For anybody who has edited video in Final Cut Pro, you know that there are many different ways to perform the same tasks. Recently I watched this free Apple seminar on how to rapidly edit news and sports packages. This tutorial is geared primarily for TV shooters and editors transitioning from tape-tape and into the world of non-linear editing.  The video seminar is taught by long-time TV news shooter and editor Joe Torelli, who really knows his stuff.

I found the most useful information comes in the second video where Torelli shows an interesting way to edit clips on the timeline verses setting in and out points in the viewer. His techniques, geared for deadline productions, are something I will try when I need to edit something in a hurry. As newspaper websites use more and more video, learning to edit efficiently will only become more important.

If you have a G4, G5, or MacPro, the easiest, most cost effective, and best over all performance option (with some exception) is to add another internal drive. Internal drives will offer some of the fastest transfer rates and will be suitable for almost all editing. Keep in mind G4's use ATA drives, and G5's and MacPro's use SATA drives. Make sure you purchase accordingly.

For laptop and iMac users, an external drive will be necessary. For most users, a firewire 400 drive will work. For the latest iMac models, a firewire 800 drive can be used. Do not use USB2. While the drives are pretty fast from a general transfer rate standpoint, they tend to "bottleneck" with more complex use such as video editing.

Lately, 2.5 inch drives have become larger and faster. What's nice about these drives is that they're bus powered eliminating the need to plug them in. The run off the power supplied by the firewire port. If you're just editing DV media, these drives are plenty fast enough to handle the job. I use them fairly frequently when I bring projects from work home to work on. They are very convenient.

With any drive, you'll get the best performance from a 7200rpm drive. Especially with the 2.5 inch drives, there are a lot of 5400rpm drive available at low cost. These will work. But, a 7200rpm drive will work better.

Brands? I like Seagate, Hitachi, and Maxtor. I'm not too fond of Western Digital. Though opinions will vary. For external drives I like the line sold at Macsales. I've also used Iomega drives. My favorite portable is an Iomega drive. LaCie drives are popular. Particularly at the Apple store, but I've had nothing but problems with them. So has the editor that I work with.

What's important is to use another drive for your digitized media other than your system drive. If you're having performance issues that would be the first thing I would check.

While I consider myself an advanced user, I'm not certified. My expertise is largely experience. My posts will range from beginner to advanced, reviews, editorials, and questions I'll ask the readers. I'll never claim to know any more than I do. My hope is that when questions arise, if I can't answer them, another reader can.

So, thanks for stopping by. I hope we all can benefit from this.

Ma formation de 2 semaines chez Video-Design m'a donné le goût des outils professionnels (qu'est ce que l'on gagne comme temps et surtout en sécurisation des projets) sur Macintosh.

En conséquences, viennent d'être commandé:

• la suite complète Final Cut Studio 2 (livraison prévu demain Mercredi ou Jeudi),
• un Imac en verre et Aluminium doté d'un écran de 24" (60 cm), d'un processeur à 2,8Ghz, d'un disque dur de 320 Go et de 2Go de RAM,

L'Imac est pris en LLD (Location Longue Durée) sur 18 mois afin de ne pas plomber les finances dès le départ, le reste s'en chargeant déjà. Avantage de cette location évolutive, au bout de 2 mois, je pourrais changer de matériel ou bien le restituer sans frais, sauf bien entendu le transport.

J'avais déjà acheté sur ebay le logiciel Aperture 2.1 (120 €) afin de gérer et retoucher les photos. Ca n'est pas un photoshop, mais cela n'en est pas le but. Par contre, les quelques Final Cut Studio en vente sur ebay sont d'origine pour le moins douteuse (vendeur refusant de faire un certificat de vente ou même d'expliquer la provenance du produit), j'ai donc préféré commander chez un revendeur au meilleur prix.

Il me reste a trouver de quoi loger mes disques externe dans un boitier supportant le firewire 800 Mbps et un écran externe 24". J'avais jeté mon dévolu sur un Dell 2408WFP en promo chez Dell, mais je me pose (sans doute trop) quelques questions quant à plûtot prendre un écran type TV avec des vraies entrées video, du DVI et du HDMI et toujours en 24".

Je vais quand même conserver mon portable sous Windows Vista (oui je sais, tout plein de trucs pas bien), car je ne vais pas encore mettre tous mes oeufs dans le même panier. L'avenir me dictera le reste.

Tous plein de changement en vue, non ?

This post has been a long time coming, but I definitely think that it's paid off. For a group project, we were tasked with rebranding a product and we chose Wacom's budget Bamboo tablet line. Firstly, we didn't very much care for Wacom's current logo. This reworking was made by the lovely Ashley Nieves. We then thought that we could add life to the product by making a colored line of the Bamboos, hence the "Hue". The Bamboo logo was made by the equally lovely Kristian Zabala, whereas I made the Hue logo.

My thought with this was that the swatches on the leg of the 'H' would rotate so that the current tablet's color would emanate from the middle swatch.

For our advertisement, I wanted to be very literal in the execution -but not so much that it wouldn’t fit with the other parts. Since our tag line is “color the world”, we literally colored the world. I wanted to play around with transparency, taking inspiration from transparent film, and came away with a very watercolored look. This is further enhanced by the pastel color choices, whose variety and contrast balance out their relative lightness. Taking into account the Gutenberg diagram, a line is formed to lead viewer, starting from the illustration, going into the pen, tablet, the bamboo logo, and moving down the drip toward the tagline and Wacom logo.

Based on the response we received from our first advertisement, I decided to do another illustration, this time for the banner. I continued with the water colored look, only on a much grander scale. I went with a taller format for this piece to play with verticality. This theme is also incorporated by the subject matter: New York City. I used a cooler, but no less vibrant, color scheme in order to differentiate it from the other ads and to contrast more with the tablet and text.

The concept behind this banner is to break up the illustration into three layers and put them onto separate panes of glass.

The panes would be hung spaced out from the ceiling of the building showcasing, thus, playing up the transparency of the piece, as well as perspective. As soon as a customer would walk into the store, they would be immediately drawn to the colors and grandeur of the banner.

I also made this video real quick like of the boxes. I can't really take credit for the actual boxes -other than for input and direction- as they were made by Kris and Ashley. They took an almost exorbitant amount of time to finish, but they were well worth the wait. The video is completely seamless and loopable.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1489196&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D1555368%26server%3Dwww.vimeo.com%26autoplay%3D0%26fullscreen%3D1%26md5%3D%26show_portrait%3D0%26show_title%3D0%26show_byline%3D0%26context%3D%26context_id%3D]

This commercial wasn't a requirement but we thought it would put us that much over the edge...I'm proud to say that it did.

[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1489223&w=425&h=350&fv=clip_id%3D1555522%26server%3Dwww.vimeo.com%26autoplay%3D0%26fullscreen%3D1%26md5%3D%26show_portrait%3D0%26show_title%3D0%26show_byline%3D0%26context%3D%26context_id%3D]

To be fair, it was Kris' idea to animate the color of the tablets. Though in all likelihood, I would have eventually thought of it myself.

As always, made with CS3; and as sometimes, Maya and Final Cut.

Hasta la fecha contabilizamos siete programas distintos: dos exclusivos de Mac: Final Cut Pro e iMovie, uno compatible con Gates y con Jobs, Adobe Premiere y cuatro exclusivos de Windows: Pinnacle Studio, Sony Vegas, Windows Movie Maker y Avid. Sigamos pues, este orden de análisis.

Final Cut Pro. Es el mejor de ambos mundos (Mac y Windows). Es intuitivo, es rápido y su integración con proyectos de Photoshop y After Effects es excelente. Te permite tener varios proyectos abiertos a la vez y pasar cómodamente de uno a otro. Es ideal para trabajar en alta definición o incluso sacar listas EDL para editar película de cine. Es perfecto para los profesionales pero sencillo para los patanes. Así es, se trata de la panacea de los programas. Ahora bien los chromas que se pueden hacer con los plugins que vienen por defecto no son precisamente de lo mejorcito. Además no soporta igual de bien todos los formatos (algunos requieren un renderizado) y otros ni siquiera los abre (caso de Windows Media Video o los archivos MTS de alta definición de las cámaras Sony, por ejemplo)

iMovie. No es un programa de edición profesional pero es ideal para una persona que no haya montado nunca y todavía no este familiarizada con las lineas de tiempo y el concepto de pistas. Pese a estar dirigido a grabaciones de tipo casero (bodas, cumpleaños, viajes) está perfectamente dotado para editar cómodamente cortometrajes o pequeños montajes con una amplia gama de efectos de postproducción de gran calidad. Una joya para los que empiezan o aún no se han hecho con Final Cut Pro.

Adobe Premiere. Estar disponible para ambos mundos tiene ciertas ventajas, como por ejemplo, crear un proyecto en Windows y seguir editandolo en Mac. Además, ser de Adobe garantiza una excelente compatibilidad con After Effects o Photoshop y el interfaz es muy parecido al de Final Cut Pro, con un modo de edición muy intuitivo. Quizás le ha faltado estar un poco más optimizado para el trabajo profesional. En cualquier caso no es una mala elección.

Pinnacle Studio. Probablemente, el peor programa de edición de vídeo profesional que hay en el mercado. Sufrirás, lanzarás maldiciones en arameo y volverás a sufrir pero seguirá estando igual de mal pensado. La única forma de sobrevivir a él, es no haber probado nunca antes otro programa de edición. Es torpe y lento y como no tengas un buen PC te dejará tirado a la primera de cambio. Muy recomendado.

Sony Vegas. Es la elección ideal si tu cámara es Sony y grabas en un disco duro de alta definición. Y digo la ideal por no decir la única (siempre puedes convertir los molestos archivos MTS a MPEG pero si trabajas con ella a diario no es una opción porque pierdes mucho tiempo). La forma de edición es mejorable pero si llegas a aprender los atajos del teclado se convierte en una herramienta bastante cómoda. Hace unos chromas excelentes y ofrece infinidad de plugins para tratar el color. En cambio, cosas tan sencillas como cambiar la posición y el tamaño de un clip en la pantalla puede resultar un rompecabezas sino estás acostumbrado. Es compatible con gran cantidad de formatos. Puedes descargarte gratuitamente una versión completa que caduca a los 30 días.

Windows Movie Maker. Si el mundo está a punto de acabarse, tu ordenador no soporta ningún otro programa y te va la vida en editar ese vídeo... aún así piénsatelo dos veces antes de usarlo. Su compatibilidad con otros formatos es bastante limitada. Independientemente de las prestaciones de tu ordenador no está diseñado para proyectos de larga duración y es más que probable que te deje tirado o no renderice bien el proyecto. Mientras no le pidas peras al olmo te podrá sacar de algún apuro. Es el equivalente a iMovie en Windows... pero ya quisiera.

Avid. Todo un clásico de los programas de edición capaz de levantar defensores y detractores a partes iguales. Necesitas tal cantidad de horas para trabajar ágilmente con él que salvo que te paguen por hacerlo no merece la pena intentarlo. Afortunadamente si llegas a controlar el programa y sus atajos a la perfección puede ser bastante rápido, pero siempre con el handicap de editar en un PC. Si Walter Murch (montador de Apocalypse Now o El Paciente Inglés) se pasó de Avid a Final Cut Pro será por algo. Bien es cierto que está pensado para la gente que estaba acostumbrada a montar con la tradicional moviola.

Espero que os haya servido de algo. Sea cual sea vuestra elección recordad que hay pocos trabajos tan reconfortantes como el del montador y es que la edición es el tercer y último parto de cualquier proyecto audiovisual (siendo el primero el guión y el segundo el rodaje).

Very interesting read from editor Oliver Peters.  As long as AVID and FCP are competing in the same market, there will continue to be the debate as to which is a better NLE.  Think you know my choice.

Avid vs. FCP – Market Dominance?

You see a lot of these arguments on the web. “My NLE can beat up your NLE.” Invariably any discussion of Avid or Apple marketing among a group of editors degenerates into childish platform wars. From the outside this must sound as stupid as two bubbas arguing over the best truck – Ford or Chevy. All of the debaters seem to share the attitude that “I know the truth and if I could only get this moron to realize what I’m saying, they’d see the light and change their wicked ways.” It comes from a belief that one single company CAN dominate the market to the exclusion of all others and users will be satisfied. I personally don’t believe that’s true. Historically, any dominant company only held that position for a few short years.

A history lesson

Linear and nonlinear electronic editing owe their start to CMX. The early nonlinear efforts were premature, but the linear byproduct took off and dominated post in the late 70s and 80s. There were others, but CMX was king of the linear hill until giving up some market share to ISC/Grass Valley, Sony and Axial. Modern nonlinear seriously took hold in the 90s, but the market had its large niches. Avid, Media 100 and EMC2 for spot offline, Avid and Lightworks for film and CMX, Grass Valley, Sony and Axial linear systems for online finishing. Around the same time that uncompressed NLEs came into being (first Quantel and Softimage - then Avid), Avid became the dominant force in all of these niches. Although there were still many other players (Media 100, Quantel, Axial, Immix, etc.), Avid overshadowed all the rest. Just before the Millennium, Final Cut Pro hit the market, was purchased by Apple and has come to be the first serious challenge to Avid’s market dominance in years.

FCP’s detractors are fond of saying that Apple looses money on FCP as a loss leader to sell Apple hardware - or that FCP grew because most of the users pirated the software. They point to these as reasons for FCP’s quick adoption rate. In 2008, Apple announced that licensed users of Final Cut (combining all owners of Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Studio and Final Cut Express software) passed the 1,000,000 mark. If many FCP users really have pirated their software, then that simply means the number of actual users far exceeds 1,000,000. Certainly all don’t have the latest version and most probably aren’t editors cutting spots, TV shows or films. It’s likely that many of these 1,000,000 are event, church and educational videographers along with quite a few hobbyists. I would consider most of these users at least as “professional” as most of the users of Adobe Premiere Pro, Avid Liquid or Xpress DV/Pro. If at least half of the known user base bought upgrades at several hundred dollars, then this still positions Apple with a couple of hundred million dollars of income to put into ProApps product development. Not bad for a software product.

The real users

I’ve encountered many new editors, such as film students whom I’ve taught at the community college level. If FCP is being used by the proverbial “kid editing in his bedroom”, then this would be the group doing it. In fact, I find that often their NLE experience (legal or otherwise) is just as likely to be Adobe or Avid as it is Apple. Given that Mac market share continues to hover in the single-digit range, simple percentages would push the break in the direction of PC software - NOT Final Cut Pro. Most of the professional FCP users I run into are, in fact, former Avid editors or users of other systems, who changed to FCP at a point when they needed to upgrade or because their previous NLE vendors went out of business and it was time to move on. Why was this change made to FCP? Well, the obvious answer is cost, but that’s far too simplistic.

Final Cut Pro is often said to be an 80/20 solution – 80% of the features (of a system like Avid, in theory) at 20% of the cost. The actual percentages are irrelevant, but the sentiment implies that purchasers are willing to put up with some missing features if they can get the job done at a far lower cost. I don’t completely disagree with the cost argument, but it’s not limited to Apple. When Final Cut came out, it was inherently a resolution-independent editor, but without any hardware support. It would have never been anything other than a DV-based editor if hardware companies like Digital Voodoo, Pinnacle and Matrox hadn’t introduced companion products.

Adding a Digital Voodoo card to early versions of FCP wasn’t terribly stable, but it allowed you to get into uncompressed editing for far less that the competing Avid Symphony. At the time, many editors argued that the image quality was better out of the Digital Voodoo cards. When Pinnacle introduced CineWave, it was the first time you could post uncompressed HD for a total workstation cost of well under $100,000 at a time when the next cheapest thing was Avid DS at over $300,000. AJA and Blackmagic Design quickly joined the mix of Final Cut Pro hardware vendors. Up until now, Avid has been late in answering every one of these challenges, leaving many owners of older Avid systems to simply conclude that Final Cut Pro (with an AJA or BMD card) was the only way they could get into any sort of HD editing and survive on the tighter budgets that their clients were offering them.

The better editor

As I said, I’m not completely sold on the 80/20 argument. Another way to look at it is found in blogger Robert Cringely’s “The Five Percent Solution”. His premise is that a new product only has to be 5% better than the previous product in order to replace it in the minds and hearts of users. According to Cringley, a 5% improvement is good enough to force that shift. Of course, most Avid loyalists will argue that Avid is clearly better than FCP, but I’ve used both for years at this point and I don’t agree. Avid’s strong points are the robustness of media management, very responsive editing dynamics and advanced performance. Final Cut’s strengths are its easy timeline editing functions, the ability to mix many media types due to the QuickTime architecture and the embrace of third party hardware. You can certainly tally even more points on each side, but the value any of these has to your personal editing style and system demands is going to vary with every editor.

Each application has numerous features that I feel are clearly lacking in the other, but for me, there’s enough that I like about FCP to feel that the “five percent solution” argument applies. In my own market, most of the facilities have shifted to FCP. I know many former Avid editors who have shifted to FCP. Most acknowledge that the performance of the Media Composer 3.0 is clearly superior to FCP, yet none are interested in going back to Avid. Clearly they see at least 5% that is better, as well.

Market share

I started by talking about market dominance. I believe that Avid will continue to be a strong player for years to come. They appear to be better off in every way (financial situation, product offerings and general company “smarts”) than CMX in the close of the linear era. I just don’t believe that they will be the one and only NLE vendor. More likely the mix will be spread across market and business niches. Historically, this has been true for cameras, VTRs, telecines and other professional video products. There’s simply no reason why one company SHOULD be the only force in the market. Over the years we’ve seen many shifts in market leaderships. Think RCA, Ampex, Sony, Ikegami, Rank and others.

Here’s what I see in the crystal ball …  Final Cut will continue to make the greatest inroads in markets outside of New York, Los Angeles and other media capitols. It will be the NLE of choice in production companies and small editorial boutiques. Avid will continue to be dominant in broadcast – especially hard news. I think the corporate and event world is up for grabs – probably split between all companies, with the biggest percentage falling to Adobe. Film cutting is going to be Avid for now, but with a shift to Final Cut as older editors retire and the assistants fill their shoes. Digital film finishing (DI) is going to be the world of Quantel, daVinci and Autodesk, shared with newcomers like Assimilate, Digital Vision and Filmlight.

None of this is good or bad. It’s simply the way it is. Innovation can come from all sides. Diversity and competition breed innovation. Don’t shrink from it! Embrace it!

© 2008 Oliver Peters

Magic Bullet Steady offers powerful algorithms which analyze the video, detect motion, and apply one of four filtering modes. The result is a smooth, stabilized motion that preserves camera pans and other desired movements while eliminating jarring shake. A second filter removes noise and other low-light artifacts.

The software features stabilization to remove jerky motion and jitters from tough shooting locations and noise reduction that works out true image values so the noise-reduced footage doesn't become blurry.

Magic Bullet Steady is available now for $199 USD and supports After Effects CS3 on Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X. The software also runs in Final Cut Pro on Mac OS X.

4 or 5 freeware cool Apps for Final Cut Pro Studio... I tried a few, who can argue with that price!

If you ever wanted to line up a graphic consistently or just wanted some straight reference line DH_guides does the job or maybe you just wanted to overlay a simple grid, DH_grid is worth its free price + 40$.

However, I don't want to complain, since these are free but you are limited to a 10x10 grid with the grid app ... that is a little silly even for a freebie, but the only downside.

You can also get this cool widget Video Space for the geeks that aren't too strong with numbers.
It calculates media storage.

I'll put up a real post soon.

Tom is my new instructor at the Apple Store Crabtree Valley mall. It was funny he knew my face already because I'm usually at the front of the line when they have product launches.

Tom was a little surprised that in the first session I wanted to go over keying which allows you to the remove the background from videos. Either way he showed me re basics and my next session is Tuesday evening and I'm ready to learn more.

Thanks for being a good teacher Tom!

That’s former FBI agent Dana Scully speaking in the trailer for the new franchise feature film The X-Files: I Want to Believe, pretty much guaranteeing an imminent run of chasing, monsters, and darkness. But until very recently, the words might just as easily have been spoken by X-Files series creator Chris Carter. It’s been six years since the last X-Files TV show aired, ten since Fight the Future, the first X-Files movie opened. And according to Carter himself, the search for the Truth very nearly stopped there.

“There was a time when I was happy to just look back at the good work that we’d done and move ahead to more good work,” he says “But I was convinced by my colleagues Frank Spotnitz and David Duchovny that there was a great movie to be made, and that the time was right. And while I wasn’t against it, they really helped push me in the direction of making the movie.”

That sounds a little like an X-Files plot point, with echoes of a despondent Mulder being encouraged by Scully to carry on his quest. And it’s not the only instance of X-resonance in the making of Carter’s new film, which involved extreme secrecy pacts; ominous deadlines; a mysteriously lost story; the fortuitous un-retirement of a wise editor; the helpful emergence of a technology wizard; an unstoppable conspiracy of Macs; and a harmonic convergence of suits and creatives around Final Cut Studio.

Accounting is not my strong suit.  Dealing now with getting a tax credit from the CT State Film Commission for my last feature, FRIENDS (WITH BENEFITS). It’s a comedy, the paperwork is not.  And I’m sure when you’re a big studio with a bevy of lawyers and accountants at your beck and call, dealing with the massive amounts of paperwork is no big deal.  However when you’re a small company (and What Were We Thinking Films, Inc. is a SMALL company), the paperwork is suffocating.  As are the accounting fees for the necessary audit.  But the CT Film Commission was never one to make things easy for the little guy.  (The last commissioner actually told me, a lifetime tax-paying resident who’s made 6 low budget features in state, they didn’t have time for small films because so many big budget movies were coming to Connecticut.  Yeah, well…I’m still here.  She’s long gone.)

Though I love New Haven.  Though I love New Haven brick oven pizza.  Though I love our homegrown coffee.  I’m ready to make films elsewhere.  Where the state film commission actually wants the business, wants the art, wants to help.  Why stay where you’re not wanted?

I’ve been editing FRIENDS for a year now, since the day after Final Cut Pro was released last June.  I’ve taken the first cut of 125 minutes down to 93 minutes.  I’ve made it a film I’m proud to have my name on.  That’s what it is at this point.  Making films or writing books that I’m proud of.  There’ve been to many pieces of shit in my past.  Usually having to do with losing control of the project, or in the case of THE KISS, never having control to begin with and making the mistake of trusting a producer who couldn’t see his star-struck hand from his wife-kissed ass. 

That’s why I made YOU ARE ALONE and now FRIENDS.  To prove that either I could do it, I could make a film worth watching, or to just get it out of my system and stick to the books.  I do honestly believe I proved I could with YOU ARE ALONE.  I’m very proud of that film, of the response its gotten at film festivals and on DVD.  (If I must say so, my director’s commentary is worth a listen.  It’s a lesson in indie filmmaking, it’s a lesson in life.  And if you love dogs, it will make you cry.)  I’m curious as to how audiences will react to FRIENDS.  It guess I’ll be finding out soon enough.

P.S. The vet called.  Kilgore’s not anemic after all.  It was just another scare in a long line of scares with him.  Damn, I love that dog! 

When I went to go visit, I was shocked that he used some of the same equipment that is available to me at Elon--Final Cut Pro and Photoshop.  The major difference between what he does and what I can do at Elon is mostly the equipment that the original footage is shot on and what it can be shot on, which really inspires me to work when I get back to Elon.  Check out some of the trailers he's done:

If you have a Hi-Def TV at home you'll wince at the times you see all those 4x3 letterboxed commercials running on HD channels.  They look like a postage stamp lost in a mass of black screen.

That's alot of black space.  So if your source material consists of lots of letterboxed 4x3 sources the result would be what you see above.  In a 16x9 sequence you could scale this video to fill the entire screen and not lose any picture.  

As far as regular fullscreen 4x3 content you may have only one choice and that is to keep it 4x3 and have pillar bars on the left and right.

If you were to scale this video to fill the screen you'd lose picture on the top and bottom.

Two other approaches to dealing with the black space with 4x3 footage is to put it the shot(s) on top of a upscaled and blured version of the same shot.  This is a common technique you see use with sports and news.

Or lastly, you can use any image or graphic to fill the black space.  You could even have something designed specifically for the project.  Here I just used a still of camouflage.

So don't forget to ask the question where the finished video will play before you start the project.  It will save you headaches and also give you a better looking video in the end.

Macworld | Send video abroad.

]]> http://nycpostop.wordpress.com/?p=44 Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:58:25 +0000 Philip http://nycpostop.wordpress.com/?p=44 Here's a site I go to often for forums, reviews, tutorials.  When I lived in LA I used to attend their meetings.  Check it out if you want to learn something or visit the forums if you're having a specific issue you want an answer to.

Los Angeles Final Cut Pro User Group

Here are some great tips.  I like the first one because it's definitely something I didn't know and will use from now on.  I've already re-mapped by keyboard.