Author Topic: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.  (Read 26722 times)

NoDak

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Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« on: October 11, 2017, 09:33:20 PM »
Like an excited child reading over the specs of the latest gaming console, I poured over the manual for the Chronos well before I got mine. I went over the section on how the job wheel worked and it sounded perfectly reasonable to me.

"Moves playback 1 frame per detent (rotational click). Press and hold dial clicked in to move fast (40 frames per detent) "

I actually get it and do a recording session in my driveway with me chucking glass jars against pavement. (I looked like a crazy person to anyone watching me.) The jog wheel is quickly abandoned in favor of the on-screen slider.

As someone who has worked with designing products at my work I COMPLETELY understand what happened. An idea that sounded perfectly reasonable in the design phase turns out to not work well in practice. Nothing wrong with that, we're all human.

The problem is NOT the jog wheel itself. I like it's placement and feel. The problem is how it is setup in software.

1. One frame per click is too-fine. Most people only care about getting close enough to the section of the frame buffer they need to save. You want to have handles on your video anyway, so you will save a little bit before the area of interest and a little bit afterwards, 5-10 seconds is what most people I have seen recommend. If people need to go over video frame by frame they will typically do this later when on a PC with a large monitor.

2. Holding the jog wheel down while turning is impractical. If this was a jog wheel on a desk or control panel there would be no problem, but this is a camera on a tripod or handheld.

Since the problem is in software, we just have to come up with a new convention with choices for the user.

HOWEVER, we need to be VERY careful about giving the user choice. Choice CAN be good, but only up to a point.

Let me use an example that the designers of the Chronos did VERY well. On the "Record Settings" page, we can set the exact resolution down to the pixel, adjust the offset, set the specific frame rate, and exposure. OR, we can just select the drop down and pick from a list of presets that cover 95% of use cases. VERY good design. You make it easy for the 95% who actively do not want to have to bother with fine tuning their camera while allowing the people who want to tweak every last setting to get things exactly how they want it.

So, we need to do the same here. Have a relatively few pre-made options for the jog wheel that 95% of users will be fine with while allowing the people who just HAVE to customize everything to do their thing.

First, the menu to adjust the jog wheel would be in the "Util" page . There is plenty of space there to put a button titled "Jog Wheel".

I personally think push and hold needs to be abandoned, instead pushing and releasing the jog wheel cycles through the jog rates.

Presets would be in a drop down menu like the frame rates on the "Record Settings" page. I spent quite a bit of time on a long drive home from a job site mentally thinking through these. Most people just want to get the mark in and mark out close enough to the interesting bits, save, and move on to the next shot. They want a hatchet, not a scalpel. They will edit the video down to the specific frame when they have the video on their computer.

I see the attraction of jog rates based on frames, but if you are swapping between frame rates on a shoot, like I will, jog rates based on frames for one frame rate will be too big or too small on another frame rate. Meaning you will want to switch jog rates when you switch frame rates. Too much work, not user friendly. Instead, jog rates perhaps should by default be defined by fractions of the frame buffer per rotational click. Pressing the jog wheel would advance the jog rate to the next fastest rate. If already at the fastest rate it would cycle back to the slowest rate. Going with fractions of the frame buffer means jogging will be consistent between frame rates.

I have some ideas for presets

1/8 Frame Buffer, 1/32 Frame Buffer
1/16 Frame Buffer, 1/64 Frame Buffer
1/16 Frame Buffer, 1/128 Frame Buffer
1/32 Frame Buffer, 1/256 Frame Buffer
1/8 Frame Buffer, 1/32 Frame Buffer, 1/128 Frame Buffer
1/8 Frame Buffer, 1/64 Frame Buffer, 1/512 Frame Buffer
1/16 Frame Buffer, 1/128 Frame Buffer, 1/512 Frame Buffer
1/32 Frame Buffer, 1/256 Frame Buffer, 1/2048 Frame Buffer

These presets will allow the user to quickly locate the "Mark In" that they want and add a handle by simply going back a click or two. Then they cycle back to the "coarse" setting, locate the "Mark Out" location, and add a handle. Then they save and move on to the next shot.

Advanced settings menu would open an additional window for the people who want to adjust EVERYTHING. I think up to 5 jog rates would be enough. If they want to jog based on a specific number of frames they can do that or go by fraction of the frame buffer. There would be drop downs on each jog rate that would define the rate by frame or fraction of the frame buffer. Then enter a numerical value. Each jog rate would have a "NA" option, so if someone wants only 2-4 jog rates they can easily set that. Perhaps have an option to name the jog rates and save them.

This setup lets the users who just want to shoot high speed video have a selection of useful presets to use without being overwhelming. These presets will probably be good for 95% of users. For that 5%, they just go into the advanced menu and make their own jog rates.

Please let me know your feedback on this. Hopefully we can go back and forth and discuss various ideas. Perhaps someone has an even better idea.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2017, 09:36:22 PM by NoDak »

BiduleOhm

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #1 on: October 12, 2017, 04:31:40 AM »
1. One frame per click is too-fine. Most people only care about getting close enough to the section of the frame buffer they need to save. You want to have handles on your video anyway, so you will save a little bit before the area of interest and a little bit afterwards, 5-10 seconds is what most people I have seen recommend. If people need to go over video frame by frame they will typically do this later when on a PC with a large monitor.

2. Holding the jog wheel down while turning is impractical. If this was a jog wheel on a desk or control panel there would be no problem, but this is a camera on a tripod or handheld.
[...]
I personally think push and hold needs to be abandoned, instead pushing and releasing the jog wheel cycles through the jog rates.

1. I do not agree, I like to be able to see the video frame by frame for the critical moments before saving it in case something is wrong and I need to re-shoot the video.

2. I totally agree, push and releasing is the way to go IMHO. If possible with more than 2 frame-rates (3 or 4 would be a good balance I think). I really like the idea of fractions of the buffer in addition to one frame per detent.

Instead of presets for the whole thing I guess it would be better to be able to chose a preset for each click on the jog wheel; less presets needed, more customizable and maybe no need for an advanced mode because we can already do advanced things with this simple UI.

« Last Edit: October 12, 2017, 04:34:04 AM by BiduleOhm »

NoDak

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #2 on: October 12, 2017, 05:22:35 AM »
1. I do not agree, I like to be able to see the video frame by frame for the critical moments before saving it in case something is wrong and I need to re-shoot the video.

2. I totally agree, push and releasing is the way to go IMHO. If possible with more than 2 frame-rates (3 or 4 would be a good balance I think). I really like the idea of fractions of the buffer in addition to one frame per detent.

Instead of presets for the whole thing I guess it would be better to be able to chose a preset for each click on the jog wheel; less presets needed, more customizable and maybe no need for an advanced mode because we can already do advanced things with this simple UI.

1. Fantastic. Someone who likes frame by frame on the jog wheel. Input from people like you will be valuable for us to go back and forth and come to a good solution. Perhaps there can be some presets with a mix of fractions and frames. Such would be for sure doable in the advanced settings.

2. I think pretty much everyone will agree with this one.

I think presets with only 2 values would be liked, though we would need to actually test this in the field to see if I am right or wrong.

I really believe there needs to be a solid set of presets like there are in the "Record Settings" page for people who just want to turn the camera on and start shooting video. Though you have made me rethink the need for an "Advanced settings" menu. Like the "Record Settings" page, we should be able to fit both on the same page.

Thank you so much for your feedback.
« Last Edit: October 12, 2017, 05:29:48 AM by NoDak »

BiduleOhm

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #3 on: October 12, 2017, 05:46:20 AM »
1. Yep, exactly what I was thinking ;)

2. Yes, the best thing would be to be able to chose between 2 and 5 values for example.

I guess you can always have a 'default' preset with sensible values for those who just want to use the camera as is.

3. Also it would be great to be able to use the jog wheel when focused on an input field to increment/decrement the value of the field (especially as a lot of inputs are numbers) and validate the value with a click. It would be a lot easier than with the current keyboard where you can mis-type values (even if I don't have fat fingers... :P) and you need a lot of clicks.

jasonfish

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #4 on: October 12, 2017, 09:29:58 AM »
One frame per click is crucial to reviewing the footage before saving. Don't take it away.

Press-release to toggle between fine and course is a great idea (press+hold+turn is too hard).

A menu to choose your definition of "course" is ehhhh, find I guess, but better to just choose a happy common value and bake it in.

NoDak

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #5 on: October 12, 2017, 09:56:06 AM »
Stopped for the moment while on the road.

Some great input from you two. Though I disagree with the usefulness of frame by frame jogging, I just don't see myself using it, I see that I was wrong about it not bring important to people. I should rethink some of the presets I suggest to include frame by frame jogging and do some math to see what it would do at different frame rates.

I'll have to type up my revised thoughts in more detail when at home and I may even bust out my MSPaint skills to take the input thus far and get a rough design of what the jog screen would look like. Feel free to come up with your own if anyone wants to.

jasonfish

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #6 on: October 12, 2017, 10:19:56 AM »
disagree with the usefulness of frame by frame jogging

Don't fret, just a conversation, which will benefit everyone. :)

I wonder if you're concentrating too much on the Mark In/Out aspect of the wheel. I use it *inside* those boundaries to see, frame by frame, whether I got the shot I wanted.

Mark In/Out could certainly be made more course if the community desires it (n frames, n seconds, or 1/n of buffer), but being able to step forward/backward to study a captured event is a huge deal.

gyppor

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #7 on: October 12, 2017, 02:10:27 PM »
I also agree that frame-by-frame jogging is essential. I use it all the time to review my clips before saving.

If video playback from the memory card is ever added to the camera, this will be even more essentiall.

G

tesla500

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #8 on: October 12, 2017, 05:04:33 PM »
Great ideas there! The original idea behind the design was to use the scroll bar to get close to the point you want, use the pressed-in jogwheel for slightly finer control, then use the frame by frame control to review the video.

I really like the idea of adding more control, how about this:

Pushing and holding the jogwheel opens up a window on screen, allowing you to select from a number of frames-per-detent selections. Rotate the jogwheel to select one you want, then release the jogwheel and that speed is applied. Turning (not pressed) now goes at the speed you selected. This speed selection menu would also be duplicated in the Util menu somewhere. I like having shortcuts to frequently used things like this, because you're often changing the jogwheel rate several times when reviewing or saving a shot.

Question is, what rates are appropriate, without having too many? I was thinking of something like 1, 2, 4, 16, 64 frames per dentet, and maybe some that are a fraction of the buffer length like NoDak suggested, as the small numbers may not be appropriate when you're saving hundreds of thousands of frames at low resolution. Perhaps from 1/1024 of the buffer down to 1/32 of the buffer per detent.


gyppor

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #9 on: October 12, 2017, 10:33:38 PM »
I use the jog wheel mostly to look at individual frames. I don't use it much to move through the clip when setting my save points, the reason being it's not fast enough to scroll through very large buffers with tens of thousands of frames.

I think if the jog wheel is to be used for this, it must be very quick to refine the scroll rate to go from a coarse scroll to a finer scroll.
For instance, the way I find my save start point is as follows:
-use scroll bar for very coarse search. find rough area of interest.
-set playback rate to 480 or 960fps. use forward and back play buttons to refine search.
-reduce playback to 120 or 240 fps. repeat until closer.
-reduce to 30fps. go 1-2 seconds before event, set in point.

This method works well because changing the playback rate is very quick, no secondary menu to open. The whole process is done from one screen.

I think if there were a way to set the jog wheel speed from buttons on the main screen, it would make the wheel usable for searching. But I think if you have to push and hold every time, it might just be quicker to do it with the on-screen playback buttons.

If it were possible to customize the screens (pick which buttons you want displayed and where), you could have + and - rate buttons for the jog wheel for those who want it.

G

thebishop

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #10 on: October 13, 2017, 01:21:46 AM »
Pushing and holding the jogwheel opens up a window on screen, allowing you to select from a number of frames-per-detent selections. Rotate the jogwheel to select one you want, then release the jogwheel and that speed is applied. Turning (not pressed) now goes at the speed you selected. This speed selection menu would also be duplicated in the Util menu somewhere. I like having shortcuts to frequently used things like this, because you're often changing the jogwheel rate several times when reviewing or saving a shot.

Question is, what rates are appropriate, without having too many? I was thinking of something like 1, 2, 4, 16, 64 frames per dentet, and maybe some that are a fraction of the buffer length like NoDak suggested, as the small numbers may not be appropriate when you're saving hundreds of thousands of frames at low resolution. Perhaps from 1/1024 of the buffer down to 1/32 of the buffer per detent.

I think the press-to-hold-select speed you suggest would be even easier if just using "push to open", "Push to close" the settings window, then you don't need the dexterity to actually press-hold-rotate at the same time. As the currently selected "speed" would be pre-selected when pressing, you can always get rid of the settings easily by just pressing a second time if doing it by mistake.

But thinking about it, with the possible exception of single-frame stepping, wouldn't one always want to use a fraction of the buffer length (%) as the speed selection?

For e.g. a total of 5 choices: 1 (fixed), 0.1%, 0.25%, 1%, 2.5%

Then you know for e.g the 2.5% settings, 40 detent clicks will always be the full current range moved?

It would be slightly simpler but always consistent behaviour then. The actual % above probably are good, but real-world experience needed to nail them down - and see if perhaps even just three values would cover the needed use cases, then you could have the even more user friendly:

Jog wheel speed setting
+++++++++++++++
Single-step
Slow
Normal
Fast

(and fine-tune what those settings means so it 'feels' good)

BiduleOhm

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #11 on: October 13, 2017, 03:48:17 AM »
I think the press-to-hold-select speed you suggest would be even easier if just using "push to open", "Push to close" the settings window, then you don't need the dexterity to actually press-hold-rotate at the same time. As the currently selected "speed" would be pre-selected when pressing, you can always get rid of the settings easily by just pressing a second time if doing it by mistake.

I think it'll not be very pratical to select a value from a menu each time you want to switch it, I much prefer to set the values once and be able to switch between them with just a click.

But thinking about it, with the possible exception of single-frame stepping, wouldn't one always want to use a fraction of the buffer length (%) as the speed selection?

Yep, pretty much exactly what I was thinking earlier ;)

The actual % above probably are good, but real-world experience needed to nail them down

I'm afraid using percentages isn't precise enough (we might need 0.0x % values for example) but I may be wrong.

thebishop

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #12 on: October 13, 2017, 05:39:37 AM »
I think it'll not be very pratical to select a value from a menu each time you want to switch it, I much prefer to set the values once and be able to switch between them with just a click.

Fair enough! Then I would suggest the following based on all the above:

Clicking the jogwheel will switch between the following speed settings:

- Single-step
- Slow
- Normal
- Fast

The textual representation of the currently selected speed would be displayed somewhere on screen during playback such that one gets feedback on what the current setting is when pressing the button.

The % settings for each such mode would have a reasonable set of defaults based on testing, but could optionally be fine-tuned in the camera settings somewhere if one wants to have more fine-control over those speeds.

Having those textual representations will make more sense to the average user, while still being able to be fine-tuned in camera settings if desired (to whatever granularity needed).

BiduleOhm

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #13 on: October 13, 2017, 10:42:44 AM »
Fair enough! Then I would suggest the following based on all the above:

Clicking the jogwheel will switch between the following speed settings:

- Single-step
- Slow
- Normal
- Fast

The textual representation of the currently selected speed would be displayed somewhere on screen during playback such that one gets feedback on what the current setting is when pressing the button.

The % settings for each such mode would have a reasonable set of defaults based on testing, but could optionally be fine-tuned in the camera settings somewhere if one wants to have more fine-control over those speeds.

Having those textual representations will make more sense to the average user, while still being able to be fine-tuned in camera settings if desired (to whatever granularity needed).

That seems pretty much perfect :)

jasonfish

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Re: Improving the Jog Wheel, ideas.
« Reply #14 on: October 13, 2017, 12:41:14 PM »

Fair enough! Then I would suggest the following based on all the above:

Clicking the jogwheel will switch between the following speed settings:

- Single-step
- Slow
- Normal
- Fast

The textual representation of the currently selected speed would be displayed somewhere on screen during playback such that one gets feedback on what the current setting is when pressing the button.

The % settings for each such mode would have a reasonable set of defaults based on testing, but could optionally be fine-tuned in the camera settings somewhere if one wants to have more fine-control over those speeds.

Having those textual representations will make more sense to the average user, while still being able to be fine-tuned in camera settings if desired (to whatever granularity needed).


Good deal. I like.