Kommentare

Tim L schrieb am 06.03.2007 um 23:52 Uhr
Action,

You *can* group events together:
1. Zoom out on your timeline so you see the entire thing.
2. Click on the "Selection Tool" at the top of the window. The icon looks like a mouse pointer with a dashed rectangle around it.
3. Click and drag a box that selects all your clips. You don't have to totally enclose an event -- just touching it with the rectangle outline will include it.
4. Right-click inside the selection, select "Group", and select "Create New". (Alternatively, you can just press the "G" key from the timeline, without right-clicking)

Your events will now all be grouped together, and can be moved on the timeline left or right as a group.

HOWEVER, and I think this is a weakness of Vegas/VMS:
If I understand correctly, event grouping is just a flat, single-level grouping. You can't have nested groups, ie. group a few related clips together, then include that group into a larger group, etc. When you group an event, any previous group associations it had are lost. This includes the fact that video and audio from a clip are initially grouped together, so they move together on the timeline.

Lets say you have 4 clips on the timeline, each with audio and video. Initially, each audio event is grouped with its corresponding video -- they move together. Now lets say you group those 4 clips together. You now have a group of 8 items -- 4 video, 4 audio. Now if you "ungroup" that group, you end up with 8 individual items: the video and audio pairs no longer have any relative grouping. Drag one of the video events, and its corresponding audio stays put. You can regroup them manually, and the audio turns pink if you move the video out of sync, but the original association is lost unless you manually re-create it.

Still, I use grouping a lot, but lack of nested groups is a big weakness in my view.

Also, once you have created a group, you sometimes want to move or adjust an item within the group without messing up the whole group. At the top of the VMS window is an "Ignore Event Grouping" icon -- looks like a padlock with 4 green rectangles behind it. Enable this icon, and you can play with individual items within the group, without losing the group associations. When that tool is enabled, it acts like the individual items aren't grouped. But as soon as you disable that icon, the group acts like a group again. Useful for L-edits and J-edits for audio, or adjusting crossfades, etc.

(Please, if I'm missing something here or don't understand correctly, somebody let me know! I would love to be wrong about this single-level grouping thing.)

Tim L
Action schrieb am 07.03.2007 um 03:27 Uhr
Thanks Tim, got it, and I follow you. Some other editors have that problem. I'd be interested to read anyone else's thoughts on your single level grouping too.
Action schrieb am 25.04.2007 um 10:55 Uhr
More into it now and you're correct Tim. What I think VMS may need is, when you group some clips, they appear with a colored border around the group and stay way, even though you might add them into a bigger group.

This bigger group also needs a different coloured border and when you ungroup it, there's your original group, or groups.

Btw what are L and J edits?
Thx.
Chienworks schrieb am 25.04.2007 um 17:14 Uhr
More commonly referred to as L and J cuts ... these are when you transition the video first (L cut) and the audio transitions later, or transition the audio first (J cut) and the audio transitions later. They're so named because of the shapes of the letters, and the usual practice of placing the video event above the audio event.

Oh, a faster and surer way to select all events is Ctrl-A. It's easier than zooming out and lassoing them with the selection tool. It also makes sure you don't miss any.
Tim L schrieb am 25.04.2007 um 21:40 Uhr
Yeah, Kelly's right about the terminology -- J-cut and L-cut.

Two clips, "a" and "b":

J-Cut -- audio from "b" comes in before video from "b"
Video: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Audio: aaaaaa bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
(the b's kind of look like a J shape)

L-Cut -- video from "b" comes in before audio from "b"
Video: aaaaaaaaaaaa bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
Audio: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa bbbbbbbb
(the a's kind of look like an L shape)

This kind of thing is used all the time on TV and in movies, and you almost never notice it unless you are looking for it. The basic psychology of it is that instead of interrupting the continuity of both audio and video and the same time, you maintain continuity of one or the other -- smooths out the transition from one point of view to another. Also, when person A is talking, you can see person B's reaction to what is being said, etc.

Tim L
Action schrieb am 26.04.2007 um 06:49 Uhr
Thanks guys, great diagrams Tim. You learn something every day we never heard it called that, just used 'audio (or video) lead xxx frames' Wish they'd update that grouping business.
Cheers.