CompuServe Messages

Hello, Jerry, my friend! I remember quite clearly the conversation that we had about "cutting action" as you refer to it. By the way, "cutting action" is not a commonly used, well defined term among video editors. I just got off the phone with a well known Hollywood editor who was mystified by the term. I remember the conversation as a telephone conversation, which took place after that meeting in your lawyer's office. Anyway, I remember you being quite concerned that you would not be able to cut between two clips containing the same action and making the action match. The example you used was: A golfer swings his club. As the club reaches a certain point, say for example, when it contacts the ball, a cut is made to another shot, say a wide shot, of the same golfer as his club continues to swing past the tee. You were concerned because you had heard somewhere that the only way to accomplish this on the Flyer was to blindly set the in and out points on each clip and then play the project to see if the shots matched. I remember telling you that that was not the way it worked. That, instead, as you drag the in and out points on any particular clip, the actual video appears on the toaster output monitor, and continually updates the displayed frame as the in or out point is dragged. Thus, I explained, what you would do is adjust the outpoint on the first clip, watching the toaster output, until the golf club was just striking the ball. Then you would open the control panel on the second clip, and adjust the In point, looking for the frame that showed the club at that same position, or actually just a tad later. Upon hearing this I recall you saying something to the effect that you didn't realize the video actually appeared on the screen while adjusting the edit points. You then said that this answered your concern. Now, as far as I'm concerned this functionality DOES enable you to cut two scenes so the action matches. Since that discussion, an editor I know suggested that, since many Toaster systems have three monitors, (main out, preview, and user interface), that it would seem possible to route the LAST FRAME of the PREVIOUS CLIP to the preview monitor while adjusting the IN POINT on the CURRENT CLIP. Now this seems like a wonderful idea, and in fact it is currently operational in the latest version back in AlcaTraz. We call it "tail on preview" and it seems like a keeper! I think that somewhere along the way, perhaps from the beginning, you associated "cutting action" to the above mentioned "tail on preview" feature. I certainly don't recall ever discussing such a feature with you at any time. If that's what you were referring to in that phone conversation, I'm sorry, I just didn't hear it that way! At any rate, all's well that ends well. "tail on preview" is operational in the back room. With luck it will make it into the next rev. It will definitely be in 4.1 as we've said before. With that in mind, Jerry, I think you're picking a pretty bad time to sell your Flyer system! But, I will offer to buy it from you for the exact amount you paid me for it! ( $00000.00 ) Anyway, I think you're going to love the Flyer if you start using the latest software. It's finally getting real close to what I envisioned way back in 1987, when we started work on it. (God how time flies when you're having flyers!) I'm anxious to see that concert footage when you get it edited. Who knows? You may end up getting into the video post production business! It is my sincerest hope that the Flyer will enable non-video experts to produce television without a huge budget, a huge edit suite, and a huge stack of user manuals! Rome wasn't built in a day, though. 'course, I didn't design Rome. REGARDS! Tim