Insert clips at a specific point and other novice questions

[bodkin button]

Hi.

I am a complete novice at video editing and wonder if anyone can help.

Having been sent some DVD's of family events I thought it would be a nice idea to edit some of the scenes into a sort of Music Video for my mum's birthday, featuring her favourite song.

I found a free copy of Media Studio Pro on a magazine and installed that, but I think it was a cut down version as it had no way of *capturing?* the files from the DVD, besides on reading this forum for the past week or so I thought I would be much better off trying the Video Studio software as it seemed to be more fitting to my novice level.

I'm trying out the free download which is a great benefit, as I had no idea if I was even capable of doing this sort of thing and so far I'm enjoying it.

I have a few questions though that I can't see through and the free download has no help menu, so I'm fumbling around a little at the moment trying to see how things work.

I've found out how to put the DVD footage into the library, splitting scenes, and stuff like that.

I've put the song on and tried dragging some scenes into the time line and it plays well. However I can't understand the audio. I'm sure at first I could split the original audio off the video track - I found a button and I also right clicked for a menu, but now after fiddling that option is greyed out, so if anyone can tell me where I went wrong I would be grateful.

I'm also a little stuck with the positioning of the clips. Is there a way I can put a clip into a specific point of the song, I'm thinking of repeating a scene for the beginning of the chorus. I really wanted to position this and then build other clips around that, but every clip seems to rush right to the left hand side and play in order. Is there a way of inserting them to a cue or maybe something like a place holder? Or a space that can be filled later?

I also really like the slow motion for clips, I found out about the shift key while dragging keeps the clip the same length, it's nice for scenic shots and I think helps me fit the tracks to the music, but can I slow down the transitions as well?

When I join one clip to another it still looks a bit dis-jointed, I found a fade to black transition for the preceding track, but is there something similar for the next clip so it fades in rather than *jumps*?

Sorry I know that's a lot of questions and hopefully if I do decide to buy this programme the help menu will answer a lot, but if anyone has any idea if these things are possible it will help me make up my mind to buy and try to finish this project or give it up as beyond my capabilities.

Thanks.

[NoM.O]

A good place to start might be to download the user manual, which you can get as a PDF here - http://www.ulead.com/vs/documents.htm. It's far more helpful than the help files anyway. To answer some of your questions though....

I've put the song on and tried dragging some scenes into the time line and it plays well. However I can't understand the audio. I'm sure at first I could split the original audio off the video track...

No need to split the audio, if you click on a clip to select it, then look towards the top of the screen. Underneath where it says 'video' you'll see 2 sets of numbers, the clip duration, and the clip volume which will be set to 100. Just next to that you should see an icon that looks like a speaker with a cross through it, that's your mute button (for the selected clip only)

I'm also a little stuck with the positioning of the clips. Is there a way I can put a clip into a specific point of the song, I'm thinking of repeating a scene for the beginning of the chorus. I really wanted to position this and then build other clips around that, but every clip seems to rush right to the left hand side and play in order. Is there a way of inserting them to a cue or maybe something like a place holder? Or a space that can be filled later?

There's probably more than one way of going about this, but one way would be to use the overlay track instead of the main video track. this will allow you to position the clip(s) anywhere on the timeline.

I also really like the slow motion for clips, I found out about the shift key while dragging keeps the clip the same length, it's nice for scenic shots and I think helps me fit the tracks to the music, but can I slow down the transitions as well?

After inserting your transition, while it is still selected, look toward the top of the screen again and look for the duration box. To change the length of the transition just raise or lower the number until you have the effect you want.

When I join one clip to another it still looks a bit dis-jointed, I found a fade to black transition for the preceding track, but is there something similar for the next clip so it fades in rather than *jumps*?

Place a black colour clip between your two video clips, then use the crossfade transition on either side of the black clip to have one fade out and the other fade in. Be sure to change the length of the colour clip so it is absorbed by the crossfades. EG If you want one second of fade out and one second of fade in, make your black clip 2 seconds long and your crossfades one second each.

peace.

[bodkin button]

A good place to start might be to download the user manual, which you can get as a PDF here - http://www.ulead.com/vs/documents.htm. It's far more helpful than the help files anyway. To answer some of your questions though....

:::bangs head on desk:::

Now why didn't stupid here think of that? Great idea and will do that, I'm sure it will be of great help.

Thanks too for all your other answers, I had seen the volume control, but hadn't thought it applied only to the clip - great tip.

I'm going to have a go with the overlay track for positioning - I'm still novice enough to not understand the difference between that and the main track or which to use when, but the manual and a little study time will fix that. Great to know it's possible though, that's the important bit.

The colour clip is also exactly what I need, not sure where it is yet... but it's not going to take me long to find what I'm looking for now I know what to do.

Thanks so much for the quick reply, am off to download and do some homework before I fiddle some more.

[NoM.O]

Not a problem.

One important thing I forgot to mention is that you can't use transitions on the overlay track(s). So you will need to arrange your clips in the overlay track, and once finished, select all your video clips (normal Windows shift-click method) then drag them up into the main video track to apply your transitions.

It sounds like you have the right attitude though. Do a bit of reading, play with it a bit, and if you have further questions, this place is the biggest help file you can get... You'll find most questions you come up with have been asked and answered already, but if not, people are usually more than happy to help.

peace.

[bodkin button]

Ok, yeah, that makes sense - might take me a little while to actually *do* it, but I think I can understand the principals of where I'm going and what is achievable in time. I now know that this programme seems to be the one for me.

Playing around with things will be my main focus first, now I have the manual that is going to be so much easier than all the guess work I have been doing.

I think I'll put this actual project on the back burner for a while and approach it again when I have gained a bit more knowledge and confidence.

I'm sure I'll have lots of questions in the future as I haven't even started with formats and codecs and ..... Yep, I have a lot to learn.

Thanks again for a great friendly approach in this forum.

[Ron P.]

You might want to read through From Camcorder to DVD tutorial.

A Recommended Workflow has been developed to help guide you through the mine-field of video editing, as it pertains to Ulead's VideoStudio Programs. They can be viewed here:
Recommened WorkFlow for VideoStudio

There are several tutorials found in our Video Products Tutorials section.

[bodkin button]

Ooh, lovely!

Those are going to be a great help as I need to know where to start and the best way to work.

Thanks very much.

[Ken Veal]

To find a colour clip:-
Go the right of "Video"
Hover over the drop down arrow +" Gallery "shows
Click on it
Select Colour
Click on the black
Drag it to the story board
regards Ken

[bodkin button]

Found!

Thanks so much, these colour clips look very interesting to use and offer me some really interesting possibilities.

Off to do some more fiddling - this is such fun!