YOu don't have to use the trimmer, but I use it all the time.

I don't want to drag 5 or ten minute pieces to the timeline and then chop them up. I use the trimmer to pick the area of the video that I want then put that on the timeline. This gives me a quick rough edit, which I then refine from the timeline.

If you are doing chronological editing, say like a wedding or stage production, it might make more sense to drag the whole thing to the timeline and cut out what you don't need, but if your video is various sources or not shot in sequence, the trimmer can be your friend.

Dave T2

I often begin a project by just putting clips straight on the timeline. But as it grows in length and complexity I use the trimmer more and more.

It keeps things from getting sloppy.

kairosmatt

-Trim large clip
-Add markers and regions to media
-Create subclip
-Add video only or audio only to timeline
-Overwrite timeline
…

I used to use it fairly often, for the reasons noted by others above. But in Vegas10, I can't find any way to expand the Trimmer's display timeline - it keeps the entire clip in the display. The result is that it's impossible to move the cursor with any precision within the trimmer in order to select desired subclips. So I've pretty much stopped using it.

I see in a different thread that Sony has acknowledged there's a bug in the trimmer and will fix it in an update. I'll look forward to seeing whether they've re-established the ability to expand the Trimmer's timeline.

I have never used the Trimmer. I edit weddings and never saw the benefit. Someone mentioned in and out points in this thread and I nearly keeled over. In and out points make me flash back to linear editing (3/4" U-matic anyone?).

Granted, it I were doing complex editing, perhaps the Trimmer would be useful. But for me, dragging the video event onto the timeline and trimming the left and right works has worked like a charm for eight years.

Dave

I'm with Mindmatter and the others. It's so easy to make accurate selections from a large clip and post these to the Timeline using the I and O keys and pressing A to add (using Tab with A will allow the transfer of video and audio together or video or audio alone). It also keeps the Timeline a lot neater and more compact as you don't have long events which then need to be trimmed from one end or the other or divided into perhaps several separate parts.

Richard

Put me into the "never used it" class. But, almost all of my work is already sequential on the timeline. If I were doing complex video, like a documentary with lots of asynchronous clips, then the trimmer may be more useful.

The trimmer is a brilliant tool for long interviews and clips that you need to pull numerous sections out of. I have one right now that is 1 hour long and I am able to place markers and regions throughout the clip with detailed notes. At a glance I can go through the clip and preview/lift the sections I need during my edit. I find the visual feedback of the trimmer in Vegas (especially the waveform) invaluable. It's one of the reasons I've stayed with Vegas all these years. Everytime I try to work with a long clip in Premiere I find it much more difficult and cumbersome.

I find the trimmer functions better (especially when viewing your clips on the secondary monitor) if you right click on the trimmer clip and uncheck "show video monitor". It then functions as it did in previous versions.

By the way the trimmer is not working properly right now in Vegas10 (jumping around unpredictably) but support has identified the problem and said it will be in the next fix.

Marc

"But in Vegas10, I can't find any way to expand the Trimmer's display timeline - it keeps the entire clip in the display. "

I think what you are talking about is that there used to be space above the clip that allowed you to drag your selection? I also find that a frustrating change in Vegas 10 but if you add a marker to the clip the space will expand again.

Also if you right click on the clip in the trimmer and uncheck "show video monitor" it will display like the trimmer used to in past versions instead of the monitor above the audio waveform.

I roughly assemble all my work via trimmer. Scrub and drag, scrub and drag....

Grazie

I think the trimmer would be much more useful if IN and OUT points would STAY. It's so easy to accidentally click-drag which thus erases any points made. This applies to the timeline as well. I like "loop region", but IN and OUT points should stay put!

You can create regions from a selection on the timeline/trimmer which would allow you to "keep" your in and out points. Even better, you can create multiple regions on a single clip, thus allowing you to retain a bunch of in and out points.

This question of "what's a trimmer for?" pops up at least once a year here. I generally find that those without prior editing experience are most comfortable going straight to the timeline, while those who were "trained" on other editing systems (linear or nonlinear) use the trimmer much more regularly.

I came to Vegas after many years on linear systems (yes, CVM, including 3/4" U-Matic), followed by FCP. Linear systems require in/out points to be set before "sending" the clip to the record deck and FCP used 3-point editing as their paradigm for working within the program (probably to help users familiar with linear editing feel more comfortable).

I've been using Vegas since v4 though and have always used the trimmer because that's what I feel most comfortable with. Beyond that, it helps me get a "bird's eye view" of all of my footage when I review the various clips in the trimmer and annotate them with markers and regions. This helps immensely once you get into the edit because you know what you have to work with and you've already marked your best shots, so there's less hunting around.

However, it really comes down to what you're editing. If you're doing narrative work with clips that may contain multiple takes of a scene, review and annotating the footage in the clip prior to assembling the scene will be a huge time saver.

As others have noted though, if you're doing mostly sequential work then the trimmer is less useful.

Now for a real question: What's the Media Manager for? ;) I've never had a good use for it and have had it disabled since it first appeared (in v6, I believe).

Thanks to all those that replied to "Why use the Trimmer". I think the main reason I have not found it useful is that most of my editing is of short clips (less than a minute).

While most replies to this thread said the trimmer is a useful tool, I did find I am not completely alone in not using the trimmer routinely. I will try to keep the tool in mind and use it when it makes sense.

thanks again to all,
Rich

"Now for a real question: What's the Media Manager for? ;) I've never had a good use for it and have had it disabled since it first appeared (in v6, I believe)"

Ahhhh... I'm glad you asked :)

In the past it has never worked without a fair amount of crashing but since upgrading to an i7 and using Vegas 64bit it seems pretty stable these days. For example I am currently working on a project with 2500 clips. If I try managing that amount of clips in the project media folder the icons flash like crazy and Vegas goes haywire. Also when I scroll the contents of the bins Vegas redraws my icons continually which makes everything very tedious.

Media manager on the other hands stores thumbnails once drawn, allows you to size them to various sizes, allows custom sorting tags to find clips quickly and most important can handle 2500 clips without the system going crazy. My only beef with Media Manager is that they never added "double click adds to trimmer" and they seem to have stopped working on it.

The media manager will save you a lot of headaches on large projects. Note: PSD files cause crashing for me when clicking on them in Media Manager so I avoid them.

Marc

When you are working with Long Form video and have your timeline full of video clips. it's faster and safer to use the trimmer to select a what section you want.

If you edit LONG FORM like I do (1 hour to 2 hours) it's very helpful.

"I think the trimmer would be much more useful if IN and OUT points would STAY. It's so easy to accidentally click-drag which thus erases any points made. This applies to the timeline as well. I like "loop region", but IN and OUT points should stay put!"

I hear you here but hear this. In the Trimmer and the Timeline your IN and OUT points are still there...in a way. Precisely, the last 5 IN/OUT points can be toggled through by using the backspace button. Go ahead, try it.

Erik

Precisely, the last 5 IN/OUT points can be toggled through by using the backspace button. Go ahead, try it.

Exactly - works as Eric said. PLUS, zooming in/out the trimmer timeline is fully functional, too - check your mouse! Some mice (MS IntelliMouse) are notorious of not being able to shrink/expand the timeline as expected...

Piotr

I never ever use the trimmer. I played with it in version 6 and then closed it forever. I tend to shoot lots of short clips so doing it all on the timeline suits me better.

When I'm editing I am constantly zooming in and out with the mouse wheel, and scrolling with the Contour Shuttle Pro. But my "default" way of scrolling the timeline is to zoom out momentarily with the mouse wheel, click momentarily somewhere further along the timeline, and then zoom in with the mouse wheel. I find this quicker and better for getting an overview of the project than using the Shuttle or clicking left/right arrows etc..

I tend to use the Trimmer a lot, it has quite nice facilities as mentioned above. That together with Media Manager. I only started using Media Manger fairly recently and I like it. (Do, however, save frequently).

Nick, how about zooming with the mouse wheel, scrolling with Shift + mouse wheel and scrolling up down with Ctrl + mouse wheel. Works quite well.

Willem.

Thank you, MarcS -- unchecking "show video monitor" makes the Trimmer usable again... I can now shrink or expand the Trimmer's timeline as needed to make it possible to place markers properly.

I had never bothered to use the trimmer and, like you, couldn't see the point to it. Recently, however, I did some work on a video that had much longer than normal clips and I found it extremely useful to open each clip in the trimmer, scrub along in search of useful sections and create a pile of appropriately named subclips. Putting the video together after that was easy, for I would just search through the subclips and drag them onto the timeline in the desired order. Now I'm a trimmer fan.

I'm a huge fan of media manager, as I use it to catalogue my video clips. When I capture a tape I import all of the clips into media manager and apply tags. I have a hierarchical/nested system of tags, so while assigning fairly esoteric tags (say, 'egg laying') I am also inadvertently applying broader tags ('animal', 'reptile', 'reptile reproduction'). Later, when working on a video all I have to do is tick the boxes for the content I am after and I can assemble a pile of appropriate clips very quickly. It's like using lightroom for photos, but as it's inbuilt into Vegas I can watch the clips and drag them directly onto the timeline.