OK to use the Overlay Track for all Video?

[michaeld121]

I¡¦ve managed to make a start on editing my video (using VS X2) and the basic format will be

Title 1
Clip 1
Title 2
Clip 2
...and so on

I¡¦ve found that if I add my clips to the Video Track, then I can¡¦t drag them to butt-up with the titles in the title track (and I can¡¦t move the titles into the video track). This means that I¡¦m using the overlay track for all of my video and that the video track will be empty Overall this doesn¡¦t seem to be a problem, but I want to check this is standard before I go too much further.

I've watched a bunch of tutorials & done a load of searches, but can't really find anything covering this

Thanks,

Michael

[mitchell65]

There's nothing really wrong in doing it your way but if you think about it you can't just drag your clips along the timeline and leave "nothing" between the clips, what would show on your finished project? You can't put titles in the main video track, that's for videp clips, but you can drag titles back and forth in the title track.

[Ken Berry]

... And if you want, say, a video clip followed by a title followed by another video clip, without having the title superimposed over the video, then you separate the video clips in the main timeline by a black (or any other colour) colour panel which acts like a photo. You can stretch it to whatever length to match that of your title... Or you can use a still photo and do the same...

[michaeld121]

Many thanks for the swift replies. With the other editing tool I've used the video track effectively left blanks for titles (IIRC).

Anyway, I just wanted to check what the best (ie simplest / most flexible) way of doing it is:

i) Using the Overlap Track for all video, with gaps for the titles in the Title Track.

ii) Use the video track for all video, with a colour panel as a separator for the titles.

Regards,

Michael

[Brain Champagne]

Option ii sounds simpler, because if you want to change the length of the title you just shrink the length of the color panel (and the relevant title)-- much easier than dragging everything that comes after it.

[michaeld121]

Thanks. I've changed what I'd done so far to "Option ii" and for some reason it seems much easier. It might just be that I'd spent so much time trying to get to grips with the tool over the weekend that it's finally clicked, but it just seems more logical and now I'm up & running.

Michael

[mitchell65]

I've changed what I'd done so far to "Option ii" and for some reason it seems much easier.

That's because VS was written to work that way. For what it's worth I change the default color of my Preview window to a different color to black. Then when you use a black color clip it is easier to see. To do that go to File > Preferences > General and see the bottom of that window. Click on the black square and select another color.