[Herb Sevush]

[Andrew Kimery] “Having a ‘computing appliance’ for the masses (the computer for the rest of us) has always been central to Apple’s vision and it shows.”

I seem to be in the minority here (and elsewhere) on this but frankly I just don’t get it.

I’d been a PC guy till I switched over to FCP around 2005, at which point I bought my first Mac Pro, wonderfully made computer, along with an X-Raid, overpriced but solid, and 2 Apple Cine Monitors, possessors of the worst designed dongle connectors in the history of computers. I then switched my home computer over to a Mac Mini, which I got rid of after about a year because the DVD drive died and the software available for home accounting was so abysmal. I bought my first Ipod back then, and while I found the concept astonishing (my entire music library in the palm of my hand) I thought the device was horrible – dying batteries, clunky spinning wheel to navigate with, no quick way to access specific songs – and the software, Itunes, was (and still is)a F’n mess. Then I bought an Iphone, which was fine, until I saw a Galaxy Note with a much larger screen 3 years before Apple got around to copying it. I bought the Note and quite frankly don’t see much difference between OSX and Android. So watching this whole “Apple” thing is a bit beyond me – some of their stuff works well, some of it is crap, and while I find them innovative it is no more impressive than SONY’s run of innovation during the 70’s and 80’s.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Eric Santiago] “I love inheriting projects :P”

I have found over time, and this has happened with many different NLE’s, that some project files get corrupted in ways that can’t be fixed and you’re better off creating a new project file from scratch. When this happens it seems counter intuitive to throw all the previous work away, but in the end you will loose more time trying to patch the ship rather than letting it sink and starting anew.

In any event, we’ve all been there, good luck.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Jeff Markgraf] ” What makes PPro so great, for you? Specifically, what features does it have that you find both useful and unique?”

The audio track mixer is lovely. I have different preset Level/EQ/Compression for each type of track – sync, VO, EFX, music under, music only. All I have to do is edit to the appropriate track and my mix is 90% done. My effects generally come from my live sync; to turn a steak sizzle into a background EFX all I do is drop it down two tracks. To restore it to dialogue status, move it up again. I created a master template for this layout and with one click can open it in any project and edit in a “final audio mix” environment.

Send to Audition for Spectral Analysis repair – huge time saver to have this built in for fixing audio pops, background bangs.

Round trip to AE. I’m not a mograph guy, but there are times when AE is just the best tool for the job. For my skill level I prefer Motion actually, but currently there are no NLE’s being sold that have a Send to Motion feature.

The scaling on Ppro is incredibly good compared to what I was used to with FCP7. Adding a judicious amount of the Sharpening Filter allows me to routinely blow up HD images to 125%, whereas with Legacy I would try never to go above 110%.

The built in masking with tracking in the motion tab of each clip is very useful.

The multicam feature seems to be on a par with what I know about the multicam for FCPX. There is a nice Ppro feature, once you learn how to set it up, where you can select all of the clips for a series of multiclips at one time and it will create all of the separate multiclips in one batch operation. Helpful if, like me, you are often creating dozens of multiclips for a single show.

Not a unique feature, but I do appreciate how customizable the UI is. Similar to FCP7 in that way. I would have a hard time being boxed in to someone else’s idea of how I should use my screen real estate – in my case that is 2 x 23″ monitors and an external video monitor.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Eric Santiago] “if only I can get past Premieres inability to select more than one clip in the Link Media window.”

Normally when you select the first clip to re-link, and then specify it’s location, Ppro will link every other clip in your Que that can be found in that folder or any of it’s sub-folders. I have had projects where for some unknown reason this ability breaks down and you have to manually go clip by clip. I haven’t discovered any way to “refresh” a project that acts this way. This is not a feature, it is a bug. Fortunately for me this is a rare occurence.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Walter Soyka] ” I find it’s often the noise that’s the signal here.”

Lovely line.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Steve Connor] “We are VERY lucky to have the choice of good NLE’s out there at the moment.”

Yes, and a point that is often overlooked. We work in a time of editorial overabundance and I need to remember that the next time some snark comes to mind. But don’t count on that.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Andrew Kimery] “I can’t speak for David but I think you’ve been compared to the ones receiving the spiked drinks not the ones doling them out”

I don’t think that matters. I think that we should all agree that the use of “nazis” “slavery” and “sexual predators” as metaphors make the author sound like a dick, no matter how brilliant the analogy and no matter how tempting the target. Best not to go there, even if it means using yet another car analogy. And I say that as someone who has been as “dickish” as any.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Andrew Kimery] “you just have to have the video track selected. Ex. if the multicam clip is on V2 you have to have V2 targeted.”

Close but no cigar. The rule is multicam works on the lowest targeted track. If you want to work on track 2, it must be targeted and track 1 must have targeting turned off. FCP multicam was clearly better with multicam defaulting to the video on the highest track – no need to use targets at all, much more intuitive.

I would say the weakest aspect of PPro is it’s dependence on targeting tracks for many operations. It does give you great flexibility but is a PITA to implement.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Bill Davis] “On my laptop my timeline performance is currently wicked fast. Not because I’m a fanboy, David. Exactly the opposite. I’m a fanboy BECAUSE my X system is running that well.“

Except for the fact that you’ve loved X even when it wasn’t running so well. You’ve loved it since the first day you saw it, you’ve loved it with or without multicam, without export options, lagging UI or no. You have loved it in each one of it’s revisions, even while more fickle admirers were pulling out their hair. It is lovely to see such consistency as yours, Romeo has nothing on you.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf

[Herb Sevush]

[Walter Soyka] “Try enabling Timeline wrench > Show FX Badges?”

That was it. Thanks Walter.

Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
—————————
nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf