How do I recombine a clip that I accidentally split in two?

[tjmannos]

Hello,

I accidentally split a segment of my video file into two clips in the timeline view, and I want it back as one clip. It's all to easy to split clips; Isn't there a way to recombine them? (I didn't see a "glue" icon next to the "scissors" icon).

I'll try to answer some of your questions ahead of time:

1. Why not just press CTRL-Z and undo? Because I didn't realize it until it was too late to undo.

2. Why not just put the two side by side and live with it? Because I want to work with the segment as a whole and not as separate clips. For instance, I want to apply a transition or a smooth pan across the entire segment and not each individual clip.

3. Why not just save the segment as a new movie project, export it to YouTube, download it using savevid.com, convert it using flv2somejunk, then re-import it? Because the segment is actually part of a larger video (imagine that) that is synchronized to music and a PIP track. And because that's just stupid.

4. Why not just junk it and start over from scratch? Because I had a life before I started this project, and I'd like to have one again someday.

Thanks for your help,
T.J.

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the Forums!

The very simplest solution to your problem would be to put the two halves of the video clip in the timeline together as a new project then just select Share > Create Video File > Same As First clip. Ensure SmartRender is ticked in the box which appears, and let it proceed. It should not take very long and you will have a new single video clip made from the two halves.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi T.J.

I’m not sure I understand, but if all you have done is use the scissors or trimmed the clip………..
You are working with Virtual Clips/Thumbnails and as such when you cut them the files on the hard drive are not changed. Why not just insert it from the hard drive?

Ok
Select the clip in the timeline or library.

Below the preview screen is a blue bar, (white in X3) this little baby is multifunctional.
In this instance it is being used to trim the ends of the clip by removing frames, it can also replace them.
The blue (white in X3) section indicates the viewable clip, the remainder in grey is the section of removed frames.
Drag the trim handle to add or remove frames, drag it to the limit and you will have your clip in full.

Use the Home and End buttons to navigate then hit the square bracket to move the trim handles.

If you want to be accurate navigate using the digital clock, now you can trim down to one frame, if you wished that is.

[mitchell65]

Trevor/Ken
Have you ever noticed that you both joined the Forum on the same day although Trevor was 7hrs and 18 mins quicker!!!
My head's full of useless information!

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi John

I’m not sure about the times, I suppose its only relevant if you have set it correctly in your profile.
Was that Ken, I thought it was Ron, no maybe it is Ken…………..

But your right, i think Ken is keeping an eye on me, i think i need that sommetimes............

[Trevor Andrew]

Oh

Sorry I got that wrong, I thought you were referring to the actual post, you mean the initial registration, I said I needed watching.

Well you may find that most older users registered within a few days.
The old forum closed (that’s the old old older forum) we all had to re-register, the process took a few days for everone to catch up, so most joined at the same times, but most used the forum joined well before then. Just showing our age..............

Think we have just gone off topic, sorry T.J.

[tjmannos]

Thanks, Trevor! That was it!

OK, so it's a little painful because I split the scene in the middle of a song, so I have to make sure to stop one clip on exactly the frame before the next clip starts or I get a glitch. (The digital clock helps with this, but I wish it would work in frame numbers instead of 1/100ths of a second). And to fix the clips in the PIP track that were also split, I had to move them (temporarily) into the master video track, extend them, then move them back to the PIP. A little error-prone, but I managed to do it without breaking anything.

In case you're wondering what I'm up to, I have a video (son's school play) shot from two different angles, and I'm combining them together into one video and switching between the two angles. To do this, I have one video in the master track and one in the PIP track (scaled to 100% of the master track's size), and I'm alternating the "opacity" between 0 and 99 to switch between the two angles nondestructively. I'm also adding digital pans and zooms to make it more interesting (hence why I needed the scene to remain as a single clip).

One suggestion for improvement (if any developers are reading): if two adjacent virtual clips are selected, provide an option to "combine" them into a single virtual clip. That operation would simply be an alias for the more complicated procedure Trevor described, but infinitely easier for the user. Both Adobe and CyberLink have this feature.

Thanks again,
T.J.

[Black Lab]

(The digital clock helps with this, but I wish it would work in frame numbers instead of 1/100ths of a second)

It does. The clock (HH:MM:SS.FF) represents Hours, Minutes, Seconds, and Frames.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi T.J.

I don’t really know exactly what you are trying to do, except join two clips.

If you dragged the two clips to the library, that would give you a copy of each.
Start a new project, add the two clips, Share Create Video File –Same as First clip, would create a single file.
Replace the two clips with this new clip.


As for the digital clock, just to add
For Pal that would be Hours, Minutes, Seconds, and 25 Frames.
For Ntsc that would be Hours, Minutes, Seconds, and 30 Frames.

The first frame being 00
For Pal the frame counter goes from 00 to 24 representing 25 frames, and 00 to 29 for Ntsc

Clear as mud