B-roll editing in VS X2

stasbobkov · Post by **stasbobkov** » Wed Oct 01, 2008 7:59 pm

What would be the best way for a simple cut edit in X2? I can see only one "normal" video track in the Track Manager and seven Overlay Tracks with PiP effect applied to each of those tracks by default. Is there a way to delete this attribute from an ovelay track so I can use it for my B-roll?

Thanks.

Black Lab · Post by **Black Lab** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 12:28 am

There are a couple of ways. To change the default go to File>Preferences and on the Edit tab put a check in the Use Fit-to-Screen as default in Overlay Track box.

Or, with a clip in an overlay track simply right click on the image in the Preview Window and choose Fit to Screen.

stasbobkov · Post by **stasbobkov** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 4:06 am

Thanks Jeff.
I understand that Fit-to-Screen feature can stretch PiP to full screen but the question is how to turn this video effect completely off when I dont need it.
The reason I decided to try this program is it can work with native AVCHD using Smart Render and I was surprised to find out that there is only one track on the timeline that allows you to do that. As soon as you place a clip on either of the overlay tracks, each frame of it gets recompressed. It takes 10 times more rendering time then if a clip would be on the video track and some picture quality degradation occures as a result of this processing.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
It's a beautiful all-in-one program but it's difficult to work when you have only one track available.

Post by **Ken Berry** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 4:39 am

I am not absolutely sure of what you are trying to describe. However, I suspect that when you place an AVCHD clip in one of the overlay tracks, it gets recompressed and degraded in quality, you may be described the creation of a SmartProxy (i.e. standard definition mpeg-2) file for that clip. But you can turn off SmartProxy if you have a sufficiently powerful computer to be able to handle AVCHD in its native format. I just dragged an avchd clip into one of the overlay tracks with no problem and no recompression as I have SmartProxy deactivated.

I might also add that I personally would recommend that you don't use SmartRender with AVCHD. I am not sure that it was ever developed with AVCHD in mind. But try for yourself to see if it produces an acceptable result. If not, you might be stuck with a full render and the time that takes. But I would not be worrying about loss of quality in that re-render if you maintain the original properties (i.e. high quality) of the AVCHD. While there will undoubtedly be some degradation, I think that one re-render would not make any loss in quality visible to the naked eye.

stasbobkov · Post by **stasbobkov** » Thu Oct 02, 2008 6:26 am

I rendered an AVCHD file with Smart Proxy turned off and it does the same - the output file is different in size from the original one and it still takes way longer for my PC (Q9550@2.83MHz) to render a file when the clip is on the overlay track. When a clip is on the video track - rendering is faster then real time (it's basically just copying the file and re-wrapping from MTS to MPG, I guess).
And this makes sense, because if a video filter or another effect (pip in our case) is applied there is no way to create an output file without recompressing each and every frame of the source footage.

I'm not saying that the quality loss is huge but the question is why? Why do I need to waste CPU power for rendering a video effect that I had no intention to use?

Thanks