Every week, Frame.io Insider asks one of our expert contributors to share a tip, tool, or technique that they use all the time and couldn’t live without. Reuben Evans shares how FCP’s new scrolling timeline does things a little differently.
Fans of Apple’s Final Cut Pro have had their wishes granted with the new scrolling timeline. During playback, FCP’s default behavior is to let the playhead scroll off of the screen. If you would like the playhead to stay in the middle of the screen and for the footage to scroll past it go to Final Cut Pro-> Preferences->Playback.
Select the option “Scroll timeline continuously during playback.” Now, when you play a video, the playhead will move from the start of the timeline until it hits the middle. At that point, the footage in your timeline will start to scroll past it.
The other major NLEs have implemented a scrolling timeline, but Apple always tries to put their own twist on things. As POST-PROfessionals-E point out in the video below, FCP doesn’t “jump” when you play a clip backward. Additionally, Final Cut allows you to edit the timeline while playback is happening.
And if you have any performance issues with playback, make sure to check if your viewer settings are on Better Quality or Better Performance. Also, unrendered footage will impact the smoothness of your playback.
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