How to do a split screen?

[JPW]

I'm beating my head against the wall trying to figure this out. I am attempting to create a video just like this:

http://youtu.be/pBF4jKJ-BVw

I suspect cropping must be involved with both of the videos, but for the life of me I can't figure it out. Anyone ever done this before?

[Terfyn]

One way (and there may be better ways) would be to put a black graphic in the main timeline and put your two videos in two of the overlay timelines. You can then manually resize the overlay boxes to make a split screen.
Just tried it and it works perfectly.

[asik1]

jpw, you are correct crop is the tool, but VS do not have a proper crop function so you better make a mask with half screen black and half white .bmp and use it on the overlay track.

[Terfyn]

jpw, you are correct crop is the tool, but VS do not have a proper crop function so you better make a mask with half screen black and half white .bmp and use it on the overlay track.

Why half white?

[BrianCee]

The attachment below shows the full timeline view which produced this video :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geEUBldWKuM

The video uses only the crop tool within Videostudio - the mask simply covers the joins for effect - it does not mask any part of the screen

Click on the image for a larger view

[JPW]

This video pretty much got me there. The seams between the two videos aren't perfect, but come to think of it that would be very difficult to accomplish because I am actually comparing two cameras that have created two completely different videos. I can get the timing very close, but again, because of the very slightly different camera angles the seam between the two videos isn't perfect.

Warning: The way this person describes the video is a little immature, but hey, he got me there so I should thank him.

http://youtu.be/T0yVbWxzpNU

[JPW]

Actually, the more I start to look at the resulting video the more I don't like this process. I'm OK with sort of eye-balling the crop itself because I don't think there is way to simply tell the crop to do so accurately for one half of the screen. But what I really don't like is when you have to apply the crop on the main editing screen. By default I think it shows up in a centered window. You could then anchor it anywhere you want like on the left of the frame. Then you can stretch the screen to the top and the bottom to fill the overall video height. I'm OK with everything right up to this point because then you need to stretch the video horizontally. But you are basically eye-balling where you think it looks right. I've got to believe there is some kind of way of doing this to ensure the aspect ratio is left as it should be. Any thoughts?

[BrianCee]

I am not at all sure what you are doing - but it sounds nothing like using the crop filter to me

with your video in the timeline in an OVERLAY track open the FX panel and drag the 'Crop' filter from the panel down on top of the video

Now open the 'Options' panel by clicking on the blue 'Options' button above the right end of the timeline

When the panel opens click on "Customise Filter" and a new window will open where you set the cropping size (by changing numbers) and the position by sliding the centre cross around - set what you want

now when you go back to the editing screen you can move the image in the preview window by clicking on the video in the timeline and then using your cursor to move the image where you want it

see what you make of the following two images. The first is the "Customise Filter" Window - the second is the main screen with the video cropped and moved to the right edge.

click on the image to enlarge

click on the image to enlarge

[JPW]

What I'm attempting to do can be found in the youtube video in the first post. After playing with this for a while I think I see where the issue is and I'm not sure there is a solution.

I'm trying to take two different videos and compare them with a split screen down the middle of the screen. Since the content is almost identical between the two videos there can be a seam between the resulting video, but one half of the screen is from one video and the other will have the other. So if I follow the steps to do a crop I can indeed complete the crop on just 50% of one video, HOWEVER, to keep the video from becoming skewed you have to use the FILL COLOR. So basically the crop is accurate and precise, but the fill color gets priority on the resulting video so no matter what video I put in overlays they won't be seen. You can of course uncheck fill color, which will give you the freedom to have half of the video exposed so that the overlay can be seen through it, BUT you have to adjust the size of the skewed window to make it the proper aspect ratio. This is what I don't like because you have no idea if it is accurate. I wish when you unchecked fill color it would just leave the image alone instead of filling the screen.

[BrianCee]

if you open another overlay track and put your video in that it and take the tick out of the 'fill colour' box when cropping then when you return to the editing screen the image will be distorted - but simply use the yellow boxes to pull the image back to the correct width - then it will overlay the previous black fill

[asik1]

jpw, this is exactly what I meant in my answer, so you better use this mask.
place it in \Corel VideoStudio Ultimate X7\Samples\Image
And in the overlay menu select mask , add the image and follow VS instructions.

M38.gif (3.06 KiB) Viewed 7020 times

[Mark Swanson]

Brian, I am following your advice here, and I have things working just fine using the "cropping" filter. Now, I am trying to figure out how I can get one of the split screens to slide over the one next to it, for example turn a three-screen split into a two panel split over a period of say 10 seconds- to have one panel slide over another, taking up twice the screen space. it might be easy but I can't figure it out...any suggestions?

[BrianCee]

If you right click over the clip you want to move and choose "Customise Motion" a window will open which allows you to change the size and position of the clip over what ever time you want - if you need to it will also rotate it , make it transparent and a few other things - experiment a bit as it is quite a powerful tool.

[Mark Swanson]

I was playing with that, but I could not seem to hit upon the right settings to make it work. I'll keep playing with it, thanks.

[Mark Swanson]

I can't see "Customize motion" working for that, because what I am talking about changes the size of the crop itself. And when I try to change the size of the crop in the keyframes of the "Crop" filter, it changes the aspect ratio.