still pictures and time length

eric321 wrote on 9/27/2003, 9:11 AM
I appears when I drag a still picture from the Explorer onto a video track in Movie Studio, it automatically makes the length 5 seconds (or 4;29). This brings up 2 questions for me:

1 - How can I change that default time?

2 - Once a still picture is on the video track, how can I "excatly" set the time to a different length, say for instance 6 seconds or 8 seconds or something. I can drag one end or the other, but that's imprecise. It seems like it's snapping to a grid, but I can't see anywhere on the screen where it says the time length of the still as I'm dragging it to change the length. I suppose I can strech out the timeline so I see more precise units, but it seems cumbersome if I have dozens of stills that I want to change the length of. I'd like to be able to select the still, then enter the time in seconds into a dialog box or something.

Thanks for any help offered ...

Comments

JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/27/2003, 2:38 PM
You should get into the habit of zooming into the timeline until the grid is meaningful to you. As you zoom in, the grid will get more precise. If you zoom in until each grid mark is one second in duration then you will get very accurate when you resize the still image, as it will always snap to a boundary that is one second apart.

You can change the default duration with an undocumented feature in VideoFactory but I don’t know if it works for MovieStudio. Since Sony won’t provide a downloadable demo, those of us who have VideoFactory but are not upgrading to MovieStudio because we already upgraded to Vegas+DVD cannot help those of you who are using MovieStudio because we cannot see how it works. I hope they change this but until then, I really can’t tell you how MovieStudio works, only how VideoFactory use to work (sorry).

~jr
GerryLeacock wrote on 9/27/2003, 3:58 PM
SB has the [option][shift][preferences] to unhide the internal options. So how do you do it in VF?
benannas wrote on 9/27/2003, 4:03 PM
After using the demo version of Video Factory for months I finally bought Screen Blast. I also like to use still photos set to a precise time. The method JohnnyRoy was talking about still does work with screenblast.

Back on 3-25-03 IanG posted this: Go to "Options" and then select "Preferences" while holding down the shift key. You'll get an extra tag - "Internal". In the "Select only Prefs containing:" box, type "still" (without the quotes). You'll find that eh fieldname ntDefVideoStillLength (the default still display time) has a value of 50,000,000 (5 secs). You can set this value to anything between 1 and 600,000,000 (60 secs). I saved these instructions in a safe place because whatever time you set it at it will stay that way unless you change it again. I hope this helps.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/27/2003, 4:44 PM
Yep, that was it.

Some options that were available in VideoFactory 1, disappeared in VideoFactory 2 and you had to use the [shift-preferences] option to get them back. I just don't know what may have reappeared in MovieStudio 3.

Does MS3 have the trimmer and the ability to adjust the preview quality and the speed control? If not those are the other ones I turned on in VideoFactory 2. The field names are:

Show Advanced Features = TRUE
Show Speed Control = TRUE
Show Trimmer = TRUE

These can all be gotten to by searching for the word “show”. And now for the obligatory disclaimer: “Use at your own risk!” ;-)

~jr
BrianJ wrote on 9/27/2003, 8:56 PM
MS3 doesn't have them turned on but I was able to activate them the way you described. I read about it in one of your previous posts. Same for the default still length. There's a field on the 'internal' preferences tab to change the duration. The default value is 50,000,000.
BrianJ wrote on 9/27/2003, 8:59 PM
The 4;29 in your example refers to the 29th frame of second 04. There are 29 frames per second, and the number to the right of the semicolon tells you the frame number. The time format is HH:MM:SS;FF, where FF is the frame number. Hope this helps! I've only been using this software for a week and instead of asking questions I'm already able to answer a few easy ones.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/28/2003, 7:49 AM
> I've only been using this software for a week and instead of asking questions I'm already able to answer a few easy ones.

Brian,

I keep telling people that SM3 is easy to use because I remember that I picked it up rather quickly (when it was VF2), but I was already using Pinnacle Studio at the time. How did you find the learning curve for SM3? Was it easy? Did you have prior experience? I’m just trying to gauge how accurate my memory is because I’ve been using Vegas for about 2 years now so I’m not a good judge of what’s easy anymore.

~jr
BrianJ wrote on 9/28/2003, 8:58 AM
I was fairly proficient with Studio 7, but I woudn't say I was an expert by any means. I upgraded to Studio 8 and bought a DVD burner, and things went downhill from there. I could never get Studio 8 to work. It always captured OK, but I ran into all kinds of bugs editing and trying to author/burn DVDs. I was never able to complete a project successfully using Studio 8. As far as the learning curve for MS3, For me it was pretty easy to learn the basics and get up and running. But I can tell there's lots more to learn as I continue to use it. This forum has been very helpful in that regard. I haven't had to post many questions because I've been able to find most of my answers searching the archives. Someone that doesn't already understand the basics of editing video might be a little intimidated by MS3's interface because all the tools are right there at your fingertips. Having all these controls on the screen and not really undestanding what they all do might be a little overwhelming.
JohnnyRoy wrote on 9/28/2003, 12:50 PM
Yea you have to get use to directly manipulating things in MS3 instead of searching the menus for the functions. They’re right there in front of you, you just have to understand what all the little squiggles on the screen mean. Thanks for the feedback.

~jr