Re: Apple engineers versus an editor's ability to set persistent in to out points in their footage.

Yeah, I edit. I'm in the chair. I use NLEs to create content from scratch all day every day. I also wear other hats becuase we are small, so we all have to. I see why you asked now.

First, I have to apologize for my perpetual badly written language and typos. The cow, the iPhone and long posts is not an easy editing task.

But I am not an Apple apologist (that's to you, Simon). ;) They need to fix things.

Here's how I see it and stop me if this has been said before.

I understand the distinctions you and others are making between a range ins/outs, similar to what we talked about with tracks vs roles in that earlier conversation you mentioned. The problem there is that Roles do not eclipse track functionality and usefulness in FCPX today. Multitrack audio handling is not as convenient in FCPX as its a bit jumbled. This is not to say that it won't get better. I think that with some serious tooling, audio Roles and their functions will be a legitimate track alternative. But, it's speculation and only my opinion. And Apple needs to take this very seriously.

The distinction we are making here between io/range is much more subtle.

Yes, when you set an out, an in is already set and vice versa. But...

You can still perform three point edits and backtimed three point edits in X.

You can mark a start and an end and have that selected material moved to the primary in a variety of ways.

It falls apart when needing to add to secondaries though. If the range also acted as a target system (like track patching) it would work a bit better. But keeping this as a comparison...

Where they differ is in the operation. In fcp7, the selected in/out or both remain on the clip without user interaction.

On FCPX, they will not remain unless there is user interaction (favorite). It's a big difference, but all the same functions are there.

If you need to mark one spot in the clip, you can use a marker to come back to later. I do this in fcp7 constantly as I change the ins and outs constantly. It's also why I use extended markers. They show up in the viewer, the bin, the timeline.

I guess it's all on how you use it, and obviously everyone has their own methods, but FCPX uses ranges as very temporary markers, but there are a number of really useful systems in place to keep your thoughts together.

I also approach this from what you can do and what you can't do.

When you say there aren't persistent in and out markers, I say that's not exactly true. There are and they easier to use and recall than in 7.

They might not look like in and outs of yore, but they are similar in function.

Perhaps Apple will add the more traditional in/out functions back in, but on the event side, there's not much that you can't do with ranges.

The timeline side, as has been mentioned, needs a few more tweaks.

This thread started about ins/outs remaining on browsed clips and how the database is so beyond repair that they aren't even possible. I believe that's a bit of an embellishment. There's plenty not to like and disagree with in X, but even though it requires a keystroke, "persistent ins and outs" do exist.

Jeremy