How to remove gaps when adding multiple clips at once

nateconlon wrote on 1/23/2021, 10:21 AM

I'm often dealing with uncompressed videos which have been broken down into lots of smaller clips - usually 70+ clips. When I import them into vegas and place them on the timeline, there's always a 1 frame gap between each clip. I was wondering if there is some kind of option/preference I can change which will prevent this or if there's a way to remove these gaps en masse.

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Jack S wrote on 1/23/2021, 10:34 AM

@nateconlon There's an option in the event context menu called 'Close gaps'. You need to select your first event (clip) on the timeline, right-click it and select 'Select events to end' (or Ctrl+A) which will highlight them all. Then right-click on any one of them and select 'Close gaps'. See if this does it for you.

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Former user wrote on 1/23/2021, 11:15 AM

And make sure you have Quantize to Frame enabled.

Not sure why there is a gap unless your source frame rate does not match your project frame rate.

nateconlon wrote on 1/23/2021, 1:21 PM

Thanks for the help guys! Although the gaps appearing is a lot less consistent than I may have indicated. After looking through the timeline a few times, I've noticed that sometimes there aren't any gaps between clips. I think this might have to do with the clips I'm using being 59.293fps as I've noticed that gaps are occurring between frames. Is there anyway I can avoid this? I've tried setting my project frame rate to an integer but that doesn't seem to help, I'm guessing I may have to change the fps of the clips themselves

Former user wrote on 1/23/2021, 4:28 PM

You can't and don't want to change the frame rate of the clips. 59.293 is normal for NTSC HD video. Use the Match Source option in Vegas to match the timeline to your source and that should be fine. I don't know if that will fix your gaps, but it might.

nateconlon wrote on 1/23/2021, 5:00 PM

Ah I see, that's good to know, thank you! Although I'm afraid matching my project settings to the source doesn't help with the gaps. The "Close Gaps" option is also greyed out when I tried what Jack suggested. I'm starting to think I may have to fix this issue manually haha.

Kinvermark wrote on 1/23/2021, 5:09 PM

Uhh que? Double NTSC is 59.94 NOT 59.293 That is a very strange number and indeed likely to be causing problems.

wwaag wrote on 1/23/2021, 6:24 PM

Most likely you are using footage that is variable frame rate which is causing the problem of the footage not ending on frame boundaries. In order to check, open internal preferences and search for "quan" and set “Show Unquantized event end” to TRUE as shown here.

If there are unquantized events, they will look like this on the timeline with a red bar.

If you have Vegasaur, there is a tool for quantizing events. If not, there is a free tool in the HappyOtterScripts Free Tool Library, Quantize to Frames, that can help. Here's the link. https://tools4vegas.com/quantize-to-frames/ and a screen grab of the UI.

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nateconlon wrote on 1/30/2021, 1:20 PM

Apologies for the slow response, life has been busy. Unfortunately, the "Show Unquantized Event End" option yielded no results. I appreciate all the help so far though. Please let me know if there is any kind of information I can supply that might be helpful.

PeterDuke wrote on 4/22/2023, 1:41 AM

Thanks for the responses in this thread which led me to the solution to my problem.

I have been a long-time user of Vegas but recently started getting problems of gaps of about 1 frame between many but not all clips when I dragged them to the timeline. I spent hours looking for the cause.

It turned out to be due to the default project properties of Vegas being set to an NTSC template (29.970 or 59.940 fps) when the source clips were to a PAL template (25 or 50 fps). Vegas asked me if I wanted to match the project properties to my source, which it did, but apparently after it had put them on the timeline. A PAL clip will almost never be a multiple of an NTSC frame in length, hence the gap at the end.

The solution is to not rely solely on Vegas to set the project properties to match the source for you, but to first make sure that the default project properties use the same video standard as your clips, before you drag them to the timeline.

vkmast wrote on 4/22/2023, 3:13 AM

@PeterDuke glad to see you're still around and posting again.

PeterDuke wrote on 4/22/2023, 5:04 AM

Thanks VK

In retrospect, I think I should have recommended:

Do not rely on Vegas to set the project properties to match the source for you, but first make sure that the default project frame rate is the same as your clips (use say Mediainfo if you are not sure of the source frame rate) before you drag them to the timeline. It is OK to accept Vegas's offer to do the matching if only the frame sizes are different.

Another strategy may be to drag the first clip to the timeline, let Vegas set the frame size and frame rate, and then drag the remaining clips to the timeline, being sure not to leave a gap at the end of the first clip.

 

CaptainObvious wrote on 7/8/2024, 1:19 PM

Had the same problem while adding multiple video clips to a timeline, and Vegas 20 would always add a gap in between video clips. Didn't matter what the framerate was, or if the clips were the same framerate as the timeline.

Vegas 15 worked flawlessly with the same clips and project settings.

Compared my settings between Vegas 15 (working) and Vegas 20 (not working), and found that my Ruler settings were different (Options -> Ruler Format). Vegas 15 ruler settings were "Time & Frames", while Vegas 20 ruler was set to "SMPTE Drop (29.97 fps, video)", which must be the default setting because I've never changed it.

So I set my Vegas 20 ruler format to "Time & Frames", and the problem disappeared. No more gaps between clips. Doesn't matter what the clip framerate is, or timeline framerate, or differences between the two. No gaps.

Howard-Vigorita wrote on 7/8/2024, 2:10 PM

Just checked vp18, 19, 20, and 21 and switching the ruler to time & frames still puts in gaps. Turning off Quantize to Frames fixes it for me with all the ruler formats. Don't need to do that with vp16 and 17 to get no gaps.