Multiple Trimmers?

birdcat wrote on 8/11/2006, 4:34 AM
Hi Kids -

Is there any way to open up more than one trimmer at a time? I am trying to take pieces from a longer video clip and audio from a seperate source (which for some reason doesn't sync up properly over the length of the clip - Video from camera, Audio from digital voice recorder). It's just a pain to go back and forth between the two (yes I know I could do all the video and then all the audio but I really like doing things a small bit at a time).

Thanks,

Bruce

Comments

PeterWright wrote on 8/11/2006, 4:48 AM
Not two Trimmers at a time, but the Trimmer does store all opened clips in the drop down field at the top, so it's easy to change back and forth.

As you can only do one thing at a time, it's almost the same as having more than one trimmer.

There may even be a keyboard shortcut assignable ..... (not my strong area!)

You may get better results if you drag both the video and the audio to the timeline, and select and drag the bits you want from there.
vicmilt wrote on 8/11/2006, 5:31 AM
I agree with Peter.

Pull all your video and audio onto two tracks on the timeline.

Create a third "dragging" audio track where you can put small pieces of audio as you work.

Then drag your audio into place on the "dragging" track. When things are lined up properly, double-click the audio clip on the dragging track to create a temporay "blue" region. This will keep the audio in sync as you drag it upwards onto the final audio track.

Once you've got the repositioned audio and video working correctly, split the video at the head and tail of the audio clip (CTRL + "S").

Then group the split video with the repositioned audio, so you don't inadvertantly lose sync at a later point. You might even (not necessary) select the two elements and create a new clip which will now automatically be permanently in sync. (Tools>transfer to new track)

TIP: I'd definitely drag the vertical size of the audio tracks to a pretty big image so you can see obvious starts and stops of the audio. It'll make syncing a lot easier.

Syncing stuff is a bear - tedious and time consuming. Good luck.

v
birdcat wrote on 8/11/2006, 9:55 AM
Hi -

Great idea about the grouping - that will help some.

Also, didn't think to just use the combo box and switch between (I can only hope it remembers the last position...).

As for enlarging the audio to see the cues - that's a bit tougher - The video is from a friends wedding (with LOTS of background noise/music) and the audio is from the lapel mic into the digital audio recorder - And to top it all of, for some reason the audio from the DV is ever so slightly off time from the digital audio source making for lots of Ctrl-s's at quiet parts with shifts - Go figure...

Thanks again for the ideas!
GGman wrote on 8/13/2006, 11:48 PM
I asked about multiple trimmers a couple of years ago when I was editing a full length movie. I wanted to cut scenes by seeing my takes in different trimmers, such as two people talking at a dinner table and cutting back and forth between them. Each person usually has 5 or more takes and a constant reviewing of all possible takes over the whole scene becomes a lot of work. The trimmers would allow a quick scrub or review of each take. Other apps have multiple source viwers which work great for this.

I tried multiple instances of Vegas open at the same time and resized them as four small trimmers, but you cannot drag and drop between instances and it then cuased too much of copying and pasting.

My final choice was to put everything on the timeline on multiple tracks and use solo to find the best region of each take of each shot. Sort of having scratch tracks to build on first to end up on a master track on top.

Sony should forget the trimmer and use multiple source viewers like the other apps out there. There is a reason they do this.

GG