Fade in at very beginning of clip, Studio 10

[Derrick_Fiddle]

My apologies first of all if this is a commonly repeated thread. At the very beginning of my FIRST clip, I want the video to fade in. The "clip" tab gives options for fading in/out but from what I gather, this is only for audio (which I need muted as to not overlay my audio track). There's a transition for fade out but all transitions have to be inserted in between clips. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[Ron P.]

Hi Derrick, welcome to the forums..

Drag a color clip from the library onto the storyboard/timeline. This would be the first clip in your video production.
Then insert your video clip after it, and from the Video Effects/Transitions drag a fade-in, or cross-fade between them.

[Derrick_Fiddle]

hey thanks alot man, much appreciated. I'm somewhat new to video editing and someone had suggested Pinnacle to me. I bought Pinnacle video 10 and I was extremely disappointed. I found it aggravating with all the bugs it has and thought it was very non intuitive. So far, Ulead's working out great for me. Anyhow, thanks again.

[Bushdoctor]

Gday,

Even though the above described workaround is very handy and helpful,
it has certain disadvantages.
For starters, the cross-fade or fade-to-black transitions do their magic
in the first half of their timespan.
(Or second half if you're dealing with a cross-fade-in from black).
Which means that if you need a slow fade-out of say 6 seconds,
you need to set a fade-out of 12 seconds, because the second half
will be blackness.

A second disadvantage is that if you need to use a 12 second fade-out
because you want a 6 second result, the inserted colorclip needs to be
12 seconds. You would expect half since it spans half the transition
effect.

A third disadvantage is that all of the above applies to the video only.
Not the audio. So even if you manage to get a nice video fade-out,
your audio will keep running. The available audio-fade only applies to
the last second orso and can't be adjusted. As far as I can tell.

So, that blows.
I need my clip to slowly fade to black and then the next clip has to start
once the screen hits total darkness.
And I need that second clip to start on the first video layer, otherwise
i'm in trouble later on.
(Sure, I can make it work by using an overlay halfway the fade-out, but thats no good).

It's very strange that there is no normal Fade-in/Fade-out option
that can be applied to a single clip.
It seems to me this is one of the basics in editting.

Very bloody great program though.
Greets,
Bushdoctor.

PS. I assume there is no solution to my problem, but if anybody
happens to have one: PLEASE let me know. Thanks.

[sjj1805]

Please view:
How to fade in/out

[Bushdoctor]

No offense sjj1805, but have you actually read my reply?

As described in my post, I am familiar with the method shown in your nice picture,
but I actually pointed out some problems with it.

Thanks for the link though.

[Black Lab]

For starters, the cross-fade or fade-to-black transitions do their magic in the first half of their timespan.
(Or second half if you're dealing with a cross-fade-in from black).
Which means that if you need a slow fade-out of say 6 seconds,
you need to set a fade-out of 12 seconds, because the second half
will be blackness.

The fade to black is really a crossfade that fades to black first, then fades into the next clip. If you want a true fade to black then you need to place a black color clip on the back end of the transition. A transition of 6 seconds will give you 6 seconds of fade, whether it be a crossfade or fade to black.

A second disadvantage is that if you need to use a 12 second fade-out because you want a 6 second result, the inserted colorclip needs to be
12 seconds. You would expect half since it spans half the transition
effect.

Not true. Drag a color clip onto your timeline. Make it 6 seconds long. Drag a different color clip onto the timeline. Make that 6 seconds long. Now put a crossfade between the two clips and make that 6 seconds long. How long is the entire clip now? 6 seconds. How long does the fade last? 6 seconds.

A third disadvantage is that all of the above applies to the video only. Not the audio. So even if you manage to get a nice video fade-out,
your audio will keep running. The available audio-fade only applies to
the last second orso and can't be adjusted. As far as I can tell.

You can adjust the fade in/out of audio several ways. The obvious is the fade in/out buttons on the Video tab. You can change the default fade times in Preferences. Another way is to use the Rubber Bands and keyframes while in Audio View.

[Bushdoctor]

Thank you for your elaborate reply Black Lab.

The fade to black is really a crossfade that fades to black first, then fades into the next clip.

This is exactly what i'm talking about.
If the first half of the effect fades the visible picture to black
and the second half fades from black to black(!),
then you end up with an effect that's visible for only the first half of the timespan.

I just did some tests and I might have to review my oppinion on the cross-fade.
It seems to do a more accurate job than the fade-to-black, in the way
that it uses the entire timespan for its transition.

I still stand by my views on the fade-to-black transition though.

I had no idea about the possibilities with the audio settings.
Thanks very much for pointing that out.

Greets,
Bushdoctor.

[Black Lab]

I never use the fade to black. I always use a crossfade to a black color clip. Maybe that's why?

[Bushdoctor]

Drag a color clip onto your timeline. Make it 6 seconds long. Drag a different color clip onto the timeline. Make that 6 seconds long. Now put a crossfade between the two clips and make that 6 seconds long. How long is the entire clip now? 6 seconds. How long does the fade last? 6 seconds.

This is very interesting.
I've done some more experimenting and when inserting the cross-fade transition,
it physically pulls both clips together to overlap within the timespan of
the cross-fade.
Hence it working much better than the fade-to-black for these purposes.
Marvelous.

[Bushdoctor]

I think I've got a useful tip!

When I finished my video, I was surprised at the amount of artifacts
showing during the transition. (These are small ugly distortions in the video pixels).

This was the first time for me using an inserted color-clip. Before that I
used my own created black jpg.
I went back and switched the colorclip for my own black jpg and voila:
A perfect transition without any artifacts at all.

I don't know if this is standard, or perhaps has to do with the low quality
of the source I was working with, but I'm guessing more people will run
into this issue at some point.
I hope this info will be useful.

Happy Edits!
Bushdoctor.

[Black Lab]

I don't know if this is standard, or perhaps has to do with the low quality of the source I was working with

I'm guessing it's the source or possibly your settings. I've never had a problem with transition artifacts when using color clips.

[daniel]

Am I really the only one that does this with the brightness filter?
Scissors-cut the video after the number of seconds required, Keyframe 0 at -100 keyframe"last" at 0 and voilà.

[Bushdoctor]

Hmmm.
I think I have considered that option... I am just not sure if that's what you mean.

Are you suggesting dropping a filter on the video which you set to in/decrease brightness
at the first/last few seconds, resembling a fade-in/out?

It didn't feel right having that filter sitting there doing nothing for most of the video,
but if you say it works.... perhaps this comes in handy.
Thanks for the input Daniel.

[Black Lab]

Determine when you want fade to start
Cut clip at that point
Drag Brightness filter to clip
Adjust filter
Took 25 seconds

OR

Drop in color clip
Drop in crossfade
Took 10 seconds

Does not seem like a big difference, unless you have lots of fades in a project. It could add up.

Like Maddrummer used to say, "It's not what's best, it's what works best for you".