Why only 1 video track

[scottvf]

I want to add another video track and when I try the 1 is greyed out, I can only add overlay, title and music tracks. In vegas pro I can add unlimited amount of video tracks.

[Ken Berry]

Welcome to the forum.

The overlay tracks are full video tracks. In fact, they add a little more flexibility than you can achieve in the main timeline/video track. Indeed, you can ignore the video track entirely and do a whole project using just the overlay tracks (plus title and audio tracks if you wish).

Did you have any specific reason for wanting more than one main video track? Or put another way, what do you think can be done in the video track that can't be done in the overlay tracks?

[scottvf]

Welcome to the forum.

The overlay tracks are full video tracks. In fact, they add a little more flexibility than you can achieve in the main timeline/video track. Indeed, you can ignore the video track entirely and do a whole project using just the overlay tracks (plus title and audio tracks if you wish).

Did you have any specific reason for wanting more than one main video track? Or put another way, what do you think can be done in the video track that can't be done in the overlay tracks?

I'm used to using vegas pro (been using it since digital foundry owned it) and I usually put titles and lower thirds in the top video track. Also I put different video clips in different tracks to organize them before moving them down to the bottom track. I didn't know the overlay track is the same as the video track. They should just call it all video tracks video tracks, it would make it simpler. Thanks for the info

[iNate]

I want to add another video track and when I try the 1 is greyed out, I can only add overlay, title and music tracks. In vegas pro I can add unlimited amount of video tracks.

Because, in theory, they want it to work similar to the Story Track in iMovie and Final Cut Pro X. This actually is really nice for some video types, like VLOGs.

The issue is that it becomes unworkable once you start using overlays, and need to place audio, sound effects, etc. on the audio tracks. The timeline in most consumer editors is backwards. Video UNDER the Video Track OVERlays the main track's video. I'm not sure why they do this, as it's illogical. Move NLEs split the timeline view in two, with video under autio, and then the video tracks OVER the main video track OVERlays the main video.

I don't know why they increased the limit to 50 overlay tracks. No one who uses that many is likely to be able to work with any efficiency in this software, due to the amount of scrolling you'd have to do to jump around the timeline; especially given the inability to pancake them like in other NLEs - something I've been asking for, for a while. The minimum track width is too wide, but they seem completely content with keeping it that way. If they want to keep them that thick, then they should make them Video+Audio Tracks, like in PowerDirector (Or Pinnacle Studio).

Putting the Audio in a separate "mode" actually makes the software less intuitive, and less user-friendly, IMHO.

[asik1]

iNate, have you click this?

You realy need more than 20 tracks?

[iNate]

iNate, have you click this?

show.gif

That's completely unusable and unworkable.

The actual Auto-Rippling Video Track itself was a novel idea. It just doesn't work well with the way the tracks in this NLE are laid out (and displayed)...

You realy need more than 20 tracks?

WN.jpg

It depends on how the tracks are laid out, and how the timeline editing is configured... For VideoStudio, no. Increasing the overlay tracks to 50 is literally of no worth, IMO.

The big issue is the track configuration:

1. The video tracks and Title Tracks "overlay" backwards, causing...
2. … the Audio Tracks (which should have been doubled in number, IMO) to be pushed down when using more than a couple/few of overlay tracks (unless you're on a 1440p/UHD display, of course), and...
3. … the tracks are so thick that you have to scroll constantly to keep track of timing on the lower tracks, wasting a LOT of time and making it very slow to edit in this application.

I only had VideoStudio installed to access NewBlue Titler Pro. This NLE is worth buying for some of the bonus content, which can be run completely outside of the NLE. It's torture to actually edit in, though, and it seems Corel is convinced these handicaps make the software easier to use, when it actually does the opposite. It walls off things that are blatantly obvious (and thus, trivial) in other consumer NLEs.

[scottvf]

I too find this software very hard to edit. I've been using vegas since it first came out back in 1999. I was looking at different software and got this for all the bonus stuff as well. I've been using this to just make titles and other small video to then output in uncompressed format and then load it in vegas. I was hoping this would of been as good for editing. I cut and put up a lot of lowerthirds and text on top and it's a piece of cake in vegas. what ever is on top is seen first. Just render a lower third with an alpha channel in digital juice and put it on top.

[asik1]

I too find this software very hard to edit. I've been using vegas since it first came out back in 1999. I was looking at different software and got this for all the bonus stuff as well. I've been using this to just make titles and other small video to then output in uncompressed format and then load it in vegas. I was hoping this would of been as good for editing. I cut and put up a lot of lowerthirds and text on top and it's a piece of cake in vegas. what ever is on top is seen first. Just render a lower third with an alpha channel in digital juice and put it on top.

Great comparison, $300 and up vs. $80 and down
**I'm considering VMS16 and things there dosent make sense to me.

[weaver]

I do not know. In my active time I used Avid, Edius and privately Magix and Ulead/Corel and the old Sony video editor ( came with my first dedicated video editor PC, based on W Milleneum). I was not always happy with Corel's performance, but from the user point of view it was very simple and straightforward. One just need to understand the logic behind.

[BJC]

No need to keep scrolling up and down iNate, just click on the icon 'show all visible tracks' and all live tracks will be shown by Videostudio so you can select them at will

[iNate]

I too find this software very hard to edit. I've been using vegas since it first came out back in 1999. I was looking at different software and got this for all the bonus stuff as well. I've been using this to just make titles and other small video to then output in uncompressed format and then load it in vegas. I was hoping this would of been as good for editing. I cut and put up a lot of lowerthirds and text on top and it's a piece of cake in vegas. what ever is on top is seen first. Just render a lower third with an alpha channel in digital juice and put it on top.

Great comparison, $300 and up vs. $80 and down
**I'm considering VMS16 and things there dosent make sense to me.

VEGAS movie Studio Platinum is $80, and a $50 upgrade

Thousands (lol, probably millions) of people got VEGAS Pro Edit 14 and 15 for only $25/ea. from Humble Bundle, anyways, among other stuff. Over the past year, Humble Bundle has basically sold an entire suite of Video Editing and Design Software for like... < $100 (VEGAS Pro Edit 14/15, VEGAS DVD Architect Pro, Xara Designer Pro X, iMerge Pro, Sound Forge Audio Studio, PowerDirector 15/PhotoDirector 9 Ultra, ScreenRecorder 3, Xara 3D Maker, Corel PaintShop Pro 2018 & PhotoMirage (Full Version), etc.).

That's where a lot of people got their VEGAS Pro from. They Humble Bundled it for almost nothing, and then they upgraded for $149 or less. The MAGIX software that they put on Humble Bundle allow you to flag your account to be able to upgrade to either Video Pro X or VEGAS Pro for $149, because they allow upgrading from any SKU of the product - even the consumer versions (Movie Studio, Movie Edit Pro, Video Easy, etc.).

And a tip: It's always cheaper to buy a dirt cheap old version of Movie Studio off of Amazon for almost nothing and then upgrade to VEGAS Pro, than to buy it at MSRP. It's on sale 8 out of 12 months of the year, anyways.

[iNate]

No need to keep scrolling up and down iNate, just click on the icon 'show all visible tracks' and all live tracks will be shown by Videostudio so you can select them at will

That's not workable because you need to be able to see audio waveforms to align audio and sound effects, etc. That's why I stated that adding so many tracks simply isn't usable. The track layout is too rigid to make it usable - "IMO."

When you're aligning things on those tracks, you're going to be scrolling, unless your project is really simple.

[iNate]

I too find this software very hard to edit. I've been using vegas since it first came out back in 1999. I was looking at different software and got this for all the bonus stuff as well. I've been using this to just make titles and other small video to then output in uncompressed format and then load it in vegas. I was hoping this would of been as good for editing. I cut and put up a lot of lowerthirds and text on top and it's a piece of cake in vegas. what ever is on top is seen first. Just render a lower third with an alpha channel in digital juice and put it on top.

That's basically what I used it for. Since VEGAS has poor motion graphics tooling, Video Studio was sort of a "poor man's After Effecs" for Titling - using the Boris Titler and NewBlue Titler to render out titles to use in other NLEs.

However, you can install the NewBlue Titler without installing the VideoStudio NLE, and just use it standalone. It renders out QuickTime files using the Alpha PNG CODEC with an Alpha Channel, which you can just import into another NLE and overlay over your footage (Requires QuickTime installation for some NLEs to import them) - easily adjusting it by simply saving your NewBlue Titler Pro Projects and keeping them in your project Director. TitlerStandalone.exe is in the Program Files\NewBlueFX\Titler directory. Just make a shortcut and put in your Start Menu. The installer sets up the necessary file associations automatically Saves about 8-9GB of drive space. However, I still like to keep a consumer editor on hand for VLOG and Social Media content, as it's easier to crank that kind of stuff (which doesn't need much production effort) out in those than in a Pro NLE - which requires a lot more project setup... and the bundled effects are nice for that kind of content.

Just run the Update 4 installer, get the NewBlue Titler updated installer from %AppData%/Local/Temp folder, then quit the installer and install NewBlue Titler Pro 5.