Can I overlap without transitions?

[Danno]

Can I overlap clips without a transition? Here's what I'm trying to do (VS Pro X3) - I have about 30 clips that I'm putting together. All of the clips need trimming at both ends. With Sony Vegas 9, I only had to trim the beginning of each clip because then I could overlap the clips to "trim" the END of each clip (the clip previous to the overlapping clip). It appears to me that with VS Pro X3 I have to trim both ends of each clip and then put them all together end-to-end because when I overlap them, the overlapping clip doesn't actually overlap the previous clip on the timeline, but both clips transition into one another. What I want is for the overlapping clip to truly overlap the previous clip, effectively ending that clip at the point of overlap. Not possible? If I don't want transitions, must I trim all clips on both ends and put them together with no overlaps? Thanks!

And BTW I don't use my Sony Vegas 9 (Platinum Pro Pack) any more because the program has a bug that makes mp4 rendering impossible, and other renders very sketchy.

[Ron P.]

In most editors, when you overlap clips you get some type of transition, like VS. I also have a competitor's program and it does the same as VS when you overlap the clips. You can however overlap them using the overlay tracks. Place let's say Clip A on Overlay track 1, then Clip B on Overlay track 2, overlapping Clip A which is on a separate track.

vsx3_overlap.png (9.71 KiB) Viewed 1836 times

Did you know that there is one type of transition that is not provided with VS? It's called a hard-cut, which is the transition that occurs when you place one clip against another, or when you overlap clips from different tracks. Hard-cuts and Cross-fades are the two most used transitions in professional video.

[DVDDoug]

An "overlap" IS a crossfade transition.

And BTW I don't use my Sony Vegas 9 (Platinum Pro Pack) any more because the program has a bug that makes mp4 rendering impossible, and other renders very sketchy.

Usually it's a "from" problem rather than a "to" problem, especially if you're having trouble with more than one output format*... But if it can properly handle the format fed-in, I'm sure it can render to a high-quality, lightly-compressed format like DV/AVI or HDV. Then, there are plenty of programs that can compress to MPEG-4. If you wanted to, you could edit with Vegas and then import your finished video into Video Studio for compression to MPEG-4. Or you could use a program like SUPER (FREE!!!).

* I don't use Vegas. This is just a general principal. If the program has an MPEG-4 encoder (or other encoder) it can probably encode MPEG-4 (or other format). But, there are a zillion variations of every format, so it may be able to decode some MP4 variations properly and have trouble with others.

[Black Lab]

An "overlap" IS a crossfade transition.

Or, a crossfade IS two clips overlapped.

[Danno]

In most editors, when you overlap clips you get some type of transition, like VS. I also have a competitor's program and it does the same as VS when you overlap the clips. You can however overlap them using the overlay tracks. Place let's say Clip A on Overlay track 1, then Clip B on Overlay track 2, overlapping Clip A which is on a separate track.

vsx3_overlap.png

Did you know that there is one type of transition that is not provided with VS? It's called a hard-cut, which is the transition that occurs when you place one clip against another, or when you overlap clips from different tracks. Hard-cuts and Cross-fades are the two most used transitions in professional video.

Thanks very much for the info. I'm going to play around with the Overlay tracks. Looks like a reasonable work-around to no hard-cut transition, plus when I tried it, your suggestion it resolved the OTHER question I was going to post. I appreciate it.

If you wanted to, you could edit with Vegas and then import your finished video into Video Studio for compression to MPEG-4. Or you could use a program like SUPER (FREE!!!).

You know, I did exactly that last week after downloading the VS demo and it worked very well. Solved a huge headache. Now I'm going to try editing exclusively on VS (I bought it) and use Vegas as a "spare" editor. Thanks for the reply.

[Danno]

DVD Doug, I've also downloaded Super and will spend tomorrow evening fiddling around with everything. Awesome.