You should also set the preview quality to "best".

Ian G.

I don't think I totally understand.
I am looking at a stream of video in the time line.
I would like to 'stop' at a particular view and stay there a little while.

I have already captured the whole stream......

thanks,
Allen

Take a snapshot of your particular view as explained, cut your video where you want the still, drag it to the right (along with the sound if you want it to stay in sync with the video, or without the sound if it's for instance music that can continue, and insert the still picture. Make the still picture longer by taking the end of the frame and drag it out to the right.

In Vegas you'd use velocity envelopes to do this. In Movie Studio, you'll need to capture a frame of video and import it to your timeline as allyn suggested. Here are the steps:

1. Import your video, select the video event by clicking on it.
2. Move the cursor to the "halt" frame you want stop at. Alt+left/right arrow moves the cursor a single frame at a time.
3. Hit the 's' key to split the event.
4. Use the instructions above to capture the "halt" video frame at the cursor as a still.
5. Select the event that is to the right of the split and drag it down the timeline a bit.
6. Import the "halt" video still, move it so it butts against the event to the left and stretch it to the length you want it.
7. Move the right event so it butts against the end of the "halt" video still.

Thanks all for your inputs, but I still have a question or two.

If I understand correctly, I must import a 'still' portion of the .AVI file I already captured? I am concerned that once the whole thing is played it won't look as smooth as if I could 'freeze' a single frame and hold it. There is no other way?

That being said, once I capture it again I understand the split function, but how do you move the entire following time line to the right? I tried several methods and I can only get the adjacent frame to move.

Again, thanks for the help,
Allen

> how do you move the entire following time line to the right?

Right click on the event and choose "Select events to end" in the context menu. Now drag these events to the right and they should all move together.

Or use Insert | Time to insert a fixed amount of silence into your project, starting at the cursor location.

Sony TSW,

Thanks....can you provide a little more guidance regarding the 'still' functionality? Is there a way to freeze a specific frame (as viewed in the preview screen) for a few seconds?

It has already been captured and resides as part of a avi file.

Thanks
Allen

> Is there a way to freeze a specific frame (as viewed in the preview screen) for a few seconds?


This is what you are *simulating* within your Movie Studio project by following the above instructions.

You'll end up with three video events, right next to each other:
1) the first part of your avi video file, up to and including the frame you want to freeze
2) a still file of that single freeze frame that you saved as a snapshot from the preview window (.png or .jpg), stretched to the time duration you want it to be frozen at that frame
3) the remainder of your avi file

When you play it back from the timeline, you should see the end result that you want in the preview window. The video shows motion (event #1 plays), then it freezes for a bit on a single frame (event #2 plays), then the motion starts again (event #3 plays).

Thanks for the clarification.
However, when I tried to right click the preview screen with the frame I want to stretch, there didn't seem to be any function as described previously......what am I missing?

I looked over the previous posts, and something just doesn't add up. I already have captured the stream; its a .avi file and its sitting on the time line in MS. I stop at the image I want to stretch (looking at it in the preview window).....then I try the above.....??

Thanks

> I stop at the image I want to stretch (looking at it in the preview window).....then I try the above.....??


You're only part of the way there. I am assuming here that you only have one media file in the timeline and that is your AVI file (let's not complicate things, OK? you can practice this in a new empty project, this won't ever change your AVI file).

So now you've moved the cursor exactly where you want it in the timeline, at the exact frame you want to freeze, right? (steps 1 and 2 in my outline in my first post in this thread).

This is where you split the event, type the S key (step 3). You'll now see two video events side-by-side in the timeline. It might be hard to tell this without clicking the cursor to a different location. If you do click elsewhere, be sure click near the split to reset the cursor at the split before proceeding (it will snap the cursor to the proper location if you are very close). You should seeing the frame you want to freeze in the preview window.

Now, move (don't drag) the mouse pointer so it is over the preview image in the preview window. You are going to take a snapshot of this image and save it to a separate file (this won't take much disk space). Right click anywhere on top of the image and check the "Display at Project Size" checkbox in the menu, this ensures you'll get a full size image. Now click the "Save Timeline Snapshot to File" icon (looks like a floppy disk, just to the upper right of the preview image). Give it a filename and save the image to disk, it will probably be a .jpg (the other choice is .png but either is fine). (step 4)

Move the mouse back to the timeline. Click on the event that is to the right of the cursor and move it down the timeline to the right (make sure the mouse is a pointer not the resize icon). This is to make some room for your freeze frame plus a little extra for now. (step 5)

Use the explorer pane to navigate to the folder that you saved the .jpg (or .png file) and drag the file to the timeline, You may need to click the explorer's Refresh button if it is in the correct folder but you don't see the file. When you drag the file, place it so it is between the two events that contain your AVI video, and on the same track. Move this .jpg event to the left so its left edge just touches the right edge of the leftmost event (it will snap to it when it gets close). Now hold the left mouse button down and drag the right edge of the .jpg event to resize it the length you want. (step 6).

Click on the rightmost event (the second portion of your AVI file) and move it to the left so that its left edge just touches the right edge of the still image. (step 7)

You should now have three video events side-by-side: the first part of your AVI, the freeze frame, and the last part of your AVI.

Now, if you have included the audio then you'll have a little gap in the audio you'll want to deal with. The length of the gap will correspond to the length of the freeze frame. You may want to check out some of the audio tutorials in the "Show Me How" for ideas. You may need to ungroup the audio from the video if you need to adjust the audio separately.

I hope this makes this process clearer. Good luck and have fun!