I am working on my own NLE for the Mac

[Andrew - EOSHD]

Sometimes it feels as if Resolve is a sledgehammer to crack a nut, and as for Adobe... less said the better 🙂

What is missing, I feel, is a quick turnaround NLE for the Mac.

My plan is to make a couple of apps:

- A Quick NLE, no fuss, no magnetic timeline BS, just works - 8K,4K, ProRes, HEVC support, GPU accelerated, LUT support and a nice built in colour grading tool

- A LUT Creator, import a RAW DNG Photo or V-LOG Video, and use colour grading tools to get the perfect look, export this as a Realtime LUT for your Lumix S9 or S1R II, and export as a plain old .cube LUT

What features do you think are needed most? Bear in mind we're not throwing the kitchen sink in there like Resolve. My priorities so far are...Apple style UI, quick to use, GPU accelerated, no stuttering, a much more lightweight app than Resolve, Premiere or FCPX which does one thing really well and that's edit really well and without a lot of clutter.

Suggestions welcome.

[TrueIndigo]

Shotcut (a free cross-platform NLE) might give some inspiration -- good clean UI which is intuitive to use if you just keep the dockable panels you really need:

https://shotcut.org/

 

[Andrew - EOSHD]

It tries to do too much, and dates originally to 2004.

A modern approach is needed. New ideas welcome!

[eatstoomuchjam]

I'm not sure what "a modern approach" is, but iMovie and Luma Fusion are both pretty straightforward and unbloated from what I remember - and they both run on Mac.  I'm not sure if either one has a lut editor, but 3d lut editor has been pretty good for a while now, hasn't it?

[fuzzynormal]

Personally, I like simple.  These days I fret that features get in the way of artistry.  Too often I focus on craft and don't invest enough in the art of it all.  

So maybe a basic tool is best?

I don't know.  I can tell you the best film I ever made was with FCP 7.

[Snowfun]

It is a long time since I looked at it but Openshot seemed like a good idea at the time. 

https://www.openshot.org

[Andrew - EOSHD]

 

13 hours ago, eatstoomuchjam said:

I'm not sure what "a modern approach" is, but iMovie and Luma Fusion are both pretty straightforward and unbloated from what I remember - and they both run on Mac.  I'm not sure if either one has a lut editor, but 3d lut editor has been pretty good for a while now, hasn't it?

is the '3d lut editor' this one https://3dlutcreator.com

Costs 99 quid?

Seems very pricey when Resolve can be used as a lut creator for free.

Still, a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

And then you have iMovie which is a toy hammer to crack a nut!

I'm thinking of something else... Maybe an NLE and LUT Creator all in one for $39 which does away with all the bloatware and speeds up your workflow for 99% of edits.

I have used Luma Fusion, a touch screen tablet / phone app - I don't know about you but I hate NLEs on a phone, you just don't have enough screen real-estate.

[Andrew - EOSHD]

Also on the image editing side, I might do something there.

I use Photoshop basically for resizing JPEGs 99% of the time. It's total overkill.

[Anaconda_]

22 minutes ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

Also on the image editing side, I might do something there.

I use Photoshop basically for resizing JPEGs 99% of the time. It's total overkill.

On Mac, you can do this in finder. Right click you image(s) > Quick Actions > Convert Image.

From there you can pick JPEG, PNG or HEIF - and then a few size options.

The 'Actual Size' JPEG option just turned my 28mb 5152 x 7728 sample photo into 7.3mb 5152 x 7728. While 'Large' made it 182kb 853 x 1280 

It's a slow afternoon, so i tested small too and it went to 26kb 213 x 320. 

---

The Quick Actions also lets you trim video and a few other things, but obviously no real editing LUTs, cuts or... butts.

A lightweight NLE does sound pretty appealing

[Andrew - EOSHD]

What if you want to crop as well? Quick Actions are too limited. Photoshop is too bloated. The in between solutions are all a bit weak.

[Anaconda_]

Preview can crop and gives you finer controls for the size of the file on export. I think it can be used as a fairly usable, basic and lightweight photo fidgeter. unless you need to straighten your image

But a similar type of idea for video seems to be missing. Aside from trimming and rotating individual clips.

[eatstoomuchjam]

1 hour ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

I have used Luma Fusion, a touch screen tablet / phone app - I don't know about you but I hate NLEs on a phone, you just don't have enough screen real-estate.

I've used Luma Fusion on iPad.  I edited some vlogs with it a while back before deciding I didn't like editing on the iPad, but the editor itself worked fine and was really simple/straightforward.  They released a MacOS version a while back.  I haven't tried it, but I'd guess it's also pretty simple/easy.

1 hour ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

is the '3d lut editor' this one https://3dlutcreator.com

Yes.  🤦‍♂️. I meant to type "3D lut creator."  And yeah, it's a little expensive, but it's a lot of features to implement/compete with, especially if you want editing as well.  How many hours of your time would you want to burn for $39/seat?

1 hour ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

speeds up your workflow for 99% of edits.

Unless it's making editing decisions for me, a simpler editor wouldn't fix the thing that costs me the most time in Resolve.  The other things which end up costing me time are things that I should just figure out the hotkey for at some point (like "shift everything on timeline after this point back enough to add this clip").  I take it that the cut page in Resolve is also too bloated for you?  I think it's specifically intended for faster turnaround stuff like you describe.  I've paid it almost no attention beyond that.

21 minutes ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

What if you want to crop as well? Quick Actions are too limited. Photoshop is too bloated. The in between solutions are all a bit weak.

The MacOS preview tool allows cropping and resizing.  I use it all the time.

[PPNS]

i dont really understand you. whether it’s resolve, premiere or avid mc, all you would need for super basic quick edits are 6 hotkeys: in- and out points, insert, overwrite, next and previous clip.

if you want to become a decent efficient editor, you learn the hotkeys for scrubbing, extending clips, cutting left and right from the playhead, moving clips x amount of frames. 

if you just use those, you will never have to use your mouse, nor a menu, and thus will never feel any perceived bloat. pure user error from your part.

[Clark Nikolai]

17 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

What is missing, I feel, is a quick turnaround NLE for the Mac.

My plan is to make a couple of apps:

- A Quick NLE, no fuss, no magnetic timeline BS, just works - 8K,4K, ProRes, HEVC support, GPU accelerated, LUT support and a nice built in colour grading tool

- A LUT Creator, import a RAW DNG Photo or V-LOG Video, and use colour grading tools to get the perfect look, export this as a Realtime LUT for your Lumix S9 or S1R II, and export as a plain old .cube LUT

.....

one thing really well and that's edit really well and without a lot of clutter.

Suggestions welcome.

Sounds interesting.

I would say that FCP's magnetic timeline is what makes it so fast (once you learn it.) Also that you can hide all the clutter and make it look simple.

But I don't want to discourage you on this project. Give it a try.

For suggestions, I don't have many but I suppose being able to run on old hardware and old OS version. There are plenty old Mac Pro towers out there from 2010 still working away. Mostly places that do videotape digitizing in standard definition and people running old telecines where the software won't run on new computers.

Good luck.

[Andrew - EOSHD]

Hiding all the clutter would go a long way to making stuff like Resolve more usable, it's fine for professionals who actually need and use 1000 features but when you just want to get a quick turnaround done on a piece of video news journalism or a YouTube edit, it's total overkill central and as for newcomers it's totally baffling for them, and creates a sense of dread.

FCP's magnetic timeline is the sort of thing you need to learn and read the manual for, it never felt intuitive compared to Premiere. It doesn't work well for soundtracks, sends stuff out of sync, maybe I was using it wrong but I never figured it out myself and gave up on it (like a good proportion of the pro market did).

The situation today is we have a few iPad apps that are vaguely decent and a few Mac NLEs that look like Windows XP apps with too much clutter.

But if people have constructive design ideas for an alternative solution I'm all ears 🙂

The EOSHD NLE is already under way and basic prototype exists.

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

design ideas

Honestly, if you just re-made a version of FCP circa 1999, but it had good color control, I think that sort of NLE would have a chance at success.

For me, and the way I work, I've found that all editing should be holistic and contextual to have a project emerge in a satisfying way.  

For instance, new-finagled tools like text-based editing with transcribed audio ends up being more of a time-suck than an effective technique.  That might seem counter-intuitive, but for me the quick decisions that tool allows often leads to narrative dead-ends; I get cuts that "read well," but don't feel elegant -- so I ultimately end up not using those sorts of choices and going back to re-do stuff.

I guess I'm saying there doesn't seem to be short cuts, pardon the pun, to a quality edit, so maybe just keep the NLE tool as elegant and simple as can be?

[Clark Nikolai]

6 hours ago, Andrew - EOSHD said:

Hiding all the clutter would go a long way to making stuff like Resolve more usable, it's fine for professionals who actually need and use 1000 features but when you just want to get a quick turnaround done on a piece of video news journalism or a YouTube edit, it's total overkill central and as for newcomers it's totally baffling for them, and creates a sense of dread.

I agree. I've been around computers since the '80s and Resolve just has too much clutter as well as non-intuitive locations for features. If it wasn't free for the non-pro version and wasn't multi-platform it wouldn't be as popular as it is. So many people I know use it only because it's free or they have a PC and can't run Final Cut. They waste so much time trying to do things though.

 

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FCP's magnetic timeline is the sort of thing you need to learn and read the manual for, it never felt intuitive compared to Premiere. It doesn't work well for soundtracks, sends stuff out of sync, maybe I was using it wrong but I never figured it out myself and gave up on it (like a good proportion of the pro market did).

I found it interesting teaching FCPX to people who have edited before compared to those who have never. The ones who knew other NLEs found it spooky. Things seemed to be moving on their own and they didn't understand why. For those with other NLE experience it does take training. But for someone who has never used an NLE they get it very quickly. I've seen people up and editing away after only a half hour of instruction.

It's had a renaissance since the initial freak-out when it was first launched. Lots of pros use it now. I've used it on TV series and on feature films. As an assistant editor it's a dream to work on. But the thing is, unlike that past, it's now pretty easy to move a sequence from one NLE to another so it kind of doesn't matter anymore what someone is using, you can manage to hand it off to someone else. You no longer have to use the same stuff as the others on the team.

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But if people have constructive design ideas for an alternative solution I'm all ears 🙂

The EOSHD NLE is already under way and basic prototype exists.

 

Sounds exciting. I guess that's my main suggestion; being able to appear simple when all you're doing is cutting and only show the detailed options when you need them.