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ShuttleXpress Jogs to Your PC
By Dave Peterson | August 9, 2008
Most video editing packages have a dizzying number of possible functions, but a relatively small number of actions the editor will repeat over and over. These can either be accessed through mouse clicks (though sometimes down several menu levels) or through keyboard shortcuts. Both techniques have their fans, and someone can adjust to either, but there’s another option as well. A number of companies produce jog wheels for the home computer video editing market. This weekend I’ve been trying out one called the ShuttleXpress made by Contour Design.
A jog wheel makes the job of editing more intuitive by allowing a twist of the wheel right or left to cause movement forward or backward through a cliup. The farther you twist the wheel, the faster you move. It can really streamline the editing process. The ShuttleXpress has more than just a single wheel though. The inner wheel is the jog wheel. In its default setting with the software I use most often (Pinnacle Studio), the jog wheel will step forward or backward one frame at a time for precise control. Around the wheel is a shuttle ring that gives faster movement through a clip. Surounding that in an arc easily reached by the fingers of the hand working the wheel are five buttons that come pre-set to do in and out point cuts on a clip, fast forward or backward motion, and a play/stop toggle.
Simple configuration software allows the user to set the controls on the ShuttleXpress to emulate any keyboard commands, in a manner similar to programmable joysticks. This makes the device potentially compatible and useful with any application. If you want even more buttons, Contour Design also makes a jog wheel device with 15 buttons. For the moment, five is plenty for me, but I can already tell this little gadget is going to streamline my editing work.
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