David Lawrence
2
COW Coins
Forum Replies Created
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[Jeff Markgraf] “Genuinely curious: what is it that is wrong with X’s magnetic timeline, and what would you do to fix it?”
As Michael points out, tracks have many benefits in bus-based audio routing and mixing. A role-based mixer would be a big improvement. As Chris points out, color coding and some kind of better control over clip layer order would help with organization.
But none of these things solve what I believe is a more fundamental problem with the magnetic timeline’s current design.
The problem is with temporal frame-of-reference.
In a traditional, track-based, open timeline, the temporal frame-of-reference is absolute and defined outside the media clips by the UI window.
In the magnetic timeline, the temporal frame-of-reference is relative and constantly shifting because it’s defined by the primary storyline inside the project.
The benefit of this is it makes re-arranging sections of the primary storyline very simple and for A/B style cutting it’s very fast.
But as soon as you need an absolute, external time reference, the model falls apart, requiring workarounds to do things you get automatically with tracks.
A lot of people misunderstand the history and reason for tracks in NLEs. Tracks are not simply modeling the physical attributes of physical media such as tape or film. Virtual tracks in a UI are actually parallel, temporally synchronous, channels of A/V media. Instead of tracks, think channels or streams.
For example, I work on multi-channel video art installations. There’s no primary view. There are multiple channels or streams, all playing within an external temporal framework.
The magnetic timeline doesn’t make any sense in this scenario.
[David Mathis] “I agree though for personal preferences I prefer audio tracks, not sure why.”
Again, I think it’s because when working with audio, (especially music) absolute time and an external frame of reference is essential. If trackless is better, why haven’t we seen a trackless DAW yet?
We had some great discussions about this stuff a couple years ago when FCPX first launched. If you want to go down the rabbit hole, check out these links:
The Magnetic Timeline — Thoughts on Apple’s New Paradigm
NLEs, DAWs, Tracks and Audio-centric Workflows — Continuing the Conversation…
The Open Timeline and Spatial Workflows — An Example
As far as the fix, it’s actually pretty simple conceptually. I’ve written about it here before:
The big innovation of the magnetic timeline is that instead of existing in absolute time, it’s based on hierarchical, parent/child relationships between clips. I think the UI designers got the top of the hierarchy wrong. There needs to be an option to make the sequence (project) the top parent, rather then it always being the primary storyline.
I propose a simple and advanced way of of using FCPX. In simple mode, it behaves exactly as it does now. In advanced mode, it allows multiple primaries in a temporally absolute window. Secondaries are unnecessary, all storylines are primary and stay synced to absolute time. There are implementation details but I’m confident it would work and would be the best of both worlds.
Apple has my number if they want to talk 😉
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David Lawrence
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[Charlie Austin] “If all you see as unique about the FCP X timeline is that it has no tracks and things don’t bump into each other I would suggest you’re kind of missing some things.”
Please say more about what you see, Charlie. I’m curious.
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[Michael Gissing] “+1 . If Adobe want to hire you or me as a consultant I reckon we could come up with a collision proof power system with tracks & bus based processing that would knock editors socks off. X is still a long way from getting the concept right.”
Absolutely! 🙂
I’d love to work with Al Mooney’s UI team. So much opportunity and possibility.
I’d love to work with Apple to fix the magnetic timeline too. And no, by fix I don’t mean add tracks. Make it better within it’s existing model. Totally doable.
They know how to get ahold of us! 😉
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[Mark Raudonis] ” keep in mind that organizing your media is NOT editing. I’d suggest “just enough” organization to help find stuff, and then focus on the show.”
This ^ x 1000!
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David Lawrence
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[Darren Roark] “I asked a couple people on the FCP X team at NAB last year if Apple patented the magnetic timeline, the answer was yes. If anyone wants to borrow ideas from it, they would have to be different enough. “
Not a problem, as far as I can see. Any meaningful improvement would have to be significantly different. And Apple has certainly left plenty of room for improvement! 😉
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David Lawrence
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[John Rofrano] “The problem is the tracks. Get rid of the tracks… get rid of the problem. “
I can imagine scenarios with trackless space that can open and close between tracks… layering scenarios ala Fairlight. Lots of possibilities that improve on FCPX.
The problem isn’t tracks, it’s limited imagination. 😉
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David Lawrence
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[Steve Connor] “I imagine that Adobe are looking hard at FCPX to see how they can try and match some of the features that it has. With the new search function they are improving metadata handling, Dennis hinted below they are looking at the audio handling, but could they (or should they) implement magnetic timeline features in a tracked timeline?”
The features of the magnetic timeline that people like (object grouping, synced ripple, and collision avoidance) can absolutely be implemented in a tracked timeline. As Oliver points out, other NLEs have some forms of this already but none of them take the idea as far as FCPX so far. I think there’s opportunity for tremendous UI innovation in tracked timelines borrowing from the best features of all the NLEs. I can certainly think of a few! 😉
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David Lawrence
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[James Ewart] “I thought that was the whole point of the mouse. It’s as close as you can get to touch screen without touching the screen. You have to be looking the screen when using the mouse.”
The problem is you have to look at the software UI screen when using the mouse, not the actual content you’re editing.
[James Ewart] “‘Im pretty happy all day long with my left hand on the keyboard and my right hand on the mouse. Sure lots of you would probably beat me in an edit race but apart from that i’m not sure I see an advantage. Surely just a preference but that isn’t really what makes the process ‘dynamic’ is it”
This is my edit style probably 80-90% of the time as well. I switch to keyboard only when I need to precisely fine tune a cut by feel.
[Herb Sevush] “I think the keyboard is currently the best way to meet the requirement of never having to look away from the screen, but I could envision other ways as well “
Herb, I can’t think of anything more efficient then pressing a specific button. I suppose besides the keyboard, something like a dedicated control surface could provide the same tactile UI, but most of us just have keyboards. What else did you have in mind?
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David Lawrence
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[Herb Sevush] “My definition would be trimming, both rolling and ripple, within the context of viewing your material at playback speed. In order to accomplish this you have to see both your current source and the source you are cutting to (heads and tails) when making your live (dynamic) decisions and have to be able to implement your decision without looking away from the screen.”
I would also add that all these options should be possible using only the keyboard.
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David Lawrence
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[Neil Goodman] “The whole point of it being “Dynamic” is being able to dial it in while watching the edit!”
This ^ x 1000.
With keyboard-driven dynamic trimming ala Avid or Premiere, you dial in the cut in by feel in real time. I don’t use it a lot but when I need it, there’s nothing else like it. By comparison, the precision editor seems like a toy to me.
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David Lawrence
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