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The problems I have seem to be inherent to the program, and not my material, as they happen in every thing I do with X2. Specifics of latest video are; a stage performance shot with two cameras ... one still on the overall scene laid down in the main track, and one roaming laid down in the first overlay track.

Once the two tracks were in synch with each other, (timewise), ripple editing was engaged and locked down. Then audio from both camera's were split off by dropping volume to zero on each track respectively, then put to two separate WAV files. (Problem 1 below) Then those two stereo WAV files were edited and mixed down to a single stereo WAV file, brought in as the "Music" track.

Problem 1 is in volume control for splitting off the audio. With the track NOT to be used selected in Audio mode, and dropping the volume slider to the bottom, plus clicking the speaker icon for the track to mute the preview, seemed to work for creating the WAV file of the other track, but, after the new mixed down WAV file was laid in, the volume on the two video tracks had jumped themselves back up to full, (0db). I gave no such command, and did not notice the program deciding for itself how my sound should be managed until I was well into the editing of the two video tracks. This required going back to each individual clip created by the editing, and using the "finger" to drag the volume nodes in the clip to the bottom of the track. Dozens of them. Thoughts of starting over were over-ruled by thoughts of the time it took to get the cuts where I wanted them that would be wasted by this software glitch.

So next I have all the cuts where I need them by slicing out chunks of the overlay track to reveal the video in the main track. Sound check says all matches up fine with the audio track. Time to add transitions.

Problem 2 is the transitions can not be inserted to transition between tracks ... only within a single track. I get the "no" sign when I try to drag a transition in to either the main track or the overlay track. Making a cut in the main track at the beginning and end of the clip in the overlay track and inserting the effect there results in the main track doing transitions before and after a hard jump to the overlay track, and the timing of the tracks all being off from the stable audio track. What good is the ripple?

Problem 3 - Now required to cut out opposing chunks of the main video to put the chunk from the overlay track below it into the gap. The gap? There is no gap when the chunk is removed from the main track. A warning is given that clips will be deleted if I continue. I continue, and find my audio track and the clip I was about to put in the gap gone, and no gap. What good is the ripple?

To me, ripple editing is a way too keep everything in synch when things are added or taken away. In the case of X2, the editor is limited to only being able to specify the main track as the track everything is to be kept in synch to. You can't tell it that the music track is to be the time keeper for a video. So how do you edit the main track and keep everything else in synch with the music? No matter if you are in ripple mode or not, removing a chunk from the main track slides that track over to fill the gap instead of leaving a gap. I can't find a choice when it warns that things are going to be deleted by changing the main track to say, "hold on, not for this particular cut". How do you leave a gap in the main track? I see it on the X2 box my software came in, it's in the examples there, but I can't see a way to do it, and the manual that came with skips through the section on ripple editing very quickly with no such details.

So I disable ripple editing to go about keeping my sound track stable while I cut a chunk out of the main track giving it extra time for the transition effect on each end so as not to screw up the timing. Doing that should be simple enough; select the clip chunk in the overlay track, click the rewind button to get the slider at the beginning of that chunk, then select the main track, move the slider exactly one second forward, (the length of a transition), make a cut in the main track, select the overlay chunk again, click the fast-forward button to get the slider to the end of that chunk, (see Problem 4 below), select the main track, move the slider back exactly one second, make the second cut to the main track, select the main track chunk, hit delete, (watch as just the main track slides over to fill the gap), select the chunk in the overlay track, and drag it up into the lack of gap between the main track clips, and insert a one second transition at each end of the dragged up clip. Seems to work, but only seems to.

Problem 4 is that the fast-forward button does not take you to the end of the chunk. It takes you one frame before the end of that chunk. That's about 1/30 of a second. Do that for just fifteen clips, (in some productions, fifteen clips go by in less than a minute), and the sound is off for the main tack by half a second. It's beginning to look like a badly dubbed foreign movie.

So now it is a "revert to saved" situation, and all the transition cuts have to be done again, this time taking the scrubber forward one frame at the end of the clip before taking it back one second to make up for the programs lack of ability to make up for the transition without losing timing.

So, what am I doing wrong?

ctippetts wrote:This required going back to each individual clip created by the editing, and using the "finger" to drag the volume nodes in the clip to the bottom of the track. Dozens of them.

Sorry I don't have time right now to deal with all your points, but this one should be easy enough.

Instead of dragging all the nodes down to zero, which would be very tedious, in the EDIT tab, click on the clip on the timeline, then in the area usually to the right of the preview screen below the clip library, click on the mute button, which is a speaker icon with crossed lines. It should turn red. Still a bit tedious if you have lots of clips, but less so than your initial method!

I had a chance to spend a little more time looking at what you are trying to do - although I only have VS11.5, which features a single overlay track.

Certainly in VS11.5, there is no way to use a transition between the main video track and the overlay track. It's quite likely that remains in VS12, though I know that it allows you to use transitions between clips on the overlay track.

If you want to simply switch to the roaming camera view several times during the project, you can do so without trimming the clip in the main video track.

You'll have noticed that when you trim the roaming camera clip on the overlay track and remove sections, the remaning bits stay where they are on the timeline, and don't move together.

By contrast, if you trim the clip on the main video track and cut out a section, the remaining parts will close up. That will clearly mess up the audio sync since that's on a separate audio track you made from the fixed camera clip.

If you really must have transitions between the main video and the roaming camera footage, I see no alternative but to cut out sections of the main video equal in length to the sections of roaming camera footage that you wish to use, and insert those clips all into one video track.

That shouldn't be too hard, since you first make all the cuts in the overlay video, then trim out sections of the main video to match. working from the start on the left side of the timeline, you can then drag each overlay clip in between the cut sections of main video whilst still keeping in sync with the audio.

After that, you can add your transitions.

2Dogs

... although I only have VS11.5, which features a single overlay track.

I didn't think it was possible to have a vanilla version of VS11.5 i.e. with only one overlay track... VS11.5+ of course has six overlay tracks.

ctippets -- I guess what your problems clearly also show is the importance of getting your workflow right. Adding transitions after you have carefully crafted the timing of the audio for various tracks is always a no-no. It is not a matter of ripple editing -- it just does its job. But adding a transition will always snip off half its duration from the end of one clip and the other half from the beginning of the next clip, thus changing the overall length of the project. So you should always add transitions first and then calculate your audio timing aferwards.

Ken Berry wrote:I didn't think it was possible to have a vanilla version of VS11.5 i.e. with only one overlay track... VS11.5+ of course has six overlay tracks.

It isn't possible! Since I rarely use overlays, I just have the default single overlay track showing in the timeline view.

Ken Berry wrote:ctippets -- I guess what your problems clearly also show is the importance of getting your workflow right. Adding transitions after you have carefully crafted the timing of the audio for various tracks is always a no-no. It is not a matter of ripple editing -- it just does its job. But adding a transition will always snip off half its duration from the end of one clip and the other half from the beginning of the next clip, thus changing the overall length of the project. So you should always add transitions first and then calculate your audio timing aferwards.

Again, I wasn't doing so well in my advice there either!

As you say, Ken, the duration of the video is reduced by the length of the transition.

So that makes it very tricky if not actually impossible to achieve what ctippets is trying to do! You can't add a 15 frame colour clip either side of the transition to compensate for the reduced duration, because it would be too short to allow the use of a transition. If you're working with DV avi clips, you might conceivably render a new clip with an added 15 frames of colour clip, but even then the end result probably wouldn't look good and it would be a heck of a thing to have to do!

It would be far better if all transitions did not affect the timeline, but simply "encroached" on the clips to either side. Otherwise, you cannot have a continuous audio track. It effectively rules out using transitions on any video with say music on the audio track that was recorded with the video - unless you do some painstaking frame accurate trimming to compensate for the transition duration.

Now for many users with footage of holidays and so forth, it won't be a big problem - but video of any kind of recital where you have to use the original main video audio track will be very tricky to edit if using transitions. It's not good enough!

If you chose to use other than the default transition durations, you would have to factor that into your cuts too.

I think this thread reveals two significant shortcomings in VS. First of all, the lack of an ability to use transitions between overlay tracks and the main video track. Second, the problematical way that transitions affect the video runtime.

In the OP's situation, I would simply leave out the transitions.

unless you do some painstaking frame accurate trimming to compensate for the transition duration.

Isn't that what video editing is all about?

Second, the crazy way that transitions affect the video runtime.

I don't see how there is any other way. You can't crossfade (or any other transition for that matter) without overlapping the clips.

To do what I think you are suggesting is to use video wipes. For example, you have two clips back to back on the timeline, but you want to "transition" them. You would then put a wipe on the overlay track, overlapping the two clips on the main timeline. I often use ones made by Digital Juice, but you could make your own.

Here is an example at the 2:53 mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCxocLN7 ... annel_page

Black Lab wrote:

Second, the crazy way that transitions affect the video runtime.

I don't see how there is any other way. You can't crossfade (or any other transition for that matter) without overlapping the clips.

Sorry Jeff, after further thoughts, I edited my post making your quote of my post look like it was out of thin air! I was probably editing my post even as you were composing yours! You should surely be able to fade to black and then fade in from black without overlapping clips though - even though I doubt that's the kind of effect ctibbets is looking for.

Black Lab wrote:To do what I think you are suggesting is to use video wipes. For example, you have two clips back to back on the timeline, but you want to "transition" them. You would then put a wipe on the overlay track, overlapping the two clips on the main timeline. I often use ones made by Digital Juice, but you could make your own.

Here is an example at the 2:53 mark: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCxocLN7 ... annel_page

Yes, I think that could work in the uses I imagine. Of course Hollywood doesn't generally use transitions when moving from one camera to another...

It's definitely trickier to work to the constraints of a continuous soundtrack derived from a main video track!

By the way, some of those pans would have Uncle Ken all of a shimmer!

No ... I just wish I could shimmer like my sister Kate... (if you know of that song... Make that 'grandpa Ken'!!! )