[David Lawrence]

[Tangier Clarke] “I still need to dabble in Pr6 more, but first impressions at best only amount to where FCP was years ago.”

Give PP6 a try. I think you’re in for a big surprise.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “If you already have an Ethernet cable dangling out of your laptop, you could certainly have a usb3 version of this:

https://store.apple.com/us_smb_78313/product/MC704ZM/A“

From the Apple store description:

Easily connect your MacBook Air computer to an Ethernet network with the Apple USB Ethernet Adapter. Small and light, it connects to the USB 2.0 port of your MacBook Air and provides an RJ-45 connector that supports 10/100BASE-T performance

I need Gigabit, 100BASE-T doesn’t cut it. Ethernet is the one thing in this possible new laptop that I’d really miss.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

[Aindreas Gallagher] “particularly seeing as how Lawrence and Seeman, hell Steve too stated there is an issue with non-persistent IO – lawrence spent about 20,000 words teasing an acknowledgement of the issue out of jeremy – and look at him now!

like. it. never. happened.

*shakes head sorrowfully*”

LOL, I’m doing my best, gents. Like Jeremy, I’m not backing down on this one 😉

I’ll try One. More. Time.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Ins/outs don’t work like fcp7, it doesn’t look like fcp7, it actually works a bit better than fcp7, unless you use extended markers (which I do in 7 a lot).”

FCPX Favorites are great. They’re a powerful, flexible and useful way of marking persistent ranges – ranges that have starts and ends (or in/outs). They’re like subclips on steroids.

Extended markers in FCP7 are cool too. I also use them, but I think Favorites in FCPX are better.

You could use an extended marker in FCP7 to create “persistent” in/outs but do you ever really use them for that? I don’t. I use extended markers as part of my logging process. As a way of keeping track of my “favorite” content – the stuff I want to remember as I build my edit.

If I were using FCPX, I’d use Favorites or keyword collections for that.

I use in/outs mainly to mark the cut. It’s simply a tool that’s intrinsic to the editing process. It has nothing to do with logging. It has nothing do do with “favoriting”. It’s just a tool, nothing more.

[Jeremy Garchow] “X allows actual persistent in/out, when 7s last until you hit another in, or clear in/out in the browser. “

Not on the timeline, but I know you’ve acknowledged that. They have to fix it on the timeline and the way they fix it should work for the event browser too. The argument about FCP7 is just silly. :p

Maybe we need a new term term for tradition in/outs – semi-persistent?

[Jeremy Garchow] “So, really, what is your intention?”

Marking the cut. That’s it. And having the mark stick around until I decide to change it. If it dissappears because of an accidental mouse click, it’s a design fail.

I agree with everything you’ve said about Favorites and persistent in/outs. I think we’re really talking about two entirely separate issues. I think we’re both right. Functionality vs intentionality. Marking in/outs for a cut is a different intentionality than marking a favorite. Words matter.

That’s really all I got. Now I need lunch.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

[Walter Soyka] “However, it’s clear that although this is possible, it wasn’t the design intent of FCPX. If it were, the data model and toolset might be very, very different.”

Bingo. That’s the key issue as far as what we might expect going forward. The timeline UI – with all its current usability inconsistencies and limitations – seems directly driven by a very specific data model. If I had to guess, I’d say the data model was developed first and the UI followed. That’s great if you’re an engineer, but it’s often bad news for usability and for users.

The main reason I consider the current timeline bad design is because in order to use it effectively – in cases like Oliver’s example (or anything outside what the designers thought of for that matter) – the user is forced to understand the underlying object/container data model.

This is about as un-Applelike as you could possibly get. I can’t think of any other UI example where internalizing the data model was key to working efficiently with the UI. The user shouldn’t need to know or care.

Good UI design hides the underlying data structures with intuitive and internally consistent metaphor. This is UI 101. Apple used to be the world leader in this but these days, they don’t seem to read their own Human Interface Guidelines. FCPX violates HCI principles left and right. That’s the real reason it can be hard to learn and get used to. Not because it’s different or new.

I do agree that we’ve only seen the beginning of where this is headed and the timeline will improve. But I’m also skeptical that it can radically change without a radical rethink of the underlying project data architecture. Changing that would be a very big deal.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I think that multiple primaries would be way over designed. If that’s the way it’s going to be, just go back to tracks. Why have only two primaries, when you can have three? Or four? How about unlimited?”

[Walter Soyka] “I don’t think DL ever suggested limiting it to two. Multiple primary storylines gives you all the advantages of tracks (if you want them) and all the advantages of the magnetic timeline (if you want that).”

Walter’s correct. The idea is to let the editor to decide how many “primaries” they want. Want to keep it simple? Use one. Need more flexibility? Add as many as you need. It would let you do exactely what Jim has done with his pseudo-track project template without resorting to a hack.

Think of it this way – one of the great new features in PPCS6 is format agnostic audio tracks. Standard audio tracks happily let you mix whatever audio format you want on the same track.

Apple could raise the bar even further with media agnostic tracks (or storylines). Create a new track container and put whatever you want inside. How cool would that be? I’d definitely want to check something like that out.

Walter’s right that things could get a bit weird with video compositing depending on how you set things up, but I think that’s OK. A professional tool should be flexible enough for a pro to do exactly what they want if they know what they’re doing; and for a novice to get themselves in trouble if they don’t. You can only simply so far without losing powerful features.

[Jeremy Garchow] “I guess it seems unnecessary. If you control the primary, you control time.”

Well yes and no. It goes back to the original problem of relative time vs. an absolute, external time reference. The single primary forces relative time. Multiple primaries would enable absolute time as on option. I believe this is the thing people who are asking for tracks miss the most. Multiple primaries seem like the easiest way to accomplish this within the existing data model.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

+1 for Laurie Anderson.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “It’s tough to learn a new way when we have been used to it another way for so long.

The way I approach it is that it might be a better way, and perhaps the traditional way hasn’t been the most efficient, just the most ubiquitous and accepted.

Jury is still out for me, and there’s more work to be done by Apple. “

Agree old habits can be tough to shed, especially when they’ve been ingrained over many years. But that doesn’t necessarily make learning something new more difficult.

In the Apple universe, a well-designed product should be simple to to learn, even if it’s completely different than everything that came before it. Think of the iPhone, for example. Or the iPad. So simple, a toddler can pick it up.

Or a cat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdEBgZ5Y46U
For me, all the roadblocks I hit in FCPX feel like places where the designers weren’t paying attention. Either thru over-simplification, or by making narrow assumptions. Jim’s tracked timeline workaround is a wonderfully creative solution to a problem that a good design wouldn’t have created in the first place.

[Jeremy Garchow] “You were involved in an earlier discussion about grouping as it pertains to Pr and Vegas. X is all about grouping, yowzas. And it’s all visually grouped and there’s several ways to group elements. Does it look like Adobe/Sony’s method? Nope. Do you have to learn to control them? Yes, absolutely.”

Grouping is a great thing. Always one of my biggest complaints about FCP Legacy was its lack of real groups and the stupid way it handled re-linking multiple clip selections.

I like how tagging with keywords work in X. It’s awesome and aI hope Adobe is taking notes. Compound clips I’m not so impressed by. It’s really just a new, fancy name for nests, except for some reason they’re much less efficient. I’m amazed that almost a year later, the bloat issue is still completely unaddressed. I would think this should be Apple’s highest engineering priority. You shouldn’t have to tiptoe around using them.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Do favorites look like persistent in and out points? Not in the familiar sense, but the very ideas are the same despite the different methodologies of use. “

I figured out why this issue seems to be so polarizing but I never got around to answering in the other thread. I’m gonna get a bit design geeky on you so please humor me:

You’re absolutely right when you talk about favorites having the same ideas and functionality as persistent in/out points.

The problem lies in the disconnect between functionality and intentionality.

There’s a huge difference in intent between specifying “favorite” (i.e. saying this is something I “like” or want to keep) and marking a cut point for just right now.

This disconnect between functionality and intentionality is why so many people are clamoring for persistent in/out marks. It’s not that you can’t achieve the same functionality, you certainly can. What people are asking for are tools that match their more specific intentionality. And it just so happens that this intentionality is one of the core actions in the editing process itself.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Jury is still out for me, and there’s more work to be done by Apple. “

Agreed. The good news is that now that they have some serious competition from both sides – Adobe from the bottom up and Autodesk from the top down – they’re gonna have to up their game. Should be good for everyone.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Sometimes you have to think a few moves ahead in order to keep things where they are in time, and it all has to do with the relationship to the primary.”

This in a nutshell is why I currently consider the current magnetic timeline bad design. I want to edit, not play a game of chess with my NLE. But that’s just me.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

[Oliver Peters] “when variables are introduced. I don’t expect aclient to understand the issues they introduce when they make a request. Changes result when they see the product they asked for. They have the right to ask for adjustments when it wasn’t what they thought it would be in their mind’s eye. It’s our job to be the experts and accomplish the goal. It’s the software’s job to get out of the way.”

Well said.

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl

[David Lawrence]

[Lance Bachelder] “Vegas has had this for over 10 years and I use it all the time – Adobe just added this to CS6.”

Actually, grouping is in CS5.5 as well. It’s a useful feature and something I’ve always missed in FCP.

A couple ideas that would make it even better:

1) some sort of auto-coloring to make groups stand out visually.

2) if they could implement some sort of object collision avoidance behavior (i.e. automatically jumping tracks over or under existing clips while being slid along the timeline – at the editor’s discretion – then I think you’d get the best of both tracked and trackless worlds. It would give you the flexibility of connected clips without the limitations.

Off to the Adobe feature request line!

_______________________
David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl