These would be great time-savers...

mickbadal wrote on 7/11/2007, 12:28 PM
I've been working with VMS for about 4 months now and have learned a lot (thanks in no small part to the folks that frequent this forum).

There's a couple small things that I haven't been able to find solutions for, and would be real time-savers if I could figure them out:

1) Is there some shortcut key or default option that will allow me to set fade-in or fade-out (the upper left/right corner thingy's) for BOTH the video and associated audio at the same time? (so I don't have to do first one, then the other)

2) My Sony digital camcorder timestamps the video (I can see the date the video was taken on the camcorder's preview screen during playback.) How do I see that timestamp information in VMS after it has been captured?

3) How do I easily get one event's edge to "snap" to another event's edge as I'm dragging? I know you can set event's to snap to markers and grids, and I have those turned on, but more often I desire to have one event's edge automatically align with another (for example, event A is on left, event B is on right in a different track; as I drag event B to the left, event B's left edge would auto-snap to event A's right edge). Event edges don't seem to snap, and I'm forced to zoom in really deep, then try to eyeball these to line them up.

I may have more, but that's the main ones I can think of right now!

I'd like to give before I get, so here's one you may not know:

If you desire to align two video events (such as when you capture use two cameras to film something, and now need to sync the respective video streams on the timeline), use the little-known "snap offset". It appears as a little triangle at the bottom left of an event. For each event, move the triangle over to the frame that you desire to sync. Then drag the events, until the triangles align. They should auto-snap as you drag.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 7/11/2007, 2:48 PM
1) Never noticed a way to do this. Sorry.

2) Add the timecode effect to the clip in the Project Media pool. This will pick up the camera's date/time code. It will only display the time though.

3) Hmmm. The full version of Vegas 7 does this quite nicely, snapping event edges across tracks. Must be the Studio version doesn't.

You can get around it pretty easily though. Click on the edge you want to snap to. This places the cursor there. Then drag the other event and it will snap to the cursor. I've been using that trick since the Vegas 3 days.
Tim L wrote on 7/11/2007, 5:03 PM
3) Hmmm. The full version of Vegas 7 does this quite nicely, snapping event edges across tracks. Must be the Studio version doesn't.

VMS 8 and VMSP 8 are now supposed to have the colorful, snappy things that we got in Vegas (pro) 7.

Tim L

4eyes wrote on 7/11/2007, 6:14 PM
2) My Sony digital camcorder timestamps the video (I can see the date the video was taken on the camcorder's preview screen during playback.) How do I see that timestamp information in VMS after it has been captured?
Sony's new cams have in the setup menu (somewhere's), the capability of putting the date/time as a sub-title. Depends on the program your using to import the dvd whether it's displayed or not.
Himanshu wrote on 7/11/2007, 6:39 PM
For the timecode - look for HDVInfo (by the author of HDVSplit). It requires AVISynth to run, so download that also. This may or may not fit in your workflow, but it's a solution.