MSPro 8 Dreams (150k of images)

[Dr Mordrid]

It's been a couple of years since MSPro7 came out so I guess it's time for the speculation to begin as to its sucessor.

After playing around a while in PhotoImpact 10 I came up with some "MSPro8 Dreams" I'd like to bounce off you guys for feedback as to if they should go to Ulead or not. Here's what I came up with;

Timeline



Notice that it has single track editing (transition goes between clips instead of on an Fx track), multiple tabbed timelines and a master audio track for 5.1 mixing of the audio tracks below it. In operation I'd have it capable of 3 modes;

1. Separate projects on each timeline (Timeline 1, Timeline 2 etc.)

2. Multiple timelines acting as different viewports into a single project (minimizes scrubbing)

3. Timeline 1 acting as a Master Assembly Track. Here each timeline from Timeline 2 on would be sub-projects that would be like chapters of the whole. Each could be separately saved and edited independent of the others.

To assemble the project you'd simply drag the tab of Timeline 2....Timeline x onto Timeline 1 where they would appear as "virtual clips". Any changes subsequently made to the chapters would automatically be reflected in Timeline 1. This mode would essentially be a video outliner.

In a perfect world I'd also make it possible to put transitions between clips ANY two tracks and not just on the main V1 track. One example would be to have transitions between overlays while maintaining a constant background track;



Keyframing



Know how the current keyframe timelines are hopelessly small, making them near painful to work with? Not with this independent keyframer.

You would select the target clip in the top/left dialog then be presented with a list of its applied effects and options. Each attributes keyframes would appear as dots in a frame-accurate grid, so they won't overlap each other anymore. You would also be able to synchronize effects by aligning their keyframes vertically.

How the effects are drawn would be managed with the Interpolation Controls. These are the icons that look like sine waves and the options would be None, Linear and Spline. Spline will be very useful when applied to a moving path since it would result in objects following smooth, arcing paths instead of just straight lines.

The Source and Result panels of the effect controls could be shuttled off to the main Preview & Source windows, which could be resized to whatever resolution you'd like. This would be much nicer than the postage stamp sized windows we're using now.

There are several ways the effect controls could be called up. One would be for the selected effect to pop up a window containing its controls, much as is done now. Another way would be to have an Attributes Panel appear in the Production Library. A third would be for them to be integrated into the keyframer itself.

This is a representation of the Production Library option;



In this version the very basic controls would appear in the Attribute Panel of the Production Library with the rest available by pressing the Customize button.

Preview-Source windows

Sony and others are working on 16:9 HD capable cams for the consumer market, so sooner than you'd think many of us will be working in that mode.

Even without HD cams many current DV cams support 16:9 shooting and CRT 16:9 HDTV's are now well under $800 USD in stores like Walmart (16:9 projection TV's are well under $1500 USD), so 16:9 editing is definitly inbound.

One thing I've found is 16:9 creates a real-estate problem when both the Preview and Source windows are open. What to do....

I see several possibilities. One is to use a combined Preview-Source window where the Source window can be collapsed with a button then re-expanded when it's needed (manually or double-clicking a source file);

TwinView mode;



Alternatively there could be a unified Preview-Source window with both controls and one display panel with the option to open the twinview above;

Preview mode;



Source mode;



Well guys....whatcha think?

Dr. Mordrid

[Brian Ellis]

Doc's ideas are interesting. However, I think it important to emphasise the title o the thread. At the moment, they are pure speculation and there is no guarantee that these ideas will be implemented or, if they are, they will look like that!

Maybe the answer to the 16:9 problem would be to have the preview and source windows occupy the whole width of the screen and push the libraries horizontally to between them and the timeline. As the Vb and Fx lines of the latter have gone, this may make sense. As the two video windows will be wider, the controls, buttons etc could be arranged differently to take up less vertical space, as well. The loss would be for those working 4:3, who are probably still the majority.

[Hulk]

Doc,

Brilliant ideas! There is too much to comment on all at once so I'm only going comment on the Timeline proposal.

I really like your tabbed timeline. How about some type of language that denotes what type of a project you have just re-opened? This might lead to increased effectiveness.

For example, when working with option #2, multiple viewports into a single project the project, let's call it "newvideo" would open with the master view tab being white while the subtabs would be blue (or some other color). They would have default names of "newvideo1," "newvideo2," and "newvideo3," if there were to be three segments. Now when you open "newvideo" with the color coding and naming you instantly know what type of project you have on the timeline.

If a single project is opened, its tab will be white and no colored tabs will follow it so you'll know its a contained project.

I may be missing something but I don't think option #3 is necessary.

Follow me here, I'm trying to work through this.

There are two project tab options, master and slave. Master projects are white tabs, and slave projects are blue tabs.

Now let's say you have three Master project tabs on the timeline you would like to turn into 1 master with 3 slaves. As you stated, you would simply drag the slaves onto the master. As this action occured there should be a pop-up that asks if you want to keep the source master in the timeline or delete it.

Now, whenever a slave is modified, as you stated the master would be updated, or vice-versa. Also, if you choose to keep the master from which a slave came, that one would stay independent of changes made to it's duplicate that was turned into a slave. This way you could always the older version on the timeline to go back to when experimenting.

Now you can have as many projects open on the timeline that you want. Each project could be a single timelime (master only), or it could contain a bunch of slave timelines. This way any project could be integrated into any other.

Other controls could also be imagined. Two projects in the timeline, each with slave timelines. Drag a master into another master and have one giant project.

Alternately you could split up a master into a master and any number of slaves by setting markers as to where the splits should occur.

Also, instead of having to differentiate between different type of project saves, you would always be saving a master project. It may or may not include slave timelines. Of course since masters can be converted to slaves and vice-versa in MSP this all would work and provide great flexibility.

What do you think? Aside from not being politically correct I think the master/slave timeline idea provides a lot of possible flexibility without undo complexity.

Another nice thing about your multiple timeline idea is that users that don't want to deal with it will never need to see it! Also, this eliminates the need to open multiple instances of MSP for cut/copy/paste operation since you can copy from one timeline, switch tabs and paste to another!

I also like the idea of being able to apply transitions to any two tracks. Also, I think not using the overlap method, but butt method it makes applying a transition between the main track and an overlay easier since the ENTIRE overlay track is already overlapped. The user would then always overlap transitions over adjoining tracks, not overlap video tracks to create transitions.

Sorry for the long post. Trying to work this out as I went along!

I'll get back later with comments on the other ideas.

- Mark