Timeline issues with grouping, dragging, and auto ripple

anthony-chiappette wrote on 3/8/2021, 10:40 AM

I seem to be having a lot of trouble with auto ripple, copying, dragging and grouping.

I bring 2 videos with audio into the timeline on separate tracks. Since they are split in the camera, i just bump them end to end and create a group for each video/audio event. I do the same for the second video/audio event (I use two cameras). I then align the the clips using the audio tracks so they are properly synched. I remove them all from the group and create a new group of the aligned video/audio tracks so now the whole timeline is treated as one. I have auto-ripple turned on, but it seems i have to keep turning it on and off depending on what I am doing.

I am using picture in picture, so one event goes on the normal video timeline and one event is a picture in picture. I use a third video timeline and use repeats of certain clips for a full screen close-up of slow motion replays.

I am noticing odd behaviors. I split the events, sometimes remove the beginning or end of certain clips. I even select (Using D) then drag over the events, and then CTLR drag them to copy so I have a duplicate of certain events, after they have been clipped/split from the original event. I seem to sometimes end up with a duplicated copy of the remaining video /audio events at the end of the timeline which are almost fully crossfaded into each other (while still keeping the original copy of the event).

When I ctrl/drag to duplicate a clip, I get the duplicated copy. Then I ungroup the events in that clip so I can delete one of the video events - this is to move the remaining video event to the other video timeline I use for close-up slow motion. When I ungroup the event and select the video portion I want to remove, I either delete it or drag it out of the group and then delete it. However, with auto ripple turned on, if I try to delete that video portion, the whole event gets deleted, if I try to drag it away, the whole group gets dragged. I have to turn of auto ripple to be able to do something on that single video portion.

If I have already put together a part of the video, then drag the remaining joined video further out to make room for what I need to do, moving the grouped unedited video will also move events earlier on in the timeline and mess up the entire timeline. I once finished a whole video, which took almost 2 hours to edit, and rendered it. When I viewed the rendered video, it was all messed up because earlier events were moved out of place when I dragged the unedited video at the end of the timeline.

What's also happening with auto ripple is if I ctrl/drag a clip to stretch it, the events in that clip, or one of the events in the clip will slip out of place and I have to realign it.

I have to keep selecting events, grouping and ungrouping and turning auto ripple on/off and watch the timeline very carefully when putting together my videos. This is seriously adding extra work that should not be necessary. I never had any issues with this in previous versions.

It seems that with every update more and more things get screwed up. Isn't auto ripple only supposed to affect the events AFTER the editing point? It used to work that way. I have been using VMS for quite a long time, since the very early versions and also Vegas pro which I have purchased a few versions of that when it was a Sony brand. Those always just worked and never crashed. Now it seems there is no more love for this legacy piece of software. I am very accustomed to and comfortable with the workflow since I have been using this for so many years, but it's getting awful now. And then to remove DVD architect? Some people still like physical media (like me). I don't need an explanation of why this was done, I've read all about it.

I hope this isn't too confusing. I had a little difficulty trying to explain what is going on. :)

Comments

Jack S wrote on 3/8/2021, 12:13 PM

@anthony-chiappette To prevent events moving when you don't want them to, select them and click the lock icon on the timeline toolbar.

Regarding your auto-ripple problems. You must be doing something wrong because I've never had problems like that. Make sure that the event you want to move isn't grouped with any other events. You can see which events are grouped with a particular event. It's bounded by a blue border when its grouped event is selected.

anthony-chiappette wrote on 3/8/2021, 2:37 PM

I do create a group of the entire event to start with, once the 2 videos are synched. If I split a piece from that group, does the split event remain part of the original group? I've always used the same workflow for many years and never had this issue until now. I have selected the entire group of items I have already edited and locked them to the timeline, and some of the events that are locked still do move with auto ripple on when I move events later down the line.

I just now opened my project to continue editing, and I am greeted with this ...

The 2 larger events with the red arrows: Where the first arrow is was 2 sperate videos that i had joined together and grouped. Now this second video has been faded into the first. The second arrow is is a copy of the second video, now stretched out to 25% and faded from beginning to end and moved way down in the timeline. How does this happen?

Now I have selected the last part and dragged it, and as you can see from the 3 thick blue lines, those were events that are being dragged with the seletced video at the end of the timeline. I have never had this issue before.

anthony-chiappette wrote on 3/8/2021, 3:18 PM

I think I see where the problem is stemming from. It does have to do with the grouping function. It seems that when you create a group and then split off part of that group, it's still is part of the original group, so when I made the split and then selected the split events to drag and copy, it also made a copy of the second video in the group and copied over itself. This would not be expected behavior. Again, it was 2 different videos grouped together, say part 1 and part 2. I made a split on part one, then ctrl/dragged the split part, when I selected the split event from part 1, it also selected part 2 of the original grouped video and whatever I do on the split event also happens on the latter part (part 2) of the original video. This seems like a bug to me.

So I guess I just need to NOT group the videos together and just align each section when the time comes.

See example below. Video A3 and A4 and B3 and B4 are grouped together. I split a piece off of the beginning of A3 and B3. When I select the piece that I split off from A3 and B3, that gets highlighted, but so does video A4 & B4 (where the 2 green arrows are), so now whatever I do to the split off piece will also be done to A4 and B4 at the end. Tis can't be the way it is SUPPOSED to work, that makes no sense.

So I guess I just will leave auto ripple on and not use groups. Hopefully this should make things easier.

Jack S wrote on 3/8/2021, 5:18 PM

@anthony-chiappette That's bizarre. I wonder if it's something to do with your track arrangement. How did you get video, then audio, then audio then video? I've just tried to do that and it won't let me. That's not a classical arrangement, as far as I know.

anthony-chiappette wrote on 3/8/2021, 6:15 PM

It's not easy to get it into that arrangement. I like to keep the audio tracks next to each other, it makes it easier for me to align the audio to synch the 2 videos. I usually drag the video in the timeline and it goes to whichever video/audio track it wants to, then I have to keep moving the audio or video up and/or down until it's the way I wan it.

Jack S wrote on 3/9/2021, 5:12 AM

@anthony-chiappette OK. Gotcha.🙂