Using Foot Pedals to Improve your Video Workflow

By jeff on November 23, 2008 10:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I recently had an opportunity to try out some of the products offered by the Kinesis Corporation. I found Kinesis after starting a quest to see if there were foot pedals available for working in conjunction with a keyboard. I was put onto this quest by a student who asked if you could have the option key operated by a pedal like on sewing machine. I thought this was a brilliant idea, and began to research the concept.

What I found was the Kinesis Corporation. They have a number of solutions that support this workflow. I have been reviewing the integration with Final Cut Pro. The two products I have been looking at are the Savant Elite Programmable USB Foot Switch, and the Kinesis Ergonomic Computer Keyboard with Foot Pedals.

The functionality of operating modifier keys with foot pedals that effect the keyboard keys is a great Final Cut Pro workflow. There is one issue in that Apple currently does not allow USB devices to modify one another. I am researching a work around to this limitation. The Kinesis Ergonomic Computer Keyboard with Foot Pedals act as one entity, and allow the operator to modify a keyboard key with the foot pedal. For the many keyboard shortcuts used in Final Cut Pro this is a great solution. The Kinesis Ergonomic Computer Keyboard takes a little getting used to, but is deigned to be the more comfortable keyboard to use. Learning to use the Kinesis Ergonomic Computer Keyboard, while you are learning the foot pedals, would be a big change, but from what I can tell a very productive one.

GeniusDV will continue to review these products with various post production software applications like Avid Media Composer, Avid Express Pro, Adobe Photoshop, & Adobe After Effects. We will all be reviewing these products on both a Mac & PC platform. This is just one more example of how GeniusDV strives to stay on the cutting edge of post production technique and efficiency.