How to splice clips together in VS11

[OregonJohn]

"you just drag the clips you want down to the time line next to each other and they are joined"

I guess it is a semantics problem then. Joined to me means there is no break between the two clips on the timeline. To you, and many others I guess, joined means two clips are next to each other on the timeline.

What I want is an easier way to create chapters. If my timeline clips are broken where I would like chapters I can use the Menu feature to automatically mark those clips as chapters.

If I have twenty little clips all those get marked as chapters, but it just might be that I only want four chapters, so I have to remove 16 of them or remove all chapters and manually insert the four I want. It just seems intuitive to me to do that on the timeline...

must be semantics.

[sjj1805]

What is happening here is a breakdown in communication.
You are asking how to join clips together - in the old fashioned days that would have been like using a splicing block and a pot of glue.

What in fact you really want the answer to is how to create chapter points.
These have nothing to do with joining odd bits of film together and chapter points can occur anywhere (before anyone pipes up about i-frames - don't - that is far too deep for this post). Chapter points can be where two clips join each other or they can be at some point within a clip for example half way along (or a third, quarter or 1/240th - anywhere!)

Most users create their chapters in the authoring stage but you can create chapter points in the editing stage.

[OregonJohn]

"Most users create their chapters in the authoring stage but you can create chapter points in the editing stage. "

How cool is that! Thanks.

[Brain Champagne]

There are reasons why having two clips adjacent to each other is not the same as having them combined as one single clip.

I understand that without a transition they'll play seamlessly.

BUT...

As an example, I have one clip that I split into a 1 second segment followed by a 10 second segment.

They'll play through just fine. But if I want to add a transition before the 1 second clip the program won't let me, because the clip's too short.

It would be a lot of work to find where, in an hour-long source video, the clip appears, then to use just the right frames. It'd be a lot easier just to un-split them, but there doesn't seem to be a way, other than creating a new video and re-importing that. Which may introduce a bit of distortion.

[sjj1805]

........ I have one clip that I split into a 1 second segment followed by a 10 second segment.

They'll play through just fine. But if I want to add a transition before the 1 second clip the program won't let me, because the clip's too short........

When I am faced with this scenario what I do is make the shorter clip longer.
There are various ways to do this, the one to use will depend upon the content of the clip concerned.

1. Turn one of the frames into a snapshot (Still image).
Replace the 1 second frame with that still image. You can also bring it to life by adding a Ken Burns effect to it.

2. Change the playback speed of the clip so that it becomes slow motion.

3. Copy the clip to the library.
Drag the clip down to the time line an ODD number of times (1 - 3 - 5 - 7 etc.)
Now play clip 1 forward.
Clip 2 reverse
Clip 3 Forward
etc.

It is all a matter of diverse thinking