How to keep music "locked" as I add more pics and effects

[myblackf150]

Hey guys,

I am syncing pictures , effects and video snippets to a song.
Why is that when I ever I add a new set of pictures or effect, it moves my music as to make space for it despite using a different layer.
Is there a way to lock the music in place as I add more photos and media?

Thanks in advance.

[BrianCee]

Not sure that I understand your comment that the music moves if it is in the audio track - I think you will find that it is the photos and videos which move as you inset extra content.

you need to enable 'Ripple Editing' that is what locks the tracks together - look to the very left end of the top video track and you will see a little padlock with three 'bars' connected to it - hover you mouse over it and the pop up tip will tell you it is to 'Enable/disable ripple editing' - click on it and the padlock shuts - now move down vertically to lock every padlock (by clicking on it) against tracks which you want locked together.

but do note if you are applying effects/transitions then the length of each clip will change by the duration of the effect - thus effectively shortening each clip - you cannot lock music to a track when clip lengths are changing - so if you are apply transitions/effects you need to lengthen the clip by the duration of each transition applied to it before they will stay locked

[myblackf150]

Hello BrianCee and thank you for your quick reply.

but do note if you are applying effects/transitions then the length of each clip will change by the duration of the effect - thus effectively shortening each clip - you cannot lock music to a track when clip lengths are changing - so if you are apply transitions/effects you need to lengthen the clip by the duration of each transition applied to it before they will stay locked

Well I am an audio file and it is on the far left of the track ( at the beginning or at "0" if you will ), but whenever I add a new image or transition it only wants to place before or after the the audio track ( despite ) it being on a different track.
When I drag a new image or transition I can see the placement only highlight an area before or after the length of the audio file forcing the latter mention to be moved and everything I've synced on other tracks move along with it.

Is there a way around this or am I doing something wrong?

Thank you in advance BrianCee.

[lata]

Hi

Ripple Editing can be a little tricky to apply.
I guess you have added an audio first, applied ripple editing, the empty top timeline is now attached to the audio clip, you will be unable to change the timeline immediately above the audio clip.

Either
Add the image to the top then add the audio.
Or switch off Ripple Editing before adding the image.
As I said it is a little tricky, needs a bit of practice to understand what is actually happening.

I only apply Ripple Editing only when needed, normally its switched off.

[BrianCee]

OK - sounds as though you had already enabled ripple editing and locked the audio track to the images in the video track - so having done that, trying to insert another image during the sound file in the audio track will mean that the images after the insertion need to move to the right to allow for the new image - but they can't move because they are locked to the audio track and therefore you cannot insert images during the audio - unless you disable ripple editing while you insert the image.

Similarly when you put an image at the very left hand end then the audio will move away from the '0' position because it is locked to the images which have just all moved to the right to allow for your new image.

So basically you need to get your head around what is locked to what - and for some of the extra insertions you want to do you may need to disable ripple editing - yes this will mean that the sound track after your insertion will not be synced to the images - but it can't be because you can't stretch the sound track and by inserting an extra image you have made the picture track longer.

producing a video with the images synced to a sound track takes quite a lot of forward thinking, and I think you are having problems because you have not pre-planned sufficiently and are having to make changes to picture and audio in a random order.

ripple editing has it's uses but if you pre-plan the whole show first you may be better off not using it.

[myblackf150]

Hello Bruce and Lata,

I apologize for the late reply.
Somehow I did not get a notification that you had replied.

Thanks to you, I figured out that I was not using the overlay tracks correctly.

But if I may, may I ask can I change the order of the photos or movies ( in terms of send to back , or send to front ? ) or is there an alternative?

Thank you again so much.

[lata]

Hi

If you are using several overlay tracks, (maybe 4) they act similar to an image editors layers, stacked like a pack of cards, with the exception that they are in reverse, the lower track shows on top.
So if you want to "send to front" then move the clip down from track 2 to say track 4.

PS i think Bruce is called Brian

[myblackf150]

My apologies to Brian. I'll remember not to post in the middle of the night.

Thank you lata!

[Old_Friend]

Hi

If you are using several overlay tracks, (maybe 4) they act similar to an image editors layers, stacked like a pack of cards, with the exception that they are in reverse, the lower track shows on top.
So if you want to "send to front" then move the clip down from track 2 to say track 4.

PS i think Bruce is called Brian

Leave it to Corel to do it backwards in Video Studio. CorelDraw (the same company!) does it logically with 'Layers'. The top-most layer displays before the lower level layers. It just makes sense, in CorelDraw.

EDITED BY "Old_Friend": I tried doing what lata suggested, and it seems to work! Therefore, IGNORE MY POST.
lata, I have new question about Video Studio X5 Ultimate, and the use of multiple "overlay" tracks. [The subject above hints on a solution, but maybe not exactly what I need to know. I haven't yet tried it, since I just now saw it.].

** My video includes a video in the top-most 'video' track.
** Below that, I have used several 'overlay' tracks, each track has clips which are 'greenscreen' (Chroma-Key).

The Problem:
When I play back the project and it gets to the point on the timeline where the 'overlay' tracks are, the clips don't "combine transparently"; the opaque parts of the Chroma-Keyed clips cover up the opaque parts of the other Chroma-Keyed clips.

How do I get them to visually "merge" together so that it looks like all the clips (events) are happening simultaneously, but with some of them in FRONT of the other ones?
Is there some way to change the priority of overlay clips, so that one can appear in FRONT of another, etc? It's hard to explain, but with your experience, maybe you've tackled and solved this kind of issue before. As an example, CorelDraw has the feature to specify objects as "Send to back, Send to front, Move back one, Move forward one," etc.

[lata]

Hi Old Friend

First of all all/most Video Editing programs show the overlay tracks in the same order.
We cannot compare Video Editors with Image or Graphics editors, most Image editors using a Layering system, a stack of images viewed from above.

Viewing a movie generally the top of the frame is in the distance, the top timeline, looking at the lower detail is usually in the foreground, the overlay tracks, followed by Text, Lower Thirds being displayed at the bottom, below the overlay tracks, for me this seems a logical order.

Any way Chroma Key, I have used this in association with Picture in Picture filter, usually on one overlay track.
I do not have means to record Green Screen although I will make samples using Video Studio, then add them to several overlay tracks to see if I can duplicate your problem.

But the only way to send a clip backwards is to move it to another overlay track.