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I posted this a while ago but thought I'd try again. I often have lots of little clips that I've pulled from large video files using multitrim. That works great - thank you Ulead. But the problem is that I still have to carry around the multiGIG source video. Yes I can perform "save trimmed video" on each of the clips then reinsert, but this is very tedious especially when one might have hundreds of clips. Anyone know a way to automate this. I'm on VS11.5 plus. Thanks

What????

Sorry, I'm not following your process... I don't understand what you're trying to keep, or why you have to keep multi-Gig files that you apparently don't want.

And, I don't understand what steps you're trying to automate... I mean... audio/video editing requires a lot of "human interaction".

I have 3 hours of video captured from a DVR onto my hard drive. I have walked through using multitrim video to select dozens of clips that tend to be just a few seconds each. I then build my movie in the video studio editor using those clips. That's all fine, but to do editing, manipulation, etc, VS handles each of those clips by tying them back to the original 3 hour video. So even though I only have 5 minutes of clips, it needs the 3 hour original video to work on the project. As I said in the original post, I can perform a save trimmed video on each of the clips, but that is pretty annoying when one has a hundred clips. I could also render the video out and work on that, but that won't really let me manage transitions and audio the way one needs to. I hope this better explains the situation. What would be ideal is if when one pulled a clip in multitrim if it gave you the option right there to save the trimmed video.

If the imported video is mpeg-2, then the only thing I could think of would be to use VS's split-by-scene. That will create hundreds of small files, but they will be real files, as opposed to the virtual ones created by multi-trim.

Thanks Ken - I think that won't be exactly what I hoped for but it's better than what I was doing.

No, I didn't think it was exactly what you are after as you will still then also have to trim/edit the small files, and delete those you don't need. But at least that way you can actually get rid of the original multi-GB video and free up some space it you are running short of it.

I am not at my own computer right now so unable to see if this will work or not but will only take you a few seconds to find out.

VS11+ introduced a new option on the File Menu - smart package.
Try it and let us know. I would have thought it would need a copy of the big file, but until you try we will not know.

Thanks sjj1805

I'd had high hopes for Smart package but alas it just gathers up all the source files (stills, audio, video) and puts them in one place. Handy, but not quite the ticket.

I agree! Not being able to save trimmed videos in batch, other than manually doing each file is a PAIN

If you were a politician, perhaps the easiest way to do it would be to use an intern....

Other than using split by scene, you could split the file into fixed length segments during capture, which might or might not get you closer to what you need than split by scene.

The main hassle is that with the source material being mpeg2, you're going to lose a bit of quality each time you render the clips. If it was DV25, there would be no problem in trimming clips and archiving them without any worries about picture degradation.

These days, however, storage is relatively cheap, so you shouldn't run out of hard drive space, and maybe on the positive side, it might even be easier to keep track of one large source file than many smaller clips.

You are correct, the government should bail me out on this.

Actually I'm not the person who cares about the hard disk space, I want to save these files on my hard disk as clips, in AVI format (shot this as DV).

I did the by scene thing and have 80 scenes. So I have to save trimmed video 80 times.

Its George Bush's fault I have to do it 80 times ... and think about how much longer I will be keeping my computer on to save those manually, the ice caps are going to melt because of the global warming I cause. If AlGore was Presient of Corel, he would invent an automated process and would proclaim that he was the inventor of "batch computer processing."

Didn't Al also invent the Earth? I'm sure he claims ownership if it too..

You are correct, the government should bail me out on this.

Look at all the trees you're going to cause to be destroyed now. They have to cut down at least 5 or 10 more rain-forests to have enough paper to print all this extra money.. That also could bring the deficit to a numerical amount yet to be invented. OHHH, there's another one for good ol' Al...

It was actually his great grandfather that invented the earth but the liberal media gives Al the credit for it.

I'd also like to point out that Al may not like polution, but I have a theory that its the polution that allows him to be able to walk on water, and without it he would sink.

You could try the following.

Make your segments as you did. (without crossfades or any other transition - this is important). Then burn this file as AVI or mpeg as you prefer. This will be your future video-file to carry along. Then use this file in VS and let VS automatic make new segments/clips with "split by scene" and do the further editing..

Something I started a while back that I would definitely put in your "best practices" workflow. It is inevitable that we take more video than we ever use. The very first thing I always do after capturing my dv-avi file is to create a project with the bits you want - as randazzo suggests - without transitions and create a video file from that. Then delete the original capture. That ensures that you will only keep the source files with the video you need, saving alot of disk space. One thing I didnt know - thanks for the tip randazzo - is to split by scene when importing the source file to get back to all the clips. Its just working out the right sensitivity.