenly hit play. Off it goes to the head of the timeline and starts playing from there. Like, this is something every editor wants to do? Sometimes I just sit there dumbstruck in wonder.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Paolo] “unfortunately, the Axio system is not good for me, i’m looking now for Avid (i come from Discreet”
Same background as me, Paolo. There’s a PPro2 thread over on the Matrox forum where useability is being discussed very eloquently by ex and not so ex edit*ors. The designers and marketing types at Adobe should head over, too. They might learn something about how a useable NLE was developed.
As for Avid, the opinion has been expressed elsewhere that the release of suite now is a cash grab before Avid and Apple eat Adobe’s lunch at NAB. Personally I think if they waited any longer to release the user base would have stormed their gates.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
Maybe the engineers, in their all-seeing wisdom, thought that we should exercise our mouse muscles a little more. Maybe I can learn to love scrolling down long lists to get to the next clip. I hope you’re mistaken. But then again, looking over the design choices in 1.5, and for that matter in just about all Adobe apps, I fear you’re not. Useability (minimizing the effort the user has to make to accomplish any task) doesn’t seem high on the list of their design priorities.
What about a keyboard assignable lock track function? Is that in 2? I’m getting real tired of clicking on those tiny little boxes to lock tracks. I now have to force myself not to rain a curse down on their heads every time I have to do it.
I apologize in advance if my criticism offends some people here but I’ve used NLEs since 1990 and I find a near total lack of user-centric design thinking in Adobe apps. I really wish there was way to explain to them or show them what steps could be taken to make this app less of a constant chore to use and maybe even a pleasure.
In fact it could be even be made enjoyable to use if they would recognize two things about the use of NLEs that are fundamental over and above the manipulation of elements on the timeline (that Adobe does do good job at)
1. Editing means frequently having to do many repetitive functions
2. Editing means frequently having to do the same function to many thingsIn other words:
1. Any function done in the NLE should be mappable to a keystroke combination. It’s been shown time and time again that the discrete act of striking keys is faster and more energy efficient than the non-discrete act of mousing. Mousing has its place where it’s more efficient than keystrokes and even when it’s not it should always be an option but not exclusively, at the expense of keystrokes. The track lock function mentioned above is an example of inappropriate mouse-over-keystoke design choice. As well keystrokes can be automated by macro programs and strings of multiple functions can be assigned to a single keystroke. That way one can do tedious repetitive tasks quickly and efficiently. They do crop up. This also applies to batch exporting. The software can work all night. I can’t.
2. Any function one can do to a clip should be do-able to groups of clips at the same time. Sure the effects are pasteable on multiple clips but gain and speed changes are not. And, more importantly, if you want to modify the effects on a group of clips you should be able to do it without having to delete the existing effects, one by one, before applying the changed effects again.
These are fundamental useability criteria in the design of any NLE since the first EMCs and Avids started rolling out a decade and a half ago. They should have been much more front and center in the initial design of Premiere Pro 1.0. Why they weren’t is beyond me. But it appears they haven’t been addressed much, if at all, in 2. They really should be incorporated soon.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
[Eric Jurgenson] “It’s looking to me that with the 2.0 release Adobe stacks up quite well compared to the competition.”
I’d agree with you but for the fact that it still lacks good media management. Otherwise they put a lot of cool things in this release.
If they had put in media management and opening timelines in Audition, batch renders, and batch processing of many of the functions that can only be applied a clip at a time, it would have been a terrific release. As it is, it means hobbled workflows for many of us.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
He may be confusing it with Axio?
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
Eric, you’re on Axio, right?
Matrox has been asked to make this real time in the future. It shouldn’t be too hard.
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
Ken,
Did you try Procoder?
David
AllinOneFilms.com -
I’ve never had to try the process, but without database level media management, I don’t see any other way than the seperate export of each clip – ie make a new timeline, put the master clip on it, and export a new file that will match in temporal length the hi-rez version. I suppose you could also throw all your master clips on one timeline then make a workspace matching each one individually and export them that way. Either way I miss the batch features in edit*
David
AllinOneFilms.com