VERY NEWBIE needs help with VS9 fading in and titling

[teenyshell]

Hello,
I am an experienced computer user but very new to doing anything on the computer with video. I downloaded VS9 2 days ago and have been having a real hard time figuring out basic functions. I finally was able to get a decent quality capture of my video and I have trimmed it down to the footage I want to burn. Now I am trying to go back and add fades, a title and other effects. I am stuck here because for the life of me, I canot figure out how to add a fade-in with a title BEFORE the 1st clip starts. It will only let me insert it somewhere else in the video or have it DURING the 1st clip which puts it over top of the beginning of the clip, which I do not want. I just need help with how to get it to insert before the video. I am hoping I don't have to trim the whole thing again, but I'm thinking that I needed to add this before I added and trimmed the video. Any help would be appreciated. If you need more info, please let me know. Thanks in advance to anyone that can help.

[rguthrie]

teenyshell,

Add a Color to the beginning of your video, adjust the length if necessary, then apply the text to it.

Ron

[teenyshell]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for your quick replay. The problem I have is that I can't figure out how to add color to the beginning of the video. I have tried everything, but it will only add color to the end or somewhere else in the video. Can you please explain how to add color in front of the video? Thanks.

[rguthrie]

teenyshell,

In Storyboard view drag and drop the color you want in front of the first clip.

Ron

[Ken Berry]

You can find some colour panels up in the library pane. You will see the drop-down menu top right of screen which says 'Video'. When you click on it, you will see a number of choices, inlcuding transitions and 'Color'. Click the colour you want and drag it to the timeline (or make a panel of the exact colour you want in a separate graphics program, save as a jpeg or bmp and insert). Once in the timeline, the length of the color panel can be adjusted by pulling the right hand side of the panel in the timeline to the right with the mouse till the little clock ticker up in the top left of screen shows the right length of time. Or you can manually click on that ticker till you have the right length. Any audio/background music you have added to the audio/music tracks of the timeline can also be pulled to the beginning of the colour panel -- though you might need to be careful if you choose black. I have found over 3 years using Video Studio, that it is best to leave music or voice-over to start about 2 seconds after a black colour panel starts, since sometimes the program snips off a small amount of a black panel right at the start. And if it does that, it might also snip off a second or so of the audio track.

[teenyshell]

Thank you all for your help. I have successfully been able to add the black color before the video with a fade-in to the video. Thanks again!