David Lawrence
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COW Coins
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[Richard Herd] “X is wholly different. The clips are in projects. This is not simply nomenclature, as I tried to detail.”
Richard, I’m curious to hear more of your thoughts on this. How are FCPX projects not simply sequences with a different name?
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David Lawrence
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[Walter Soyka] “How exactly would you define the term destructive? Why should it apply to media only and not the representation of your project?”
Simple. Destructive = no undo at the moment the operation is performed.
This is why you typically see an “Are you sure?” dialogue box before any destructive operation.
If you can undo it, it’s not destructive in the specific technical meaning of the word.
Franz’s suggestion – “commit changes” – is actually a much more accurate and useful term for what we’re talking about here.
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[Walter Soyka] “I think that’s an incredibly restrictive definition that fails to capture the critical differences between tools that reversibly and irreversibly alter data — but I assume you think my definition is incredibly broad and fails to capture the seriousness of rewriting assets on disk.”
I get where you’re coming from but the term “destructive” has a very specific technical meaning that has been understood and agreed upon since the invention of digital media tools.
Bill’s argument still boils down to redefining a technical term around operator error. Sorry, that’s just ridiculous.
Words matter. Especially in a highly technical art form. It would be much more useful to coin a new term to describe an irreversible sequence of operations that alters a project. What else might you call it?
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[Herb Sevush] “Hit undo, and it’s reversed. Most “destructive” operations don’t have an undo feature.”
Exactly right.
If it has undo, by definition it is not destructive.
Operator error is a poor argument for the redefinition of technical terms.
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David Lawrence
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[Oliver Peters] “Just for you, David 😉 Seemed appropriate!”
Love it! Boy does that bring back memories… Thanks Oliver! 🙂
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David Lawrence
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[Tim Wilson] “Well for one, it’s a heckuva logging tool.”
I certainly agree with that! 😀
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David Lawrence
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[Walter Soyka] “Going back to the original quote, my problem is the implication that other NLE databases are flat. I would need to be convinced that were true. “
[Walter Soyka] “The fact that FCP, for example, had the idea of of master clips [link] suggests that it is in fact a relational database (sorry, Bill); a flat database would require an enormously complex and highly inefficient implementation to support something like this.”
Bingo, Walter.
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David Lawrence
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[Franz Bieberkopf] “I would have thought this basic lexicon was plainly uncontroversial.
Thank you, Franz.
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[Walter Soyka] “I’m not familiar with the term “destructive” in the context of editorial. What is an example of the correct use of the term “destructive editing?””
[Walter Soyka] “I see your point, too, David, but I’m not sure that the term “destructive editing” was ever a thing. I think Bill’s definition actually matches the use in Photoshop pretty closely.”
The term is meaningless in the context of editorial. It’s a technical term that only applies in the sense of media engineering and software design.
This is why Bill’s definition is wrong. He’s misapplying a technical term and and it makes it look like he doesn’t understand its real meaning. It’s not helpful to readers.
The notion that an open, tracked timeline is somehow “destructive” as opposed to the magnetic timeline is simply bogus.
Period.
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[Walter Soyka] “Clip collisions are (often needlessly) destructive in (most) tracked NLEs.
That makes sense on video tape, which can actually only hold a single stream in a video track, but this limitation is artificial with computers. There’s no reason that a track couldn’t hold multiple overlapping clips for later collision resolution.
FCP X handles clip collision truly non-destructively in all cases, so I think the distinction is valid.”
I disagree. It’s an incorrect use of the term.
There’s a technical difference between overwriting and destructive editing. They’re simply not the same thing.
NLEs have always been non-destructive by their very nature.
If a clip collision deleted a chunk of the clip from the file on disk, then it would be considered destructive. Overwriting something accidentally on the timeline does nothing of the sort.
In fact, one of the things I find so frustrating about the magnetic timeline is that it’s sometimes over-protective of clips. For example, it doesn’t allow a simple audio cut and overwrite paste directly from the primary into the primary. This is something I easily do hundreds of times an hour when cutting dialogue on a tracked timeline. Even the simplest text editor can overwrite paste.
I agree that there’s no reason a single track couldn’t hold multiple overlapping clips. IIRC, Vegas has an overlap mode and I’ve also seen this in some DAWs. There are many interesting UI possibilities that could be explored. FCPX’s clip-collision handling isn’t the only solution to the problem (if it’s even a problem).
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David Lawrence
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