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Lightning Speed, Indeed
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You're probably wondering, what's it like to drive this truck? Well, it feels like it can just crunch through anything. Start with a background, cut a matte through that to another shot, add a key, place another box on top of that, color correct them all and then rotoscope a matte for a cut-out on top of all that with a blurry edge, all in real time. It's all uncompressed, all 10-bit, and instantly responsive. It just leaps to life under your fingertips. This is a combination of software and hardware that you must get your hands on to feel its power. It's no wonder its name is car-like -- it must be test-driven to be appreciated.
It works and plays well with others, too. It can now import Photoshop layers, every kind of commonly-used edit decision list (EDL), and OMF files, too. I'd like to see it able to read and write AAF files, too, though. It's especially astute with Adobe After Effects comps, and can export layers to AE and then bring them back for real time playback. Another advantage is that you can use After Effects, Commotion, and Combustion to overcome some of the few 844/X limitations. For example, 844/X can't do motion tracking (yet, but I hear they're working on it), but it's a cinch to export your footage to Commotion or After Effects, set up your tracking data there, and then import that into 844/X for some high-powered motion-tracking or image stabilization. Most geometric data can be easily imported into 844/X. And, if you want to import a shot from your favorite compositor into 844/X, that's easy, too. Want to do a 3D camera move? 844/X can't do that, but you can create one in After Effects and then import that shot into 844/X.
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 | | (Click graphic for enlargement) Here's a screen shot of 844/Xe |
There are lots of usability enhancements in 844/X, too. I like the way you can zoom in and out on the timeline by using the scroll wheel. You can also zoom in and out by hitting the page down and page up keys, or use the H key to cycle through all the zoom levels. This makes quick work of getting around your timeline. Another great usability enhancement that's been in 844/X from the beginning is its “visual voicing” feature that lets you “solo” up to 4 tracks, playing them alone with the click of your mouse. If you have a giant vertical composition stacked up, it's a great advantage to be able to sneak a peek at any four layers to see what they’re doing. And, new to version 2.0 is the ability to copy an effect to any tracks that are selected. It's quite a powerful feature, and I'm amazed that this capability is so rare in nonlinear editing systems. Another theme running throughput the software is configurability. For example, it you don't like the keyboard shortcuts that are the default in 844/X, go ahead and change any of them. It's completely flexible, along with its windows that can be arranged in any configuration that suits your fancy.
For pure editing, 844/X is a young whipper-snapper that does most tasks well, but still has a few rough edges. First of all, there are lots of separate windows involved in the interface, so you'll certainly need two monitors for this hoss. There's a rather convoluted drop shadow filter which I wish were easier to use. Sure, if you know what you're doing, you can put a drop shadow together quickly. But its implementation in this version 2.0 reminds me of the way I used to make drop shadows in Photoshop 2.5. Sure, it was possible to create a drop shadow in Photoshop 2.5, but I like the way it's been refined into the simpler process it is today. I can only hope that will happen soon with 844/X with drop shadows, because I think they are an often-used capability that adds considerable dimension to compositing. I'd also like to see more capable audio scrubbing. Now there's 8 frames-per-second analog scrub, which is workable, but there's no digital scrub. Sure, some users don't even like to use that, but I've found it to be indispensable in many tight circumstances. This should be added post haste.
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