newbie help with clip merge???

[jackyo123]

hi folks

am totally new at video editing, but am fairly experienced with audio editing using sonar and older versions of cubase and ableton.

I absolutely cannot figure out how to merge two clips together after trimming out dead space from them - for instance - i mark the start of the dead time with the jog, mark the end of the dead space with the jog, now i have a 'red' line overtop the dead space in the timeline view. perfect.

i 'snip' the sections with my scissors. perfect. now have 3 separate clips - the clip before the 'dead space', the 'dead space' itself, and the rest of the movie after the dead space. So i highlight the dead space clip, and hit delete. its gone. super.

now, however, whenever i playback my movie from the begining, it will ONLY play whichever clip i have highlighted - clip 1 ('before dead space') or clip 2 ("after dead space"). All i want to do is merge them back together, to make one 'super clip' again, or, in effect, to have a smoothly playing back movie.

this was a cinch in every audio editing program i ever used, so it must be simple here - but i cannot figure out how.

help!!!

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forums!!

What you are after is indeed fairly simple, and you probably would have found that the Help files ... well ... helped!

If you want to preview your whole project, then click on the the word Project which appears below and to the right hand side of the the preview screen.

To actually produce a new clip containing the two trimmed clips, select Share > Create Video File, and select the output format.

[Black Lab]

If you have a red line above the timeline you have enabled a Preview Range, and that is why only part of the project is "previewing".
http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=38655

[jackyo123]

interesting - so the only way to get the 2 clips back together is during the output process itself? If I do, say 40 or 50 'dead space' edits, then I will be left with 100 individual clips - very unwieldy to work with.

I did indeed look in the help files, and could find nothing about merging clips together - 'splicing' them together, in effect (my college roomate was a film major, and to do home movie edits, he literally looked at the raw negatives, trimmed the ones out with a razor pen, and 'taped' the ends of the film back together. This was back in 1984, before the advent of inexpensive digital editing suites. But I am extremely surprised that the program doesnt have this feature.

[BrianCee]

No - you will not be left with 100 seperate clips, programmes like VideoStudio do not cut or alter your original video file in any way , so your video is still one file even though it appears you have cut bits out. unless you specifically use 'save trimmed clip' no extra files are created on your computer.

In order to hold all the cuts together until you are ready to render the final file you must save you project regularly, this creates a .vsp file which is basically a text file containing all the information about what bits of video, music, narration, titles etc you want in your final production. So you do not have to work with numerous clips you just work with one .vsp file which effectively 'merges' all the cuts back together until you have finished the whole project.

Click 'file >> save' regularly when editing to keep your project file upto date - do not forget to save on final exit. Now when you want to continue editing you re-open your project file and it remembers all the cuts etc. that you made and puts your project back in the timeline with all the cuts and edits you made. One .vsp file and everything is as one - even clips/photos etc.in overlay tracks all come together.

The fact that your original file is never altered in any way also means that you can create as many projects as you wish using any bits of it that you want to use together with bits from any other video files you have - unlike your friend who once he had cut and spliced his film was not able to use it again once you have a file on your PC you can use it as many times as you like - even multiple times in the same project - how would your friend have managed that .

VideoStudio can do about 1000 times more than your friend and his razor blade used to do - it just does it in a different way - and once the differences are understood you will see what a very powerful and easy to use editing tool it is. One major advantage you will find is that although creating a project (.vsp) file virtually merges all your cut clips together you can still move a clip along the timeline if you decide you want to alter your editing, this you can do with a couple of clicks and a drag - whereas your friend would have had a terrible job unsticking his film (with a good chance of damaging it) and then cleaning up the film and re-sticking.