Think of an event as a singleand independent clip or scene. You apply your FXs etc to an event.

Richard

Richard, you CAN indeed apply FX to an Event, but that doesn't define what an event is, as you can also apply FX at 3 other places - Project Media, Track Header and Final Output.

As Happy Friar said, the thing that makes something an Event in Vegas' language is simply that it is an item on the Timeline.

Yes, an item or a wrapper on the timeline which may - or may not - include a certain kind of media content and which also may include several media at the same time (each single piece of media is called "take" then).

Peter's quite right, of course. In my effort to make it easier to understand I over-simplified, I'm afraid. Still, the first part of my answer holds good.

The Interactive Help file (Overview of Timeline: Step 1) in Vegas 10c reads as follows:-

"When an audio, video or still image or file is placed on the Timeline it is referred to as an event. The Timeline lets you precisely control the length and placement of events in your movie."

This definition sort of herlps, especially when read in conjunction with the other posts made here.

Richard

Why event not clip?
Ralph

Ralph,

My guess would be that "clip" indicates part of something, whereas an event could be the whole video (say a 1hour one camera shoot) , clip indicates just part of that video.

Dave T2

"Clip" usually means the media file or the reference to the media file and may mean both video and audio.

But the timeline event is just a placeholder.

An event may contain either video or audio or grafic (in Vegas one event never contains both video and audio).
An event even may contain nothing (no media at all) thus it's an "empty event".
An event may contain one clip (video or audio) or an event may contain many different clips (as "takes").
An event may contain only a part of a clip (dependend on which lenght you define for the event).

From the Vegas 10 manual: event
"An event is an occurrence of a media file on the timeline."

From Merriam-Webster: clip
"a : to cut or cut off with or as if with shears <clip a dog's hair> <clip an hour off traveling time> "

I answered a similar question on the VMS forum a while back (about why it's called an "event").

While "event" might seem like an unusual term for it, it makes perfect sense if you step back for a moment and forget about the term "timeline" in the video editing sense, and think of the much more general meaning of the word "timeline" (as non-editors would think of it). For example, picture it as a historical timeline where "events" in history are marked (this happened at this date and time...).

Better yet, think of a "timeline" in the general sense as a schedule -- where you note what should happen and when: from time = x to time = y this video (or audio, or this title) should occur. In this analogy, it seems very reasonable to use the term "event" for anything that gets entered onto a timeline. ("Let me check my calendar of events...")

So you may think you are editing video, but really you are simply creating a schedule of a succession of video and audio events.

I guess this definition works, but...... to me, an event is what I attend in order to shoot my clips!

I guess this definition works, but...... to me, an event is what I attend in order to shoot my clips!

MW's got you covered on that one too:
Event: "something that happens"

Both taken care of on one foul swoop! :D

People tend to define things based on their experiences, not on the definition of the term. IE tonight @ church the word "translate" came up. The initial thought is changing from one language to another. Mathematically it means move. In the term it was used, it meant move but nobody things of it that way any more even if it is a proper definition.