Review: ShuttlePro Multimedia Controller

Reviewed By: Kirk Hiner

Review Date: October 25, 2001
Available at the Applelinks Store

Back when I was in college, when I was young and funny and dating a girl with the puffiest eyelids you'd ever hope to see, I had a comedy troupe. We were fairly successful, and had grand designs to become the next Monty Python (except we had women), Kids in the Hall (except we had women), and The State (except we had more than one woman, and I don't think we'd actually heard of them at that point). Guys, as much as it pains me to say it, if you want to become a successful comedy troupe, you'd better get used to putting on wigs.

Before infighting, death and graduation ripped us apart like the remains of a forgotten band on VH1's Behind the Music, we made a video. We got high-end cameras and a high-end cameraman from the school's public information department, we wrote...well, I wrote some stuff, but that's what led to the infighting (but not to the death and graduation), and we took over the house of one member's parents for an evening to shoot our promo video. Surprisingly, that wasn't the fun. The fun came after it was over and the cameraman and I spent a few hours on a Sunday evening putting the footage together.

Of course, at Ohio Northern University, we had tens of thousands of dollars of equipment at our disposal. It was interesting, but intimidating, and I couldn't have made it through without professional help. Now, I've got iMovie 2 and a brand spankin' new 867MHz G4 (fear not, dear debt, for I'll never abandon ye). Not exactly an evening at ONU, but much more fun and not infested with the drunken cheers of giddy sorority pledges.

"Dee zee dee zee dee zee whoooo!"

Although I love editing movies on Apple's "digital hub," I miss some of the power and convenience of the high-end equipment I once used. Oddly enough, I recently got some of that back in the most unlikely of places; Contour Design's ShuttlePro Multimedia Controller.

With it's most noticeable features, the jog and shuttle controls, ShuttlePro brings traditional analog editing tools to the Macintosh. Scrolling through your projects is no longer a matter of painstakingly dragging a slider or holding an arrow key, it's a slight flick of the wrist. The grooved rubber of the proportional shuttle wheel is easy to grasp and manipulate, as is the recessed button of the single-frame jog wheel, but what else would you expect from Contour Design? They don't just design functional products, they design comfortable functional productions. The thirteen programmable buttons are conveniently placed, spaced and contoured, allowing for easy access without having to take your eyes off the screen. Even better, the buttons are just as accessible to left handers as to rights, and how you program them will completely depend upon with which hand you intend to use it. With my right hand on the mouse and left on the ShuttlePro, the keyboard suddenly seems as outdated as...well, as the single button mouse.

I mentioned that the buttons are programmable. This is done through the Contour Shuttle Pro Control Panel which can be downloaded from Contour's website. Programming the buttons is easy as assigning functions to mouse button clicks; simply select an action for the ShuttlePro and tell the Control Panel to which keystroke you would like it to be assigned. Modifier keys can also be assigned, of course, so Command+N, for example, can easily be routed to the button of your choice.

Contour's not about to start you off empty handed, however. Presets for many popular programs, everything from iMovie to Flash to Quark XPress to the Apple DVD Player can be downloaded and installed with a simple double click. Not happy with the presets? No worries, they can still be modified.

Of course, the big question is whether or not such a device is necessary. That's kind of like asking if a two-button mouse is necessary...it depends on how you use it. The ShuttlePro hasn't made my video projects any better, but I have been completing them more quickly and I'm having more fun working on them. Using such a device makes amateurs feel more like professionals, and it gives professionals the type of controls to which they're accustomed.

So, there's really not much negative to be said here. The ShuttlePro Multimedia Controller is comfortable, it's easy to set-up and use, and it can greatly increase your efficiency. The USB chord may be a little short, but only if you don't have a hub or extra port open on your keyboard. It may be a bit expensive (it ranges from $99 at some retailers to $125 at Contour's website), but not when compared to its competition. And currently, it's not compatible in OS X; disappointing especially because iMovie 2 is one of the growing number of apps I prefer to use in OS X.

If you enjoy messing around with video or audio on your Mac, you'll enjoy the ShuttlePro...so much so that you may find yourself programming it to work with other applications as well (I wonder if you I can use the shuttle for a game of Tempest in MacMame). If I'd had this tool back in college, I could've edited that promo video without help from the Public Information Department. For that matter, I probably wouldn't have even need the help of the comedy troupe. It just would've been me onstage doing a one-man adaptation of Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger.

Hey, it might have gone over in Japan.

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