Really basic editing question.

farss wrote on 6/15/2006, 8:07 AM
This is going to sound like another whine of mine but come on, life shouldn't be this hard.

13 minute program, say 8 tracks of video and 4 of audio, the audio is mostly cloned tracks routed to buses and the video apart from the live track is lots of stills with masks, keyframed track motion etc, etc.

So the client sees the preview and wants me to cut a few seconds out of it about 1 minute in. This should be a piece of cake.
Well OK, I'm going to have to massage the audio a tad, that means unlock the audio from the vision so the audio and video are cut at slightly different points, call it a J cut if you will. But lets not complicate the basic task worrying about the audio, just being able to do the basic cut easily would make my day.

Thing is, damned if I can see a safe, quick way to do this simple task without risking screwing up things down the track (literaly).

Here's what I do know.
Ripple edit is guarnteed to screw things up.
After I split the track my grouping gets lost.
None of the stills are grouped to anything but what would I group them to anyway.

The only logical approach seems to be, ensure Ripple Edit is OFF. Split and trim out unwanted part. The using selection tool select everything downstream, then turn Ripple Edit ON and drag the end to close the gap.
Two problems here.
1) Trying to find a precise edit point is real hard with a few seconds of black between segments.
2) It's very hard to see what you're selecting with the Selection Tool when you've got lots of tiny events and lots of tracks.

I hope this is just me not paying attention in class, I hope I'll get a detention for not doing my homework, the alternative is kind of sickening to contemplate.

Bob.

Comments

Former user wrote on 6/15/2006, 8:09 AM
You can zoom in the timeline for selection. That makes it much easier. The Wheel on a wheelmouse will zoom in and out.

As far as your procedure, I have found that is one of the safer ways to approach it.

Dave T2
farss wrote on 6/15/2006, 8:22 AM
Good point about zooming in, I mean zooming with the mouse wheel I do all the time. But of course with the edit selection tool I could do an additive select by holding down Shift, no?

Of course I get to do this with the client watching, ha!

And he's an editor!

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 6/15/2006, 8:24 AM
Bob? I'm guessing you are zoomed in as per Dave's suggestion? Are you still having a problem? - G
farss wrote on 6/15/2006, 8:48 AM
Yes!
But having to zoom in to find the gap from which I need to start selecting everything else downstream is the problem!

Let me explain.

Zoom in to find the gap, hold down left mouse button to start edit selection but wait I can't get to the end of the T/L now because I'm zoomed in too far. And even worse half the tracks are off the T/L window as there's so many of them. I could minimise all of them so they'd fit but that's an awefull lot of things to do. I think if I keep dragging the selection box to the right Vegas will scroll the T/L BUT with so many tracks and things it is slow due to the amount of stuff to redraw, it has to render the still's thumbnails as it scrolls.

I'm not saying I can't make all this happen but it's painful, particularly with a professional editor watching who'se used to Smoke etc!

Bob.

/edit/

Maybe what Dave is saying is I can use the scroll wheel to zoom while I'm dragging the selection Box. Will try tomorrow, 2 AM down here, need sleep.
Former user wrote on 6/15/2006, 8:58 AM
Use "I" and "O" to mark the beginning and end. Then doubleclick between the marks and it will select everything between these points.

Dave T2
GaryKleiner wrote on 6/15/2006, 10:19 AM
Bob,

To cut out a section of the project and collapse the deleted space:

Drag a time selection you want to cut out
Ctl/A (select everything)
Delete
Ctrl/F (post-ripple to close up the gap)
Ctrl/Shift/A (deselect everything)

You will have to unlock anything in that area that's locked.

Gary
Spot|DSE wrote on 6/15/2006, 10:48 AM
Drag a time selection you want to cut out
Ctl/A (select everything)
Delete
Ctrl/F (post-ripple to close up the gap)
Ctrl/Shift/A (deselect everything)


You can also easily assign this to a macro on your shuttle or keyboard, Bob.
farss wrote on 6/15/2006, 3:00 PM
Thanks everyone.

Under control now, phew!

Bob.
Grazie wrote on 6/15/2006, 9:08 PM
So = Bob? What did you do? - G
farss wrote on 6/15/2006, 11:40 PM
Learned how to do a Ctl-A and Ctl-F, it works as advertised.

I've yet to try this out with a rolling edit. I've put the part of the project that was causing me this grief to bed for the time being, I'll try / learn some more when I go back for the final tidy up.

So today I'm having some fun with masks, weeee.

Now all I need is a Jaguar hubcap and a set of drumsticks, no, don't ask!

Hm, an ECU of a flying Union Jack would come in handy, Grazie must know where to find one of them. Ah, I know, grab camera and sticks and head down to British Consulate. With my luck they'll be no wind.

Bob.
vicmilt wrote on 6/16/2006, 4:32 AM
Yah - I eliminated the ripple icon a long time ago, and use the CTRL / F command...
BUT
I use the Shift/CTRL /F rather than the simple CTRL /F

Why?
Because it does a FULL removal and shifts markers and everything else in the project down. I use that combo on everything.
Grazie wrote on 6/16/2006, 6:08 AM
Ah, I know, grab camera and sticks and head down to

Ah-hah! No wind? At a Consulate?? Sorry . . wrong planet Bob!!


Nope don't have Jumping-"Jack" anywhere .. .hmmm...

Grazie