How I would like to see the Trimmer...

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rmack350 wrote on 10/5/2007, 1:38 PM
True that you just need one frame and you don't actually play video in the trimmer and preview at the same time.

I tried out the single-frame faux source monitor in the trimmer just now, and I don't think that's playback in the same sense that the preview window gives. First of all, the single frame in the trimmer looks more like 256 colors-you can see some pretty huge banding in it. <edit>I just played side by side display in the MS Media Encoder. It wasn't great performance, but it does it, so I guess it's possible for Vegas to have dual source and output previews.</edit>

The Vegas Preview is most likely an overlay. By that I mean that the system treats it a lot like a second monitor screen. It gets its own slice of video memory and processing time on the graphics card, and this is part of why it doesn't look like you're getting two real preview windows. But this is not to say that something usable couldn't be done because, as you pointed out, only one view has to be active at a time.

If Overwrite is only to be used when adding media then I don't think the option needs to be present on the timeline's automatic crossfades button. Overwrite and Insert from the trimmer, media pool, Vegas Explorer, or Windows Explorer should just ignore the automatic crossfade setting and the auto ripple setting.

The Preview window [i]could[i] show you the surrounding frames resized to fit side by side instead of squeezed, but this might be difficult for users who like to keep the preview window small since the dual frame views would be even smaller. Still, it's not bad. The other option is to keep the trimmer open all the time, taking up real estate, and rewriting it to accept timeline output. I think that the trimmer as a second frame viewer isn't very likely.
[r]Evolution wrote on 10/7/2007, 8:12 AM
I had UnSelected 'Automatic Crossfades' and thought I was doing 'Insert Edits' but as this topic got deeper and I started digging deeper... I noticed that I was NOT doing true 'Insert Edits'.

As noted in other threads, It seems that Clips from the Trimmer are being added over-top of the media on the timeline but not Overwriting them. If I move the newly added clip... the one underneath is still there.

This kind of works for me as an 'Overwrite or Insert' Edit. It's just weird that the underlying media stays in tact.

Rosebud's Overwrite Mode Script does as promised and Deletes the underlying clip... although I am yet to see a problem arise from leaving it there.

Thanks to you guys Very Detailed posts... I've now got Vegas doing 3point Overwrite/Insert edits... sending media to the correct time frame on my timeline.

If only I could make the Video & Audio go to my already selected tracks... a happy(er) camper I would be.
rmack350 wrote on 10/7/2007, 1:21 PM
I think that the A/B style where media is overlaid on top of older media is kind of an old legacy of linear video editing (not film though). The thing is, it works. Do you need insert and overwrite modes? Sure, sometimes it'd speed things up but for the most part an A/B overlay method does the job. People get along quite well without them.

The fact that you can set up an A/B view of a track was actually a gesture to accommodate what you're calling "seasoned editors". For them, automatic crossfades can be disabled and there's a key command to insert a crossfade. This is a little less that what Media100 had - in M100 you could (and probably still can) use a single keypress to insert exactly the same transition you previously used, even down to the number of frames. So that keypress might insert a 7 frame page peel every time you pressed it.

The main test of whether things are working is the number of steps it takes to get the result you want. So if you find yourself manually splitting an event on the timeline before adding media from the trimmer then insert and overwrite modes would give you a shortcut. Similarly, if you find yourself manually disabling automatic crossfades then overwrite and insert options would give you a shortcut.

It seems to me that the feature most lacking is a three-point edit variant where you select the in and out on the timeline and then either an in or out in the trimmer. Adding from the trimmer would just fill the selected space on the timeline. I could be missing it, but it seems like Vegas won't do it directly. You need to split the timeline event and then add as a take to get the same effect.

Edit: I just wanted to acknowledge that I ran two instances of Vegas side by side yesterday and had both playing to the internal preview window. So Vegas can definitely have two preview windows open and running at the same time. It doesn't seem like there's much reason not to have separate Source and Output displays, except perhaps for the fact that it uses up a lot of real estate. Definitely not the best solution for everyone.

Rob