True video insert editing??

[Dougie]

True video insert editing is when you have a scene and you want to drop a reaction scene into it. Usually these scenes have synced audio and the idea is to drop a new scene (a cutaway), and then come back to the original video while the audio remains in sync with it.

 

This was exceedingly easy back in the days of tape editing, and on higher end NLE's, but I don't see a way to do it in VideoPad. One way that I've thought of is to unlock the audio from the video, cut a certain amount of time out of the video and then fill the hole with the same length of new video. I have not tried this yet, as VP doesn't strike me as being frame accurate.

 

Any other ideas?

[borate]

True video insert editing is when you have a scene and you want to drop a reaction scene into it. Usually these scenes have synced audio and the idea is to drop a new scene (a cutaway), and then come back to the original video while the audio remains in sync with it. <snip> VP doesn't strike me as being frame accurate.

 

It's probably not, so placing cutaways can take some work, unless they first have been synchronized to the master, using separate tracks.

Lay down your master A/V shot, then insert video-only cutaways on the next video track - which will overlay the earlier track/s.

 

Kill unwanted audio by "muting" that track. Retain audio on a particular track by "locking" that track. Those controls are accessed via icons which are to the left of each audio channel's timeline.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

 

You don't need to cut anything now in V3.0 and you don't have to unlink the sound as you had to do with the earlier version.

As Borate says.

 

Just put your main video onto the sequence line (Track 1)

Place you insert clip onto track 2 mute it and move it to where you want it to drop in..

That's all you need to do..

The insert clip will play over the main clip but the main clip sound will continue to play. The main clip will reappear when the insert ends. (It continues to play behind the insert and so always remains in synch.

 

Nat

[Dougie]

Thanks guys! This thing is starting to act like a real editor, and I like it again! It does seem like an A/B roll editor doing things this way, which is fine. In fact, the only difference between and insert and a dissolve in these methods is playing with the Opacity and audio. Much thanks again!!

[Nationalsolo]

Hi Dougie

 

Further to my post....

 

As we, (Borate and I) said, the main track stays in synch as the insert plays over top of it and the cut-away of, say, spectators is fairly easy to implement. You may have a problem though if your insert also has to synch with the sound shown in the main track (e.g. performers playing the thing you are hearing) and what if you need to add several cut-aways of this type?

 

I recently completed a video of a local orchestra (I play violin with them ) It had numerous cutaways to the players, conductor etc.. (I wasn't playing for this bit as I was using the roaming camera !)

I used two cameras, one fixed for a general view and I roamed around during the performance with the other, shooting closeups etc. Each video recorded the complete performance so each had a full identical sound track.

 

Editing In VP 2.41 was very time consuming as it meant sectioning the cut-away video to create numerous short clips and then inserting these into gaps created in the main video after unlinking the soundtrack (to keep it complete,) and matching the insert duration to the duration of the portions cut out and at the same time matching up the audio (muted) with the unlinked main track audio. A PAIN but a useful exercise.

 

I thought 3.02 might be easier as it would simply mean placing the cut-away video over the main video on the overlay track and then, after matching up the sound tracks accurately, muting the overlay track and then cutting it where required and removing the unwanted sections. This works brilliantly! The gaps left remain in place and each insert stays accurately registered with the main track.

The downside unfortunately is that even though you activate the overlay track for splitting up, ALL THE TRACKS including the soundtracks are also split. You have to be careful you don't move any.

 

I think this is a design fault as one should be able to split individual tracks independantly. So beware.

 

The way round this is to link (group) all the separate bits that have to remain together, like the main soundtrack and your overlay track inserts.

 

Nat

[borate]

Nat's approach is fine for dropping in cutaways as straight cuts when a production uses two (or more) cameras with identical audio. Here's a slightly different approach to consider...

• Lay down the entire sequence - master camera onto V2 and the cutaway cam onto V1. (Identical audio.)
  
• Sync them by listening to both tracks simultaneously and moving one slightly until they cancel. Or run V2 opacity to 50% and preview the mid-dissolve point as you slide one track until both visually line up.
  
• Kill audio on one of the tracks. The V2 track is what you will see for video.
  

After the master A/V tracks are complete, to let a cutaway on video track 1 show through as a cut, place the pointer at the IN point and clicking the arrow to the right of the SPLIT button.

Choose "split|split video track two." Do the same for the cutaway OUT point. Right-click that clip in V2 and DELETE. Video from track 1 will be seen in that V2 "hole.".

 

If cutaways that cleanly dissolve (A/B-roll style) is what you want, try this method:

• Pause play at the cutaway IN point and make note of the "current time" shown under the preview window. Resume PLAY and jot down the end time.
  
• Click the V2 sequence star to bring up the effects window.
  
• Drag the opacity blue line, which will invoke the pop-up box, left or right until the "position" time shown in the pop up matches your cutaway IN time. Let go of the mouse and a keyframe is created.
  
• Similarly, create another keyframe at the cutaway OUT time. Takes a little practice.
  

The opacity blue-line trajectory will look something like this...

 

 

For "wild" cutaways, where no sync is necessary, use an additional video track.

[Dougie]

That makes sense Nat. I need to do some playing around with all this, but I understand it now.

 

I too play violin, but I mostly play swing jazz (think Grappelli). Many video people I know are musicians. Guess it's in the blood.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

 

"The downside unfortunately is that even though you activate the overlay track for splitting up, ALL THE TRACKS including the soundtracks are also split. You have to be careful you don't move any."

 

I Take it all back!! There is the option to single out the number of tracks to be cut in the drop down menu next to the scissors! ........so small I didn't notice it.

 

However my problem now with 3.02 is the abominable delay in generating the thumbnails (particularly with .avi files) and registering insert/splits and writing to the cache file. etc. A 16 minute .avi clip took 5-6 mins to generate and the green bar started all over again when I simply split the clip in two.

 

Nat

[Dougie]

That seems to be a major problem since 2.41. The thing is very slow. I guess there will come a time when NCH recognizes the problem (probably brought on by lack of sales) and fixes it, but from what I've read so far on this forum, I won't hold my breath!

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

 

Did a test today..

 

A 16 min .avi file took 8 mins 10 seconds to fully load to VP 3.02. It generated some big files in the cache and during this period editing was impossible with screen messages appearing when one tried.

 

One everything had settled down I split the sequence just once and monitored the cache. The action generated some more big files as the green bar started to progress along each new clip in turn stopping further editing for another 7 mins by then there were 18 files.

 

 

The same video loaded to the sequence in 4 mins 50 seconds in VP 2.41. but the thumbnails appeared quicker and even though the cache files were still being generated,, one could start to edit.

 

Nat