CONTOUR DESIGN ShuttlePRO: Any lovers or haters?

I am thinking of getting this CONTOUR DESIGN ShuttlePRO V2 and was hoping some of you could share their experience with the device.
I already have a Kensington trackball and would of course use the shuttle with the left hand.
I realized that I mainly use the left part of the keyboard where i created all my shortcuts with tones of Cmd/Shft/Option, to the point where it's ridiculous. I just hate leaving my the trackball and end up using the left hand on the keyboard. So why trying to cover the whole keyboard with one hand?
Thx

i had one. it worked fine. but i was already so used to the workflow of a mouse that i just couldnt get used to it. i sold it to a buddy of mine and he loves it.

It wouldn't replace my mouse, in fact. It'd be on my left hand, as an extended keyboard.

Thx.

yeah, thats how i tried to use it. but i found that for me, keyboard shortcuts were just as - or more effective. but like i say, if you take time to get used to it, you may love it.

the cool thing about it was that it works with other applications as well and all the buttons are programmable.

no doubt , its a good product and it does what it claims to do. the only negative thing i can say is that it wasnt as responsive as id have hoped. but i was expecting it to behave like old school beta deck controllers. and im not sure if anything external usb based could measure up to that...

It's excellent for in-depth audio editing but I haven't used mine for FCP picture editing in years.

-Noah

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I used one for about 3 years. Eventually the cable formed a bad connection. The only reservation I have with the unit was that there were far too few buttons on the unit.

I use hundreds of keyboard shortcut while editing so in general I found the keyboard a more user friendly edit controller. However I programed the maximum number of functions to the Contour unit that allowed me to shave extra seconds off the cutting & triming, however this proved somewhat counter productive if a director or producer were in on the session. No one was prepared for the fact that the changes could be done so quickly & I had to be constantly be
reminding them that the change had been made.

I went back to using the keyboard alone, as that was faster on its own than anyone was prepared for, when the Contour unit wore out.

I'm periodically tempted to buy a new one as when I'm editing on my own I feel that I can think clearer about the way I want to structure a sequence when I work rapidly.

Dave

Dave Hardy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I use hundreds of keyboard shortcut while editing
>
Hundreds?!
:-)

> No one was prepared for the fact that the changes could be done so quickly & I
> had to be constantly be
> reminding them that the change had been made.
>
Better this way than the other way around!

Thanks for your input.
It seems pretty tempting and I might try it out.

[Hundreds?! ]

Absolutely hundreds; they become second nature when you live with the program long enough. The human mind is astounding that way.

FCP currently contains over 350 keyboard shortcuts, last time I counted them on the KeyGuide?. Mastering a hundred or so can easily happen over time. These include nifty mouse-plus-modifier shortcuts to save time accessing tools.

A classic article right here at LAFCPUG describes 20 first keys to master.

- Loren
Today's FCP keytip:

Toggle Dynamic Trim with Command-Shift-D!

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One of the frustrating things that I always felt about the process when I started editing film 40 years ago was that after reviewing the footage I had at my disposal to construct a sequence, I would have about 6 or seven cuts in mind that I wanted to immediately apply. However by the time I had implemented by 5th cut the other ideas would have vanished from memory.

I think that this effort to retain the memory for the cuts we wanted to implement in our film sequences have helped to develop our memory retention & have made it extremely easy for use to absorb the KB shortcuts.

I've taught hundreds of people to edit with FCP & its been my observation that many people have difficulty retaining even a couple of dozen of the most commonly used shortcuts in memory. Some people don't even know where the various letters are on the keyboard. So for these folks the mouse is nirvana & going to pull down menus is not regarded as a waste of time, but simply what is necessary to get the job completed.

What I'm really getting at is that I suspect the the development of good memory retention for the job of editing is not as essential as it was years ago & this has a bearing on whether remembering the
KB shortcut is second nature or
very difficult. I don't think many kids today are any good at multiplication tables either.

Dave

I've had one for about a year and I find if I 'm editing in someone else's studio I do quite miss it.

3 issues I've found:
1) It does not sit flat on the desk and it tends to slip around -some extra rubber feet sorted that one.

2) As the jog/shuttle commands are sent as repeated keypresses the playhead often carries on moving long after you've stopped spinning the wheel -then you spin it back again and it goes too far the other way.

3) Some of the buttons are starting to need a more hefty tap to register -I've got big hands and I can poke my way through the lid of a yoghurt pot so that might be my fault for not treating it gently enough.

Other than that I really like it and would recommend it to anyone who edits mostly in their own studio.
James

Wow. A trackball and a shuttle! You love round objects, don't you?



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I use one of these with an EVS IPDirector to clip and send files to my FCP box. They're cheap and lightly built (I've worked through two over the last year.) On the other hand, they work. I hit it pretty hard about four days a week and it definetly helps when you're combing through hours worth of footage. Not sure how helpful it would be for short form work or for day to day FCP editing. I never bothered setting a second up on my FCP station because I'm all keyboard shortcuts.

Cheers

Maybe we won't need anything like the Contour...

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Thanks all for the replies
Seems like I will keep my $100.

Quote
Maybe we won't need anything like the Contour...

I want that wheel. I spend 50 minutes writing an email so with the wheel I can save 5 minutes. Thats worth $2600 to me. Plus, who wouldn't want a hummingbird battery.

Michael Horton
-------------------

>Plus, who wouldn't want a hummingbird battery.

Yup. It takes me 18 minutes to encode to mpeg2. Then 2 minutes later, it auto shuts down because the battery has run out. Don't even need to program it!

Hmm... I'm trying to get ised toi the wacom tablet.. How do u type with this thing!?



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