Looking back at Software from the Future

EDITBLOG on PVC by Scott Simmons

A long time ago (running from 2007 to 2009) I used to have a category on the old Editblog called Software From the Future. The idea was to write up and mock up ideas for features that would be useful inside of non-linear editing applications. I didn’t do a ton of them but recently I was looking back at those old entries. Here we are many years later and some of the features have been implement in different ways in different NLEs. I’m still waiting on my idea checks.

Live Scrubbing

This was always one of my most wanted features in Avid Media Composer or Final Cut Pro 7. Enable a preference and you would no longer have to click and drag to scrub a clip in a source monitor. The idea was maybe the scrubber bar could turn red so you knew Live Scrubbing was enabled:

Here we are nearly 5 years after that post and we have skimming Final Cut Pro X and Hover Scrub in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6.

As noted in the old blog post this idea was inspired by iMovie but more out of a desire to not get carpal tunnel syndrome. Obviously Apple took the idea to heart in FCPX and in PPro Adobe gives the best of both worlds, both live scrubbing with Hover Scrub and a tradition viewer. read more...