Brian--Your "Split Screen" demo on U-Tube

[Old_Friend]

Hi Brian. I've been admiring some of your demos on U-Tube. I ran across this one and now I have a couple of questions.

Which VS version did you use? There was no info on U-Tube (the video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geEUBldWKuM) and the link you provided on U-Tube does not link to any specific forum or topic, so that's why I'm asking now. The link goes to Corel's Index of all forums. I seached after getting to Video Studio forum, but could not find any reference to your "split screen" topic.

I'm using VS Pro X5 Ultimate, and I will not upgrade to any new Corel releases of VS. So, I'm wondering if the "split screen" effects can be done with my version, and hopefully you might offer some steps to follow? I'm looking forward to learning how it's done. Thanks!

EDITED: (Woops! I just watched it again, and this time I noticed that you used VS X6. Sorry! -- But, I'm still hoping you might tell me whether I can do it with version X5?

[BrianCee]

Yes - off hand I cannot think of any reason why you should not be able to do that in X5 it's basically just cropping video and applying a mask to cover the joins.

It was first discussed in this topic :- http://forum.corel.com/EN/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=50547& which gives some details and a download of the mask I used.

[DaisyK]

...it's basically just cropping video and applying a mask to cover the joins.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here by "cropping" the video?

Sandra

[BrianCee]

Cropping is cutting the image to remove bits you don't need to be visible - you 'crop' (cut) the image to a specific size or format.

For instance most of the videos which I used and which you or others may use will be full screen videos - but you do not want them full screen if they are to fit into 1/3 (or however many splits you have) sized viewing window - so you need to "crop" - using the cropping tools in VideoStudio the video so that only 1/3 is visible - then place it on screen so that it shows through which ever window you want it to

[Old_Friend]

Sandra, I'm confused, too. I've been trying for 2 days now, but apparently I'm not experienced enough to know how to get my 3 individual overlay movies to "fit" inside the tall/narrow frame slots. Resizing them in the preview screen distorts them and or makes them too small to be seen. And, trying picture-in-picture doesn't seem to work, either. The movie on U-Tube looks great. I just can't do one similar. LOL

[BrianCee]

When you want to do a split screen video you must first understand that you cannot use the complete image - each image on it's own will fill the screen so if you try to put two or more side by side then you will have to distort them to fit - and that you do not need

So you first have to 'crop' the video image so that only around 1/3 is visible on screen - to do that put the video in the timeline and open the FX library and drag the "Cropping" (NOT 'Crop Borders') filter down onto it - then open the options panel and choose 'Customise Filter'

A new window will open with two viewing panes - the left has a dotted square on it and the right shows the cropped image - down in the bottom left corner are controls for height and width - for this project I set the height to 100 to get the full height of the video - then set width to around 33%

hovering your cursor over the cross in the middle of the dotted square will change it to a little hand - left click and move sideways to cover the part of the video you want to show

You MUST now repeat that process with the little timeline cursor in that double window panel at the right hand end - because by default the cropping filter is set to grow from what you set at the beginning to full screen - but also making those changes with the cursor over the right hand diamond (which will turn red when you are over it) will keep the same size. The little diamonds signify "key Frames" which crop up quite a bit in video work - you can add as many key frames as you wish along that timeline and if you put in different settings at each key frame VideoStudio slowly changes the output as it goes through the video to match your settings at each and every key frame - so you can set up some quite elaborate sequences.

When you OK out of the cropping filter you go back to the main editing screen and you can now slide your cropped video back and forth across the screen until it is in the position required

OK see how you get on up to there.

[Old_Friend]

Thank you, Brian! It took me quite a bit of fiddling around, but I finally got it to work. It's definitely not an intuitive process, since the dashed-line bounding box has no option to retain its proportions (without having to create numerous key frame markers and altering the width & height values in each one. If they'd stay the same, it would then be a simple matter of moving the bounding box. Plus, I got quite confused with the chroma key settings. I'm sure that's just me; other users probably understand it better than I do. Thank you for sticking with me through this. I now have an better understanding, although Corel could have made it much simpler. Searching the "Help" file with the word "Crop" didn't even mention the procedure you outlined. At least, I never found it. Thank you for taking time to do so! I kinda' wish the new bounding box (cropped area) would have been visible is the Preview screen (as an "object" unto itself) which I could have then copied and placed inside the mask frame areas. Wishful thinking. heh heh. You solved my problem!

[BrianCee]

Providing you set exactly the same figures at the final key frame as you do at the first key frame the box should not vary at all.

[Old_Friend]

Brian, thanks again. I didn't know that. I haven't tried it yet, but I appreciate you giving me the info.