Top-10 Insane flaws of the speed editor

Carl, now you are insulting with statements like "This way this change would not have to terrify you so much."
After 50+ years in professional audio for film and radio, plus being a lighting cameraman and editor in video, I can assure you nothing "terrifies" me.

I'm glad to hear that!
Since you avoid my questions I made that assumption/insult.

........ I too observed some strange brand protectionism culture on these forums, especially from more active members. Not sure how that is beneficial to anyone.

The Speed Editor is great but there's no denying it could be much, much better with probably just rather simple firmware updates.

I agree 100% on both points.

The attitude of some of the more active members to the brand and their particular workflow discourages others. As does their attitude to any sort of user who is not in their group. It discourages many from participating here. This means the majority of Resolve users (and ATEM mini users) don't user the BMD forum.

As for the Speed Editor. A good product spoiled. It might have been designed for one use case but the serious design flaws ruin it for the majority. Illuminated full size QWERTY keyboards start at around $15 and in any case 4 of the SE keys already have LED's on them. Change them for bi-colour and you change colour for the active one.

As for the Nine multi cam keys.... these should be reprogrammable. It would be trivial for BMD to change the mapping with an app inside Resolve. That would not even need a firmware upgrade. Actually most of the updates people want could be done in Resolve rather than the SE.

The only thing that does need a FW upgrade is to have a permanent turn off/on of the blue tooth via the USB It is ludicrous and I think illegal in some places to have a transmitter running that you can't turn off. Not just on aircraft.

What you said about BT was interesting as it could be, if it is in fact true, the subject of legal action, and is therefore most likely the best argument for upgrading the speededitor - from BMD point of view.

I'm actually surprised how much i enjoy using it, despite its shortcomings.

+1
Searching the timeline with the jog wheel beats the mouse hands-down.

Providing user programmable buttons would require, I think, an EEPROM in the hardware. It's not clear there is such a beast inside, nice as it would be to have one.

Providing user programmable buttons would require, I think, an EEPROM in the hardware. It's not clear there is such a beast inside, nice as it would be to have one.

Well, you can update the firmware so there's clearly programmable nonvolatile memory on board.

But even without that, you'd only need to store the customizations inside the keyboard if you wanted them to go along with the keyboard when you moved it from system to system. I think that's probably a very niche case, most people would be perfectly fine with the keyboard configuration being stored in the "System" or "User" preferences of Resolve itself so that it merely chooses to perform different actions when it receives input from the customized keys.

@Sean - you need to be a bit more careful with your quotes, mate - I said nothing about EEPROMs... lol

I heard someone say EEPROM and I'm thinking there must be a coder behind that...

I think I've mentioned it on another thread, but there are ways to remap the Speed Editor to key presses (or midi or turning off the garage light, if that's something you care about) via Python.

If anyone is interested, here's an example that I forked recently: https://github.com/octimot/blackmagic-speededitor

I'm not sure if this voids any warranties or upsets anyone as a matter of principle, so please use with care.

I heard someone say EEPROM and I'm thinking there must be a coder behind that...

an OLD coder.... Flash came in about 25 years ago. Though I still have several eprom programers and a uV eraser. Though finding a PC with a parralell port on will be fun....

I think I've mentioned it on another thread, but there are ways to remap the Speed Editor to key presses (or midi or turning off the garage light, if that's something you care about) via Python.
If anyone is interested, here's an example that I forked recently: https://github.com/octimot/blackmagic-speededitor
I'm not sure if this voids any warranties or upsets anyone as a matter of principle, so please use with care.

This is the point I have been making for ages. For most of the things people what the Speed Editor to do BMD can do a remap function in Resolve. No need to reprogram the SE firmware at all.

It's time to put words into action.
Is it correct that no one here has any connection to BMD, no contact, no email or phone number?
And also, is it correct that BMD is not reading the forum, except for profanity moderation?

It's time to put words into action.

That would be nice...

Is it correct that no one here has any connection to BMD, no contact, no email or phone number?

I have no connection. I could probalby get email/phone to BMD UK but AFAIK it is just sales and distribution.

And also, is it correct that BMD is not reading the forum, except for profanity moderation?

Not correct. We some times see some BMD people on here.

I heard someone say EEPROM and I'm thinking there must be a coder behind that...

That was me.

Sean is correct in that there must be some form of programmable memory aboard, but making it accessible to the user at the individual key level may be problematic.

Today's release offers an extensive list of Edit Page improvements for the Speed Editor. Bravo, BMD! They've not abandoned us Speed Editor lovers.

@Sean - you need to be a bit more careful with your quotes, mate - I said nothing about EEPROMs... lol

Whoops, sorry 'bout that! Fixed it.

This is the point I have been making for ages. For most of the things people what the Speed Editor to do BMD can do a remap function in Resolve. No need to reprogram the SE firmware at all.

True, and I hope they will, but I'm sure they've got a huge pile of priorities before this and, honestly, in my opinion, if the user has no use for the product, they should probably not buy it...

Today's release offers an extensive list of Edit Page improvements for the Speed Editor. Bravo, BMD! They've not abandoned us Speed Editor lovers.

I just tried it out and it works great!

The only thing that does need a FW upgrade is to have a permanent turn off/on of the blue tooth via the USB It is ludicrous and I think illegal in some places to have a transmitter running that you can't turn off. Not just on aircraft.

I found this thread while looking for instructions on how to power off the speed editor. I am absolutely incredulous that there's no way to turn off radio transmission when taking this thing on flights. I guess I will just need to order one speed editor for every place that I intend to use it, so as to not violate international passenger flight regulations.

With regards to BMD not making the keys customizable, even though it's easily within their power to do so; that's just BMD being BMD. They like to emulate Apple, by pretending that they are not competing with any other company in the world. Just like most BMD products, SE is quirky in a BMD-like way, and I don't foresee them ever changing that.

but given the Speed Editor's price, perhaps an entirely new Speed Editor unit (v2), at some point, is more likely.

Sadly this seems more likely. The same was done with the ATEM Mini and all those who bought into it as early adopters were left high and dry.
BMD put out some hardware and after a few years of feedback form paying users drop the hardware in favour of a new version leaving all the original buyers without even a firmware upgrade.

A couple of months back I had a face to face meeting with a BMD support person and discussed the SE. Strangely all my points (most of which are what the majority were asking for here) were seen as sensible and logical.... They were all put in writing and the BMD person has sent them off to the developers with recommendations. So maybe you might seem them in V19.2
It was too late to have them in the V19 Beta and V19.1 will be urgent fixes so hopefully V19.2 for the end of 2024 or this time next year?

I suspect people who are not directly involved in Resolve and the SE’s development will see most of these suggestions as reasonable.

But they’re not the ones who decide what gets done. That’s the people who made the original design decisions and I suspect they like their decisions just fine in most cases.

I suspect people who are not directly involved in Resolve and the SE’s development will see most of these suggestions as reasonable.

But they’re not the ones who decide what gets done. That’s the people who made the original design decisions and I suspect they like their decisions just fine in most cases.

I would not disagree with any of your comments.