I think my process is fairly typical. I captured a tape, selected which clips I wanted to use, and repeated through eight hours of tape. I ended up with thirty gig of clips that I edited to make the movie. The clips themselves do not have crossfaded images, it only happens when I put them on the timeline, and it only happens about half the time. I didn't notice it until I made an AVI - some of the breaks between clips looked choppy . So I went back to the project timeline and expanded it fully. I could see a lot of crossfaded images at the beginning and end of clips where I did not use a transition. Someone else here noticed that the timeline view was not reliable when fully expanded. That doesn't concern me a whole lot, but the unintended crossfades are a problem.

" 'Deleting them was not a cure, as the new beginning or end of a clip would reveal crossfaded images as well.' I'm having trouble visuallizing what you mean by that."

Just for simplicity, let's say I place a thirty frame clip in front of another clip on the timeline. Frames 27-30 are crossfaded with the adjacent clip, even though I did not crossfade them. I delete frames 27-30. But now frames 23-26 are crossfaded. (let me know if that's more clear - I appreciate your patience.)

When I loaded the AVI into Pinnacle Studio, the crossfade would be revealed as a single frame which I could delete and then everything was fine. I checked a few clips in Studio and they looked okay, that's why I don't think the fault was with the original tape or the capture process.

Thanks again for trying to help.

Bob

Are the cross fades only there after the render? If so, do you get the same problem if you render with a different codec or to a different format?

Ian G.

The crossfades are on the project timeline, and they make it into the render. I have to expand the timeline quite a bit to see them there, but they are easy to spot on the rendered avi. I've only rendered to AVI, and haven't tried different codecs. I'm assuming the problem would still exist, since it appears on the project timeline. But I'll try it and see.

Thanks,

Bob

I'm curious as to how you placed the clips on the timeline, and roughly how "zoomed in" you were on the timeline at the time.

It is pretty easy to overlap clips just a bit when placing them on the timeline, especially if the various "snap" options are turned off and if the timeline is zoomed out to the point where a few frames are easy to miss.

Although, I'm guessing you've tried these things by now...

>I'm assuming the problem would still exist, since it appears on the project timeline.

I think that's a reasonable assumption! So, if I've understood correctly, with snapping enabled you place 2 clips side by side but a couple of frames are overlapped and you get a crossfade. You delete the overlapped frames but now a couple more have the same problem? Sorry, but I'm baffled! Is there anything different about any of the clips you're using, are you using PAL video in an NTSC project (or vice versa)? Is it possible to post any of these clips somewhere so that someone else can try and duplicate the problem?

Ian G.

I think i understand the part about deleting the frames leaving a crossfade still there. Apparently Ripple Edits is enabled. When the crossfaded frames are deleted the next clip down the line jumps back by that number of frames to take up the deleted space, and ends up with a crossfade again. Try turning off Ripple Edits before deleting.

Better yet, with Ripple Edits still enabled, drag the next clip to the right so it no longer overlaps the previous clip. It should "snap" into position making this a very easy process.

As far as why the crossfades are appearing to begin with i'm not sure. Have you tried turning off Automatic Crossfades when placing the clips on the timeline? For me it didn't make any differnece; i got no crossfades either way unless i put them there myself.

I wondered about ripple edits, but how do you get at the frames in order to delete them, without moving the overlapping clip first?

Ian G.

It's easy to do. If you see an overlapped area between two clips, you can drag the edge of one of the clips across the overlap to delete those frames. However, with Ripple Edits enabled, moving the right edge of the left clip back shortens the clip and moves the right clip back the same number of frames, so the overlap is still there, just starting sooner in the first clip. If you drag the left edge of the right clip to the right to delete those frames, Ripple edits moves the clip back to the left to fill in the space. So you still have the same overlap, just fading into a later section of the right clip.

Got it? ;)

It's possible I accidentally enabled ripple edits at some points, but I never used it intentionally. Just now I checked the project and ripple edits were off.

As gogiants alluded to, it's possible I didn't place clips properly. If snaps were accidentally turned off, this might've happened. I used keyboard commands a lot to turn things on and off, and I might've made mistakes. I never expanded the timeline a lot while editing, only after I rendered and saw the problem.

I did use the trimmer at first, but stopped using it about a quarter through the project. Since it's an undocumented feature, could it be buggy?

I started the project with automatic crossfades checked, because I thought I read on this board that it was a good thing to do (in general). But if unchecking it solves the problem, that would be great.

At this point, I think the best thing I can do is to start another project and watch what happens as I work

Thanks again to you guys.

Best,

Bob