[David Lawrence]

[Jim Giberti] “So, it can’t be better to restrict users to one better way of doing things in the name of another better way of doing things?
They’re both better, depending on what they’re compared to, in context.
The best creative environment will always offer more, not less, options.

My single change:
One button – Magnetism Off/Track Grid On.”

Excellent and well balanced post, Jim. I agree.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I am not being facetious here, but this sounds on a very basic level, like the FCPX timeline. No, it doesn’t work exactly that way, but it is very close.”

Exactly! But with the option of tracks for those who need them. 😉

[Jeremy Garchow] “The timeline needs a bit of help, and I think Apple is still listening.”

Agreed and hope you’re right.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “It is not the magnetic timeline that bothers you, it is the connections!”

Connections are a big part of it but there’s other stuff as well 😉

[Jeremy Garchow] “What is needed is a modifier so that if you adjust a primary track (trim/roll/whatever), the secondary clips does not move along with it. The work round now is to move the primary clip out of the primary and adjust, then move it back in. I have sent this to feedback before. The more people that send it, the more likely it will get enabled.”

That would help. Of course, once we add this plus selective targeting, the behavior starts getting more and more track-like.

[Jeremy Garchow] “I guess it’s how you define that relationship. Everything in FCPX relates to that primary storyline of time. Anything in the primary is fixed to time if you want it to be. Anything connected to that will also be fixed to that point in the clip. It changes the relationship of clips. If I know something has to hit at a certain time in the sequence, then it goes in the primary at that time, and I edit around it accordingly”

[Jeremy Garchow] “The one you want to determine time, and the rest is connected. Let’s say it’s drums. You put the drums in the primary, and everything else stays in relation to the drum, if you want to change the relationship, you move it, just like in FCP7. Or if the relationship between those elements is fixed, you have to compound them all, then you can move them very easily in time together.”

OK, but again, having to pick a single track as the master frame-of-reference is an arbitrary limitation. There’s a reason you don’t see DAWs or sequencers work this way. Any instrument you choose will be wrong at some point.

Is the single primary limit really the thing that drives editorial efficiency in FCPX? With a little creativity, track-based systems could also incorporate most or maybe all of the things you like about the magnetic timeline.

For example, Premiere Pro has a nice clip grouping function (something FCP legacy sorely lacks). What if you could hold down a modifier key and when you move a group, instead of overwriting adjacent clips, they’d move out of the way? Maybe the track could expand vertically and they could jump into a space above. Hold down another modifier and move any individual object in the group. Then add a toggle on the timeline for ripple. Leave it on if you like to working that way. Then add metadata for clip selection, etc.

Lots of possibilities for the best of all worlds in FCPX, assuming Apple wants to expand the model. Multiple primaries would be a great start. Their solution to the multitrack audio problem will tell us a lot.

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[David Lawrence]

[Philip White] “I have a few more images to share –

iChat Theater Preview is still able to be pressed – it does indeed launch the Messages app by default.
I don’t have much experience with Theater Preview, but initial launch of the Messages app (as directed by FCP) gives me a ‘Funk’ sound effect.

This could just be due to the fact I have no contacts to share with however.”

Hi Phillip,

Thank you for these screen shots and for doing the iChat test. Normally, if you don’t have iChat open and you select iChat Theater Preview from the menu, you’ll get a dialog asking you to start iChat first and try again. I suspect the reason you’re getting the ‘Funk’ sound is because FCP can’t find the iChat application since it’s gone in Mountain Lion. I’m not surprised it doesn’t work and expect there will be other little things like this that crop up in the final release. Guess we’ll all find out soon enough!

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[David Lawrence]

[Philip White] “Hope this helps in some way!”

It does, thanks for sharing!

Question – since Mountain Lion replaces iChat with Messages, does iChat Theater Preview still work or is it grayed out now?

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “Each angle gets an Angle. That Angle corresponds to an angle number in the Angle Viewer.”

[Jeremy Garchow] “Also, although they don’t show up and it doesn’t look like it, the angle is fixed in time similar to having a gap. You must choose the position tool to move/slide a clip, the arrow tool won’t work.”

Yes. That’s my point. They’re independently fixed in time. Even though they get automatically synched via timecode or sound, you have the option of adjusting any angle manually without affecting the others.

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[David Lawrence]

[Herb Sevush] “‘ve looked at the longer demos, and the image your looking at it is, I believe, the angle tool construct, where you can revise the layout of the multi-clip. “

Yes, that’s all I was referring to, the tool that lets you adjust layout and sync, not how you cut on the timeline afterwards.

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[David Lawrence]

[Herb Sevush] “Can you elaborate on this, I haven’t tried it out yet.”

I haven’t either. I’m judging from the picture of the UI:

It appears that each angle gets its own independent “track”. This makes sense given what you would be doing with the tool. Anyone who’s actually used it — please let me know if this is correct or not.

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “in my experience with audio post, A1 doesn’t necessarily stay A1, or gets rearranged. My job is to get my intent over to audio post, just like it’s my job to get the intent over to color or a compositing app. Once in that app, the rules change.”

I get where you’re coming from. But there are many collaborative workflows where everyone agrees what A1 is and it stays that way through the pipeline. Maybe roles will evolve to the point where this doesn’t matter. But I also think shared visual mapping will always be very important for many collaborative workflows.

[Jeremy Garchow] “I think we need to start working in real world examples. Are you saying that you couldn’t have 99 clips of audio stacked in FCPX? And that you can’t “assign” those clips to an output?”

No, I’m sure you can do all of that.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Time. You said a time reference. If audio is the time reference, it should go in the primary storyline. In there, it is completely independent of everything else. You seem to think that video is what needs to be in the primary, and that’s not always the case.”

[Jeremy Garchow] “Whatever is driving the time is what goes in the primary.”

No, I get that you can put either audio or video in the Primary. Maybe I’m not being clear. Let me try again.

What if you need time itself to be the fixed external frame-of-reference? Forget about tracks. media could be layers, or channels or blobs or whatnot. What if you want to compose media events simply in relation to time itself, not a preselected media asset in a constantly shifting container? The UI standard for time is the window space. Time is external. Any asset in the window is independently mapped directly to time via its position in space. Multitrack is a nature extension of this paradigm.

I get that the X paradigm is different. I question the value and the limits of the difference.

Look at the new multicam Angle Editor. Note the frame-of-reference. Why did they design it that way?

Getting back to audio, here’s a simple multitrack example:

Four completely separate audio tracks — drums, bass, guitar, vocals. Which one goes in the Primary?

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[David Lawrence]

[Jeremy Garchow] “And that’s why a DAW is not an NLE and vice versa. They are different tools for different jobs.”

Obviously. I don’t think anyone’s claiming otherwise. My point is when you strip away specialized features, at a very basic level, they share a common visual and interaction language. This is easy to see with multitrack audio.

[Jeremy Garchow] “Why do you think they were trying to solve a problem, instead of simply presenting a new interface? Don’t you think they know that the interface they are presenting has some issues and creates some different problems? “

Because Apple tells us so:

“Edit without clip collisions or sync problems… Assemble shots with ease as clips “magnetically close up to eliminate unwanted black gaps on the timeline.”

Clip collisions, sync and black gaps — those are the specific problems Apple says they’ve fixed with their new timeline paradigm. Funny thing is, I’ve never heard any skilled editor complain about these issues. If you know what you’re doing, they’re simply not a problem.

I have no idea what Apple thinks about any new problems with their timeline UI. They have their own agenda and they’re not saying. We know they’re getting feedback so it’ll be interesting to see what they decide to do. But I’m not betting on any radical change.

[Jeremy Garchow] ” It’s not the magnetism that’s the problem as you can easily control what shifts time in FCPX, it’s the connections that you have the most trouble with.”

It’s actually not the connections though that’s a part of it. It’s temporal frame-of-reference. FCPX forces everything to be in relation to a single track. If that works for you, great. But remember, with 99 fully independent, assignable audio tracks, FCP 7 was one of the most flexible NLEs on the market for editors who do complex editorial work with audio. How does Apple restore that level of flexibility to FCPX?

Tracks do more than just bussing. That’s why I asked:

[David Lawrence] “What about multi-track audio situations where you really need each audio channel in an absolute temporal frame-of-reference, completely independent of everything else? With track-based systems, this is a given. In FCPX, the current workaround is spiking Secondaries to frame 1 of the Primary. It works but I think it’s pretty weak.”

I didn’t understand your answer:

[Jeremy Garchow] “Put it in the primary storyline.”

How does that help with multitrack audio? Each iso track would need its own Primary to be completely independent. I don’t see how you can do it with just one.

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