Re: Editing scenario

[Jeremy Garchow] "People seem to think fcpx is complete. It's not. I have said from the beginning, that the timeline is what is going to change about fcpx. "

Jeremy, I'd love to be wrong about this, but I'd find it pretty unlikely that the timeline will be seriously overhauled.

The timeline, as it stands now, is a direct expression of the data model revealed by FCPXML. All the tools in FCPX are built to manipulate the unique objects of this data model. Any changes to the timeline must be compatible with the parent/child data model, or the data model must change with it; any changes to the timeline may also require overhauling the NLE tools.

In other words, I think the timeline model in FCPX is foundational to the program, making the scope of change very, very big.

I think you're right that cutting a project like this is challenging in any NLE. What's uniquely challenging in FCPX is that you have to manually manage the object/containers in order to make these edits, where other NLEs would make you manually manage clip selection and collision.

David Lawrence's idea of multiple primary storylines is the best possible scenario for a timeline overhaul, I think -- it would push the timeline back into absolute time, but still allow local relativity. I think it would basically work with the data model as it stands by adding a global absolute parent and removing the restriction that all children must be non-primary (assuming that restriction is arbitrary) -- but compositing could get really weird, and this would not eliminate the FCPX-specific editorial task of object/container management.

Walter Soyka
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