Basic Editing isn't possible?

[GWild]

I am new to VS... Windows Movie Maker worked fairly well for 95% of my editing needs. I can't get it any more. I purchased Corel VS Pro, thinking it should be user friendly. After all, I am not editing major motion pictures and didn't want to pay $500 for what I want to do.

I am scanning old 8mm film into digital video. Some of the film has splices, underexposed, overexposed, and even sun burned lengths that I want ti remove from the final video. In MM, you selected a start point and an end point (splitting the clip) and pressed delete - section gone. Next edit...

I can't figure out this basic function in VS Pro. Lots of things hint at it being possible (tutorials, manuals), but in action the program is very stupid and doesn't seem to be able to do this very simple task.

Task: clip out one or more bad frames from old movies. So how do I remove bad frames from a video I have loaded into VS? There are a few ways to set mark in - mark out; none of them appear to do anything except put marks in the track that are horrendously hard to understand, use, and even weirder: hard to navigate back to.

It must be a common enough task that it is possible and even easy (think phone video when you inadvertently point at the ground for a second). So what am I missing?

Help!

[aljimenez]

The preview window has what you are looking for: there are icons for [ ] and a scissor to do what you want. The scissor is the most obvious one: it cuts the video at the cursor position. The Del key on the key board deletes any clip that is selected on the timeline.

[MrJohnny]

GWild

X10 user manual page 101 explains trimming a clip.

John

[Terfyn]

Try this for frame accurate clip removal.
Drag the clip to the time line. Right click and select Multi Trim Video. Move the clip to where you want to remove frames and put the markers around the offending bit. This will "highlight" the bit you want to remove. Now click on Invert Video, this will show the bit you want to remove as "low light". Continue to bracket the bits you want to cut before inverting, MTV will then cut out the bad bits of film. Click OK, the modified clip will show up as two or more clips on the Timeline with the offending bits cut out.

It is very easy to blame the tools if you have no skill in using them. If you are in doubt how to do something in VS then ask first before getting in a hissy fit.

[BrianCee]

I always find that for new users editing in Videostudio is best done by thinking of the video in the timeline as a physical piece of film

put the video in the timeline and move the vertical cursor to the point you want to start removing frames - there are a host of ways of doing that with one frame accuracy

click on the scissor icon under the preview window

now move the cursor to the end of the section you want to remove - click on the scissor tool

now click on the section of video you want to remove - a yellow line all around it will show it is selected

press the delete key on your keyboard and the section vanishes

continue doing that to the end of the video

once you have mastered that basic process then you can start to look into the other fancy ways to edit - - - multi-trim -- save trimmed -- mark in/mark out etc.


....

[Terfyn]

Agree that is still the best way to remove large chunks or even a few frames but if you want to be frame accurate the Multi Trim Video is a better way to go. As you will know that with 8mm film (where I started - Oh happy days) often the glitch covers just two frames, so MTV gives a much tighter control over the cutting process at a frame by frame level. For general editing where I am trying to turn a lengthy often boring shot into a useful bit of video, I use the scissors (like a demon barber) but for frame level trimming, I have found MTV a useful tool.
As I said before a good workman knows his tools.

P.S. It's nice warm and sunny up here - hope it's the same with you.

[lata]

Hi GWild

And welcome to the forums….

View some of the Help options – Getting Started – Trim Video or Multi Trim Video.

Personally I like trimming the clips on the edit timelines, as Brian describes using the scissors to cut and delete.

Multi Trim Video is not a tool that I have gotten used to, we cannot all be the same and there are many ways to remove unwanted frames.

Immediately below the preview screen is a bar showing Trim Markers, these are multi functional used to trim, set fade durations and preview ranges, some info here.

http://lata.me.uk/corel/trimbar/trim_bar.htm

So the scissors + delete along with the trim markers work for me.
If I need frame accuracy, nudging the digital clock is as good as any, or press F on keyboard to navigate frame by frame, D goes back.

[Terfyn]

It's just a matter of the best tools for the job. MTV offers two benefits over Timeline cutting, first easy frame accurate selection and, second the ability to turn a selected clip from keep to dispose. I have only recently played with it but it is so much more accurate and flexible than cutting on the Timeline plus I can carry out all the minor adjustments in one go rather than sliding along the Timeline cutting as I go. MTV allows me to alter the clip length by just moving the [square brackets] to where I want along the clip so any cut can be adjusted before OK is pressed - very handy.
But, as you say, it's just another tool in the box.

I think the point of this post is to demonstrate that we have moved from a situation where nothing could be done to show that VideoStudio is versatile enough to carry out most straight forward actions both easily and with a choice of ways to perform the same task.

[lata]

Hi

As I say its personal choice, I prefer the Cut and Delete + the F3 / F4 mark in /out brackets.
I have no problem removing one frame, if that’s what I need.

Basically the MTV has taken the preview screen and controls to float in a new window.
The square brackets are there, although could be larger, as could the digital clock.
The keyboard shortcuts F3 and F4 work the same.

So I guess I use the features of the MTV panel without going there.

[TroyTheTech]

Everyone has their own 'favourite method', so if I may share mine (as a more novice editor):

- Move the Scrubber (little arrow indicator showing you where it is playing from) to the beginning of the 'trouble area'
- Right-Click the clip/event/object somewhere and select "Split Clip"
- Move the Scrubber to the end of the 'trouble area' ...if it is only a few frames, use the "Next" (|>) frame navigation button
- Right-Click the clip/event/object somewhere and select "Split Clip" again, you will now have a Section in the middle that is the 'trouble area'
- Right-Click the 'trouble area' clip/section you just created and select Delete

This is a very simple way that I started using from the start (and it is very similar to Mr.Cee's method) and the more advanced ways are definitely what is mentioned by Mr.Cee and the other-also-knowledgeable people above - and in the Help pull-down menu in VS itself.

Have fun finding your own preferred way!

[lata]

Hi TroyTheTech

Yes thanks for the suggestions, basically the same as Brians Scissors and Delete.
I don’t use right click to split the clip, but hit the scissors, or keyboard “S” is a little quicker.
Then position the curser again to hit Square brackets or press F3. Just one action to remove the frames.

But we all get to the end result and that’s all that matters.

[GWild]

Sorry folks - what seems trivial for you is impossible for me.

I select Multi-Trim in a window (only works in one window for me, that seems to be the timeline window); set my mark in and mark out points (still not clear which enables video and which disables it) - used split, but when ever I hit delete (only available at non-reproducible moments) - the entire clip disappears from the timeline; not my split or edited sections.

I have spent hours on this and can't get the simple action to work. And I have tried all of the methods listed above. At one point I started making multiple copies of the clip using what I thought was the Multi-Clip-Tool ; but viewing each new "clip" showed they were all the same as the original import. So I am lead to believe there is some trick you are doing that is NOT in the manual or tutorials - or my new download is somehow broken. And yeah - the S key isn't in the manual sections I have read - it was in one of the tutorials (this is a known Corel issue that goes back years). Also - the tutorial says you can invert the marks with one or two clicks; I can't find that feature anywhere.


Mark-In means to me (based on English) as where the section is INCLUDED. Mark-out the opposite. ----- [included] ---- excluded ; but I am now thinking it doesn't work this way since these [] marks are not on the initial clip. So it is ---- included ---- [ excluded ] ---- included .

[GWild]

I always find that for new users editing in Videostudio is best done by thinking of the video in the timeline as a physical piece of film

put the video in the timeline and move the vertical cursor to the point you want to start removing frames - there are a host of ways of doing that with one frame accuracy

click on the scissor icon under the preview window

now move the cursor to the end of the section you want to remove - click on the scissor tool

now click on the section of video you want to remove - a yellow line all around it will show it is selected

press the delete key on your keyboard and the section vanishes

continue doing that to the end of the video

once you have mastered that basic process then you can start to look into the other fancy ways to edit - - - multi-trim -- save trimmed -- mark in/mark out etc.


....

Thank you Brian.

Been trying to do this since hour one -- hitting delete always removes the entire clip; not just the section I had marked. Thus my attempts to used the [ ] tool. Which also doesn't work.

Went back to the split method since you seem to understand the simplicity I am looking for. And amazingly I must have been doing the split wrong, because it is working as expected now. Not sure how I could have messed up splits - maybe I was only adding the split to the preview and not to the timeline.

Anyway - with the sailboat attitude of only using industry terms (rode instead of rope, port instead of left, etc) - most of the help tools aren't made for novices.

[TroyTheTech]

Sorry folks - what seems trivial for you is impossible for me.

I select Multi-Trim in a window (only works in one window for me, that seems to be the timeline window); set my mark in and mark out points (still not clear which enables video and which disables it) - used split, but when ever I hit delete (only available at non-reproducible moments) - the entire clip disappears from the timeline; not my split or edited sections.

I have spent hours on this and can't get the simple action to work. And I have tried all of the methods listed above. At one point I started making multiple copies of the clip using what I thought was the Multi-Clip-Tool ; but viewing each new "clip" showed they were all the same as the original import. So I am lead to believe there is some trick you are doing that is NOT in the manual or tutorials - or my new download is somehow broken. And yeah - the S key isn't in the manual sections I have read - it was in one of the tutorials (this is a known Corel issue that goes back years). Also - the tutorial says you can invert the marks with one or two clicks; I can't find that feature anywhere.


Mark-In means to me (based on English) as where the section is INCLUDED. Mark-out the opposite. ----- [included] ---- excluded ; but I am now thinking it doesn't work this way since these [] marks are not on the initial clip. So it is ---- included ---- [ excluded ] ---- included .

If I may try to help with the last part, the "marking in" and "marking out" - try to remember that many of these actions and terms come from the days of working with reels of film (why we still call it "film editing").

One way to think of 'mark in', is to think "marking where the changes are coming in the film strip" and 'mark out' is "marking where the changes are leaving the film strip".

If you remember/know of how reels used to be manually 'cut' (bringing down a lever with a sharp tool on it), this can be thought of the same way in VS ("making cuts"). Put the indicator where you want (seeing where you are in the Preview Window) and then hit the 'S' key on your keyboard, is bringing down that sharp cutter tool, literally Splitting the film in two parts.

I don't have any tutorials made of my own, but a search on YouTube of 'Basics' or 'Introduction to VideoStudio' might yield something that may help, too.

Edit:
I used to 'delete the entire thing' too until just recently - in VS, you have to go and select the portion you want to remove, clicking on it 'again', making it be surrounded by an orange border, to make sure it is selected - then you can "delete" that portion, as you desired

[GWild]

I've been around simple film editing - clipping out bad sections of film, splicing together reels, splicing in new edits, etc - the process isn't foreign to me. Worse, is that in a past life I was a Product Manager for software. Usability was a big item for what we built because it was very complex and used terms no one understood well. So I know these types of issues are avoidable with better user interface design.

Now - the next step is to figure out how to take a length of video, and clip it into several pieces to save back to the disk for later editing. One reel has many shorter segments, takes if you will, and often are unrelated times and places. So rather than deleting a split section, I want to save that split to disk as a new file.

---
Thanks to everyone who replied. Every bit of information supplied is useful.