Are editing peripherals any good?
 

Hi. I'm editing using Adobe Premiere Pro. I have a nice mouse with 5 programmable buttons. Has anyone tried using those jog/shuttle controllers, or anything else that's designed specifically for use with video editing?

Richard

Re: Are editing peripherals any good?
 

I have a Contour Shuttle collecting dust somewhere. Many years ago it eased the transition from tape based editing to FCP. I got so fast with keyboard commands that it became a hindrance. Now that I'm on PP CS6, the assignable keyboard commands are fantastic and it's gotten me comfy with the transition from FCP.
I don't think I'd use the Shuttle ever again.

Re: Are editing peripherals any good?
 

Actually I use my Contour Shuttle for the smoother and quicker control while browsing material and making selects or rough cuts, but that's all.

Re: Are editing peripherals any good?
 

Robert,

When you speak about "the transition from FCP", are you abandoning the FCP ship due to version X?

Richard

Re: Are editing peripherals any good?
 

you are correct sir!
Bought FCPX and gave it a fair shake on a few gigs. Just missing too many things that I need. Really liking PP. But I have to keep FCP7 for several clients who like revisiting projects regularly.

Re: Are editing peripherals any good?
 

I still use my Contour Shuttle too. It comes in very handy. Supposedly they work with lots of programs, not just Adobe and Final Cut, but I haven't tried it for anything other tham PP, AE, and Audition.

Re: Are editing peripherals any good?
 

I too have the Contour shuttle somewhere in a draw, I found keyboard shortcuts quicker to use, besides I hate trailing cables on my desktop.

I also have the new Wacom Intuos 5 tablet, this should be easier to use with PP CS6, however, in Windows 7 there is an annoying mouse cursor highlight every time you click and I can't make it go away, despite several suggestions from various internet sites.

Once I have got rid of this cursor highlight circle then I will use the tablet for editing. One of the most useful features is that you can use your fingers to navigate and zoom just like a touch pad or iPad.

Re: Are editing peripherals any good?
 

I use my shuttlepro v2 all the time in lots of programs. You can set it up for any program. It comes in handy when I only need a few functions to support a particular workflow. I record on a Canon XA10 and since it has a big memory and battery life, at events I just leave the camera running all the time. So when I get back to PP, I need to go through the timeline and chop it up into segments. This is where play, fast play, jog, razor, zoom in/out (I use the shuttle wheel) are my first edits. Then when I bring the segments together I'm deleting blank spaces, sliding, doing rolling edits, adding effects and editing the effects control. All of which are right on the shuttle so I have my left hand on the shuttle and my right on my trackball. I only touch the keyboard when I'm entering text. I haven't set it up for Speedgrade yet but I'm sure I will.

In Photoshop (where I use my Intuos 4 pen in my right hand) and Lightroom I do a specific workflow for portraits and the shuttle is setup to support the workflow by pressing buttons left-right. I also use it in After Effects, Illustrator, Excel and Word. This is nice because many of these programs have keyboard combination sequences like Shift-1 in Lightroom to rate an image/video a 1 star then move to the next image (I use the 5 buttons as 1-3 stars then green and red labels for ready to upload and to delete respectively). I use a single button on the shuttle for this which for me reduces fatigue when I go through hundreds of images. Same thing, I never need to touch the keyboard except for text and quick entering values which is rare. If there was a shuttlepro control to manage the crop tool it would be the ideal device.

It's nice because you can assign presets to applications and it comes with a ton of existing presets based on specific versions of the application. For $80 it's worth a shot. GL

Re: Are editing peripherals any good?
 

For certain tasks and programs, my LARGE Intuous4 tablet is amazing. My business partner was amazed at how fast I was the first time he watched me edit in PPro and Photoshop. I was editing on his new iMac and I was performing functions with the pen so fast that his iMac couldn't keep up. However, my 2 very fast PCs never have an issue keeping up.

I also use the Kensington Mighty Mouse ($100) on every computer I own and when I must work on other PCs/Macs, I always bring one of my Mighty Mouses because nothing else allows as quick of mouse movement with almost ZERO strain on my wrist and hand. I actually bought both the mouse and tablet due to carpel tunnel and I have never had a recurrence of CTS.

One thing I have seen quite often in many medium to large post houses is the Intuos tablet whether its an editing suite or a Smoke/Flame suite.

For me, I greatly value speed and efficiency when working (which is why I never ever liked FCP and transcoding everything). Why should I spend 9 hours editing when the Mighty Mouse & Intuous4 tablet allow me to cut that time by 45-60 minutes? In addition, I also have a backlit keyboard that is smaller than normal in order to minimize the total footprint of my mouse, tablet & keyboard.

My *only* gripe with the tablet is I wish that I bought the Medium size which works better with monitors 24" and under. If I had a 27" or 30" monitor with pixels of 2560 wide, then the Large or Xtra Large work better.