Video events trim

AFSDMS wrote on 10/28/2003, 3:01 PM
I have a bunch of still digital images shots (animated with Pan/Zoom) and I'm putting them together end-to-end on a single video track. Allows me to easily take advantage of the auto-crossfade.

As I am tweaking the ends of the clips to match the voiceover I find that sometimes I cannot access both ends of all video events since the ends overlap one another. (Since these are digital stills, I really don't need to select the entire clip and slide it around.) It seems that one video event, regardless of what I have selected, is always on 'top' and sometimes I cannot get the cursor to 'understand' that I want to trim the edge of the video event right below it. (I hope someone can figure out what I'm trying to explain here!)

What I resorted to is opening up the A/B track display for this video track so that the clips appear on the alternating A and B tracks/rolls. That way I always have access to adjust both ends of a video event. However, that takes up a lot of vertical space that I don't want to loose. (The project has 5 video tracks and a half-dozen audio tracks.)

Went through the Help looking for 'modifier' keys to see if I could get the cursor to see the 'buried' end of some of the clips, but that doesn't seem to exist.

Any help appreciated.

Wayne

Comments

jetdv wrote on 10/28/2003, 3:07 PM
You could always use the numeric keys to trim.

Numpad 7 <-- select the beginning of the selected clip
Numpad 9 <-- select the end of the selected clip
Numpad 1 <-- trim one frame left (longer at beginning, shorter at end)
Numpad 3 <-- trim one frame right (shorter at beginning, longer at end)
Numpad 5 <-- quit editing mode
Chienworks wrote on 10/28/2003, 3:10 PM
The only time i've had that problem is if either the right ends of both or the left ends of both clips coincide exactly, or if i somehow accidentally have three or more clips overlapping. If it's just two clips that overlap with a crossfade then whichever edge you click on should be the one that you can move.

If on the other hand your overlap is so small (either a short duration or you're zoomed out too far) that the ends are indistinguishable from each other, there is a visual indicator on the cursor. When you get the mouse pointer close to the end of a clip it turns into a horizontal two-headed arrow. There will also be a rectangular box near one arrowhead. This box indicates which clip's edge you are touching. If the box is around the left arrowhead then you will be moving the edge of the event to the left, and vice versa. Maybe paying more attention to this box would help.
AFSDMS wrote on 10/28/2003, 3:41 PM
". . .there is a visual indicator on the cursor. When you get the mouse pointer close to the end of a clip it turns into a horizontal two-headed arrow. There will also be a rectangular box near one arrowhead. This box indicates which clip's edge you are touching. If the box is around the left arrowhead then you will be moving the edge of the event to the left, and vice versa. "

That's actually what I was watching while doing this. For an overlap the mouse cursor would indicate I could trim one end, but when I moved the mouse to the other side of the overlap area I couldn't get the cursor to indicate I could trim the other end. I zoomed in a fair amount and made sure (I thought :-) that the cursor wasn't picking up changing the Velocity envelope or anything else.

I've learned my lesson to watch the cursor shape very carefully to see what it thinks I want it to do.

So you don't remember ever not being able to adjust an end of a video event when it is overlapped by another video event and performing a crossfade? I'll bang on it a bit more tonight and see if there is something about my setup (or vision) that's goofed up.

Thanks.
GaryKleiner wrote on 10/28/2003, 3:58 PM
I think what is confusing you is a quirk in Vegas (it's a bug actually). It certainly had ME confused for a while. To wit:

When you have two events overlapped, you can hover the cursor over the beginning of clip B and see the normal (rectangular) trim tool. However, when you hover over the out point of clip A, you instead see the (quarter-round) fade drag tool! It will FUNCTION as the normal trim tool though.

Gary Kleiner
AFSDMS wrote on 10/29/2003, 5:16 PM
Thanks Gary, you are SO right.

I went to check out what I was seeing and discovered EXACTLY what you described. Only then did I head to the Forum and see ;you had discovered the same issue.

Because I really WAS paying attention to the cursor, I thought that the crossfade icon appearing was an indicator that something would happen that I didn't want to happen. But, with an automatic crossfade I guess you could come up with a rationalization for them using that icon to actually trim the length of the clip. Kind of a stretch though :-)

So the icon that they display, I would argue, is actually a bug. It should be the correct event trim icon, even though the result of the trim will also inpact the automatic crossfade length.
AFSDMS wrote on 10/29/2003, 5:21 PM
I agree with Gary that this is a bug and posted it as a Production Suggestion.