[Jim Giberti]

[Jeremy Garchow] “I think having a trackless visually organized timeline is possible, Apple just needs to take the metadata to the next level and allow sorting timeline clips by Role or otherwise, and give each Role a spatial equivalent on the timeline.
“

I like that Jeremy.

Yes let me organize my projects with Roles that have a parallel relationship to the Primary. Then I get the benefit of that form of data organization, searchable and in list form as well as the missing visual association, in realtime, to my project.

We don’t design with metadata. Metadata is just a newer word and system for reference files. Ultimately it’s about getting as much of what the metadata refers to, in front of you, in order to make ongoing creative decisions.

And the next thing we want to do as organized thinkers is arrange all of that stuff in logical categories for quick assessment and manipulation.

[Jim Giberti]

First of all Andy, I think this is a really relevant discussion, perhaps even more so for me because of all the 7 vs X comparison I’ve had the last month or so. I don’t see it as rehashing the track thing

I think now that we’ve had a chance to really work and compare, it’s a good time to assess.

[Andy Neil] “The staying part doesn’t violate FCPX’s paradigm (horizontally that is). But any track style editing that could be incorporated would need to allow for the basic parent/child relationship that is the foundation of X’s structure as well as the audio embedded model that exists. It would need to be a hybrid feature like independent storylines that can accommodate connected clips as well.”

Like I said in another post, like with the Canon 5DII, I just want manual control. I don’t want to work in “program Mode”. I want to shut off auto-pilot and fly my own plane.

The inherent design that makes vertical items, whether they’re clips, audio or graphics, simply drop into any free space in a gravitational manner is a logistical failure from a complex organizational standpoint.
It just is.
It’s interesting because if you read Edgar Rothermich’s FCPX graphic manual he focuses on the concept of the spreadsheet as his working analogy for the X paradigm. Well, spreadsheets are ultimately linear as he discusses at length…and for good reason.

There’s a real conflict going on within FCPX that Apple simply didn’t resolve before bringing it to market. The parent/child, group/nesting concept has real value. But to the extent that it removes the easy ability to organize information into linear fields that make immediate visual sense, it’s more of a potential than a finished concept.

It simply needs to do both.
There is no way that random stacks of information work better than linear organization unless you strictly want to see things in chunks of information ONLY as they relate to a primary object.

That’s way too limiting for day to day professional use.
Apple’s needs to solve this dilemma if they want this to be a future product.
As someone who’s enthusiastically used both X and 7.

And working with metadata, keywords and search fields is great, but it’s not a replacement for real time, see everything in front of you in an organized way, layout of information. Metadata is an adjunct to the creative process, not a new way to approach it.

As someone who works in design, film and music, I can’t imagine a better way to make creative decisions than to have all my “data” organized clearly in front of me, in real time.

That is the optimum way to compare, assess and spark creative ideas.

Oh, and for things to stay where I put them.

[Jim Giberti]

[Andy Neil] “I wouldn’t mind having the ability to create independent storylines occasionally, but I don’t miss it much when I edit in X. I’d actually be happier with a modifier key that I could press to hold a connected clip in place while I slip the primary clip below it.”

For starters, I’d just like clips to stop moving vertically when a gap appears. I don’t want clips so desperate to be near the center of gravity that they rush toward every opening.

It’s why I’ve decided that tracks are simply a preferable way to organize and edit in many instances.
I find myself doing elaborate things to contain clips in secondary storylines and compound clips that was never a consideration before we went trackless and magnetic.

Here’s the real thing, as I try and work through this all in real time on tight schedules. I’m a tweaker and a massager. I don’t know any good creative who isn’t. I constantly go back and adjust dozens of EQs and Compression and FX if I’m mixing a song and do the same with film and video. It goes on for days and weeks.

I was initially enamored by the grouping potential of Compound Clips. But after working with them for months, I realize that it is profoundly stupid that I can’t open a group and work with it in context of my project – only in context with it’s group.

That’s simply primitive. We moved beyond that level of guess work decades ago with things like basic mixing consoles. There are simply too many flaws with the X concept as it has been implemented, too many things that aren’t a better idea than what we’re already good at.

And I can’t see how making things stay somehow violates the important improvements of X.

I have eight Labradors and every one of them learned to stay as a first command.

[Jim Giberti]

Honestly, I’m pleased with the realtime color board, multiple secondaries and masks. They’re very fast and easy to work with. Combined with Magic Bullet , which I like because it opens and works within X, we’ve got plenty of grading power. Similarly, Cosmo that comes with MB looks could use more control, but the combination of X and MB works really well.

[Jim Giberti]

I ran a Rember test for each block, one by one, laborious but I discovered one bad module out of the 4 new from OWC.

So it’s all stable again and I just have to get that block replaced.

I can deal with anything but corrupt projects.

[Jim Giberti]

[Jeremy Garchow] “If this is new RAM, that’s the first place I’d look.

Ouch.”

Thanks Jeremy,

See my response to myself above.
Aside having to rebuild everything with a program that was working like Premiere 1 on a Quadra 840, and staying up till 8:00 AM to get it back together, I’m really glad to find it quickly.

I’m anxious to get things flying the way I expected after updating X, adding 16GB of new RAM and new drives.
I wasn’t expecting to have to edit with a splicing block.

[Jim Giberti]

In the best tradition of responding to one’s own post:

Did your run a Memtest Jim?

Yeah I just did and found a failure message in Terminal that would suggest bad or poorly seated RAM.

That makes sense, can’t think of anything that would cause both Kernel Panic crash and corrupt files and media like that.

I’ll start by resetting all the new RAM and running the Memtest again.

[Jim Giberti]

Gotta say, my life in X has sucked since 1.0.3.

My problem is that I was setting up a new room at home and I added everything from 16GB of new RAM (OWC) to a new Focusrite interface and drivers, so knowing the cause is my new mission today.

Anyway I have had crashes, horribly corrupt files, and worse, for the first time ever, computer crashes from freezing to the dreaded dimming screen and death message from Apple.

I was just about to ask about this in a new thread.

So I will.

[Jim Giberti]

[Michael Garber] “If they can allow us to break off the windows, then I could have the inspector hover like a HUD in Motion.”

That’s a great idea, and they can keep the dedicated Inspector panel and just allow for a shortcut call up of a floating HUD a la Motion.

[Jim Giberti]

Thanks, David, Chris. I was kind of dreading going back into FCP7 after the hiatus. But once I got back to it, it wasn’t a situation where 7 felt kludgy with old fashioned conventions. It’s more the realization that some established conventions are outmoded while others are well evolved.

At the same time, I like and understand the new media, metadata, GUI, the Inspector, groups…concepts like in Motion, it all works, they’ve got me onboard. So just shut off the magnet and turn on a grid when you want and it really makes sense.

Even wonderfully evolved cameras like the Canon 5D3 that captured much of “Act of Valor”, have full auto controls. In fact we had to lobby Canon heavily for a year to get manual control for HD – the very thing that’s made the camera iconic. Auto controls are great for casual users of pro cameras and for pros who, in a pinch, can utilize them in fast changing and uncontrollable circumstances.

It’s great for FCPX to have the same “auto” control. But in many circumstances it’s just not a pro feature because, in the name of redundancy, pros will always demand full manual control.

It’s like autopilot. What a wonderful technology, in so many ways superior in it’s ability to manage routine flights. But find me a pilot who would allow it to permanently override his ability to fly the plane as he needs in different circumstances.

Pros will always want full manual control of their cameras and every tool they use to create with – for all the obvious reasons.

Canon is a big company with a different, but no less private, culture than Apple’s certainly. We were told they would never modify the camera for full manual control…it would never happen. But a lot of us wrote pieces and had conversations with management and they evolved it within a year. It made sense. Of course it did. And it ushered in a revolution.

Not to get all grandiose, but Apple could really help usher in an X revolution with a Full Manual upgrade like Canon delivered.