global fade in without moving tracks relative to each other

[danmc]

I'm having troubles keeping the main video, overlay video, and an audio track lined up when trying to add a fade-in transition. This is VideoStudio Pro X8.

Where I am at with the project in timeline view is:

main: [black color, 3 seconds][main video][fade out transition]
overlay: [black color, 3 seconds][overlay video][fade out transition]
audio: gap [main audio]

Currently all 3 (main video, overlay video, and audio) are line up in time the way they should be.

What I'd like to do is somehow fade in on the video tracks but without messing up how they line up with each other and with the audio. When I drag a fade transition onto the main and overlay video and set them to both be 2 seconds, I end up with everything out of sync. If I try to lock down the relations by enabling ripple editing the tool complains about no gap to add a transition to when I try to add the transition. Any suggestions?

The rest is a more detailed description of everything in case someone has thoughts about a better work flow.
I have an audio recording (.wav file) that was recorded and mixed with multiple tracks using a different program designed for audio. Then we played that audio track over some speakers while I played an instrument and my wife sang along with the recording but this time in front of the video camera. Then we set up a green screen and played the same audio track again, this time with me playing a different instrument in front of the video camera and green screen. This is how we obtained the 2 video clips and 1 audio clip. Then

- insert 3 second black screen to main video track
- insert 3 second black screen to overlay video track
- add chromakey and crop to the overlay track and adjust size/position of it
- insert audio to audio track but mute it
- trim the extra junk from the beginning of the main video. Here I see that video studio snaps the clip back to start immediately after the black screen
- trim most of the extra junk from the beginning of the overlay video. Here I see that video studio does not move the clip around as I trim the start.
- slide the overlay video until it lines up with the main video (based on listening to the audio that the video camera picked up)
- trim the start of the overlay video to start at 3 seconds (just like the main video)
- unmute the audio track and slide it around until it lines up. I mostly did this by checking the video frame by frame for a particular chord on the video and then spotting that in the audio waveform.
- trim the extra off of the end of the main and overlay videos
- add a fade out on the main and overlay videos at the end
- try to figure out how to do the fade in and only succeed in causing the 2 videos and audio to become out of sync!

Thanks so much in advance.
-Dan

[lata]

Hi Dan
Adding transitions to the top track will cause the clips to overlap by the transition duration, the clips will shift left for each transition added and that will cause the other tracks to go out of sync.

Have you tried using the Multi Cam Editor
Here you can add your three clips
Sync the audio and video and choose the camera angle to use in the final project

Start by creating a new library folder, add your three clips
Select the clips and right click for Multi Cam Editor
This opens the MCE source manager, your three clips already selected
At the top give your project a meaningful name.
press Ok

If you have not used MCE you may be best reading the guide regarding the The Multi-Camera Editor workspace
http://help.corel.com/videostudio/v23/e ... ce.html%23