Visual indication of the existence of head & tail?

NickHope wrote on 1/24/2012, 7:08 AM
From what I remember, Premiere 6 had a feature whereby colour of the little triangles in the corners of timeline events indicated whether any head or tail exists in the media beyond the displayed ends of the event.

As far as I can tell, such a feature doesn't exist in Vegas. I found myself really needing it recently, re-editing a big old project and deciding that I want generally longer events, but not knowing if this is possible without individually "testing" each end of each event.

Am I missing something? As far as I can tell the little triangles in Vegas (white at the bottom and blue at the top) don't signify anything other than the end of an event.

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 1/24/2012, 1:19 PM
I couldn't find anything that will help, although I took another trip through the "internal" options and found that you can change things so any selected event is outlined, rather than just having the background change. This outline is quite prominent, and I rather like it.

This got me to thinking.

I have written several "audit" scripts that look for minor user errors (like leaving small gaps between events. These scripts either insert a marker at the problem location, or else highlight the problem events. The latter has always been an issue because on a long timeline with lots of events, it has been hard to see which events are a problem.

With that as background, I could easily write a script that would take either the first selected event or (my favorite) the event on the first selected event that lies under the cursor and then either select it if there is more video at either end of the event, or deselect it if the event is showing everything from the original media. I guess the problem with this is that it wouldn't let you know if the extra was at the beginning or end of the event (or both). I suppose I could instead place a marker at the begin or end (or both) to signify that additional video exists.

That's the best I can come up with, at the moment.
NickHope wrote on 1/25/2012, 2:32 AM
That's probably more trouble than it's worth John. I mainly wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something, as this seems to be a fairly basic feature that I thought most NLEs should have. I may make a feature request (although I don't want to distract the SCS team from the important stuff!).

That's a useful internal preference. For anyone searching for it, it's called "Event Selection Outline Thickness". It outlines selected events in light blue. However I set it to 2 and 3 and found that it also highlights other random non-selected events with a light blue 1-pixel outline, which is confusing, so I think I'll leave it off for now.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/25/2012, 6:07 AM
The little triangles signify the end of the media, not the event. If a video is 1 minute long then at one minute will be a little corner cut off the event when you hit the 1 minute mark, turns in to a triangle when you go beyond that.

Just looking at the event will show you if you've gone farther then the media's length.
PeterDuke wrote on 1/25/2012, 6:29 AM
A blue triangle with sloping hypotenuse seems to mark the end of a video event.

A green triangle with sloping hypotenuse seems to mark the end of an audio event.

A grey triange with its hypotenuse horizontal marks the physical end of the media, repeated as necessary if stretched far enough.

I don't see the need for the first two, unless it is indicate the bit to be selected when you fade the end. Still unnecesary in my view; you just look for the fade cursor pointer.

I notice that if you drag the end of an event, the end snaps to the grey triangle whether snapping is enabled or not. I am not sure whether I like that or not.
NickHope wrote on 1/25/2012, 6:37 AM
I know about those grey ones. I'm talking about the little blue and white triangles in the corners of an event:

NickHope wrote on 1/25/2012, 6:41 AM
Peter, I think the corner triangles just help to visualise the start and end of events. They'd be more difficult to distinguish otherwise. But it would be very useful if their colour signified whether it's the end of the media or not (like what that other NLE does).
NicolSD wrote on 1/25/2012, 2:49 PM
Nick Hope wrote:
"Peter, I think the corner triangles just help to visualise the start and end of events. They'd be more difficult to distinguish otherwise. But it would be very useful if their colour signified whether it's the end of the media or not (like what that other NLE does). "

Actually, the clear notch that appears in the illustration marks the end of a file. If you place a sound file, it will stretch to the full length of the file but if you pull it further, you will have a notch indicating where the file ended and restarts playing again. The same can be done with other type of events.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 1/25/2012, 9:46 PM
The colored triangles are the fade markers at the end of the event. Those are what you grab to fade things.

I never really needed a marker to know if there's a head/tale to the event just because I purposely record extra so there is a head/tale to the event. Now that you mentioned it, it would be a nice bullet point on a future release (patch or 12) but I'm not sure how useful I'd find it.
Editguy43 wrote on 1/25/2012, 10:41 PM
@johnmeyer Where would one find those audit scripts, I am very interested in the one that would show small gaps between events. Sometimes I have lots of events on the timeline and can not see the small gaps.

Paul B
johnmeyer wrote on 1/25/2012, 11:22 PM
Where would one find those audit scripts, I am very interested in the one that would show small gaps between events. Here it is. It is one of the first scripts I wrote, but I still use it for every project. It only looks for gaps on the first selected track. It then puts markers at every location where it finds gaps. As you can see, the script defines a gap (or overlap) as 6 frames or less. You can edit the script and use a larger or smaller value, if you like.

I also have a script that looks for any events that are completely "underneath" another event.

/**

 * This script finds short blank gaps or overlaps between events

 * on the first selected track. 

 * 

 * Written By: John H. Meyer

 * Date: December 2, 2003

 *

 **/



import System;

import System.IO;

import System.Windows.Forms;

import Sony.Vegas;



// Change this line if you want a different threshold



var Gap : Double = new Timecode("00:00:00:6").ToMilliseconds(); // 6 Frames



var lastevnt : TrackEvent;

var MyMarker : Marker;        // Global function used in main program and in function

var evnt : TrackEvent;

var trackEnum : Enumerator; 



try {



    var dirty = 0;

    var track = FindSelectedTrack(); //Use this function to find the first selected track.  



    //Go through the list of Events

    var eventEnum = new Enumerator(track.Events);

    var lastevnt = TrackEvent(eventEnum.item()); //initialize lastevent variable



    while (!eventEnum.atEnd() ) {

      evnt = TrackEvent( eventEnum.item() );



      var test1 = evnt.Start.ToMilliseconds();  

      var test2 = lastevnt.Start.ToMilliseconds() + lastevnt.Length.ToMilliseconds();



      // To only test for gaps only, use the first line below instead

//    if (    ( (test1 - test2) > 0.05 )  && ( (test1 - test2) < Gap )    ) {            



      if ( ( Math.abs(test1 - test2) > 0.05 )  && (Math.abs(test1 - test2) < Gap)  )  {





          if (!MarkerExist(test1) ) {

            MyMarker = new Marker(evnt.Start);

            Vegas.Project.Markers.Add(MyMarker);

            MyMarker.Label = "";

          }

           

          if (test1 > test2) {

            MyMarker.Label = MyMarker.Label + "GAP********";

          }

          else {

            MyMarker.Label = MyMarker.Label + "OVERLAP****";

          }

          dirty = 1;

        }



      lastevnt = evnt;



      eventEnum.moveNext();



    }  // End While eventEnum



    if (dirty == 1) {

        Vegas.UpdateUI();  

        MessageBox.Show("Gaps and/or overlaps were found.","Completed",MessageBoxButtons.OK,MessageBoxIcon.Information);

    }



} catch (e) {

    MessageBox.Show(e);

}





function FindSelectedTrack() : Track {

  trackEnum = new Enumerator(Vegas.Project.Tracks);

  while (!trackEnum.atEnd()) {

    var track : Track = Track(trackEnum.item());



    if (track.Selected) {

      return track;

    }

    trackEnum.moveNext();

  }

  return null;

}





function MarkerExist (dStart) : boolean {



  var markerEnum = new Enumerator(Vegas.Project.Markers);



  while (!markerEnum.atEnd()) {

    MyMarker = markerEnum.item();                    // MyMarker is a global function in this project

    var MarkerStart = MyMarker.Position.ToMilliseconds();



    if ( dStart ==  MarkerStart ) {

      return 1;

    }



  markerEnum.moveNext();



  } // End while markerEnum



  return 0;

}
NickHope wrote on 1/25/2012, 11:46 PM
Superb script John! Thanks for that. Do you have one which shows totally overlapping (eclipsed) or duplicate events by any chance?

I can't work out why the triangle at the upper right of an audio event is sometimes blue and sometimes green. Anyone know?

While we're on the subject, the spacing of the little black triangles underneath the timeline thumbnail previews makes no sense to me. They're useful at high magnification, when you get one per frame, but when you zoom out, they just start dividing up the length of the event into a random number, which apparently serves no purpose. It would be more useful if they flipped to something like one for every 10 frames, one per second.
PeterDuke wrote on 1/26/2012, 5:32 AM
"I can't work out why the triangle at the upper right of an audio event is sometimes blue and sometimes green. Anyone know?"

It seem to be blue for boys, oops, blue for video and green for audio for me. Do you get otherwise?
PeterDuke wrote on 1/26/2012, 8:08 PM
Today the triangles at the top of both audio and video are blue. At the head only, there is also a white triangle at the bottom.

I dunno!
Former user wrote on 1/26/2012, 8:20 PM
When you change the events edge to an effect (such as dissolve or fade) the triangles change color.

Dave T2
Tim L wrote on 1/26/2012, 10:06 PM
The white triangle at the lower left of an event is an "Event Snap Offset" which you can drag and position anywhere in the event. (In help, find "Events >> Event Snap Offset".)

Normally, the leading edge of the event "snaps" to other events, markers, etc. However, you can drag the white triangle somewhere else in the event and the snap effect will occur there instead of the front of the event.

Maybe you have a sound effect, and you want the peak of it (rather than the start of it) to snap to markers you have placed. Maybe you have a title that fades in and out, and you want the midpoint of the title to snap to markers you have placed. Cool little feature that I would guess many people aren't aware of.
PeterDuke wrote on 1/26/2012, 11:18 PM
Very interesting Tim. I'll see if I can remember it when the need comes up!

It seems as if the blue triangles correspond to end of media and green to the end of the event if it has been stretched (causing a repeat) or trimmed, but only for audio, not video.

This is something like the indication Nick was looking for. However I normally trim all the tails of my clips automatically by 13 frames to get rid of a recording artefact, using a script, but the triangles on the audio remain blue. That is, they are blue today, but yesterday they were green. (?) Green triangles also occur with trimmed audio that has been added but the triangles on generated media (like normal video) stubbornly remain blue.

They blue/green triangles seem to be a bit unreliable as indicators of the presence of a head or tail. However, if you see a green triangle then it is probably safe to say that there is a head or tail, unless you also see a grey triangle, which indicates that the event has been stretched.
NickHope wrote on 1/27/2012, 2:31 AM
Lol Peter, you're (very understandably) way up the wrong path :) ... I get it now... To expand on what Dave T2 said, the triangles are green if there is a fade (or transition) at the end of the event, and blue if there is not. And that's true for both video and audio. This is at low magnification. If you zoom right in the triangles become grey. The confusion comes from the very short fade that Vegas puts in by default on audio clips based on the "quick fade length" setting in your editing preferences. If you get rid of that, the triangle goes blue.

That is actually useful indeed, because I can now see which of my audio events need a little fade putting on them to stop risk of clicks, and I can also see which video events have little fades on them but shouldn't. Cool. Would still love an indication of invisible head/tail though!

Tim, thanks for the reminder about snap offset. I can't see me ever using it but nice to know it's there.
PeterDuke wrote on 1/27/2012, 4:55 AM
"Lol Peter, you're (very understandably) way up the wrong path :) "

Nothing new for me!

Yesterday I new nothing of these little triangles, and yesterday I cudnt even spel enjnear.