Pinnacle LIQUID EDITION V6 User Manual

Pinnacle Liquid User’s Guide

Version 6.0 / September 2004

© Pinnacle Systems 2004

All rights reserved.

No part of this manual may be reproduced or transferred to other media without explicit written permission from
Pinnacle Systems, Braunschweig, Germany.

All brand or product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Pinnacle Systems retains the right to make alterations to the content of the manual without the obligation to
inform third parties.

Introduction

Contents .......................................................................................................................1-1

Why So Much Paper?.................................................................................................. 1-2

Overview.................................................................................................................. 1-2

General .........................................................................................................................1-3

Buttons ................................................................................................................... 1-3

Text Styles ............................................................................................................... 1-3

Shortcut Menus and Menu Bar..................................................................................... 1-3

It Looks Different in the Book!.................................................................................... 1-4

Where Do I Get the Buttons? ...........................................................................................1-7

Taskbar.................................................................................................................... 1-9

Keyboard Shortcuts ................................................................................................... 1-10

But First ... ...................................................................................................................1-12

Media Management .........................................................................................................1-14

Quickstart

Contents .......................................................................................................................2-1

General .........................................................................................................................2-1

What Do You Want to Do?........................................................................................... 2-2

Step by Step .................................................................................................................2-2

Inserting Clips on the Timeline ........................................................................................2-9

Output .........................................................................................................................2-20

Output with the RS 422 Control Protocol ...................................................................... 2-22

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Table of Contents

I

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Recording AV

Contents ...................................................................................................................... 3-1

General ........................................................................................................................3-2

What You Need (Checklist) ......................................................................................... 3-3

Step by Step ................................................................................................................. 3-4

Plus ... .........................................................................................................................3-10

LIVE Player .............................................................................................................. 3-10

Analog IN................................................................................................................ 3-12

Direct Insertion........................................................................................................ 3-14

Tracks and Mapping................................................................................................... 3-15

Tips .............................................................................................................................3-16

Tape Has Identical TCs............................................................................................... 3-16

Breaks in the Timecode.............................................................................................. 3-17

Alternative AV Drives/Directories................................................................................. 3-18

When to Digitize As Stereo and When As Mono? ............................................................ 3-20

Methods: Log, Digitize All or Scene Detection?.............................................................. 3-21

Batch Digitize (Capture) ............................................................................................ 3-21

Automatic Scene Detection in the

Logging Tool............................................................................................................ 3-22

Storyboarding

General ........................................................................................................................4-1

Step by Step ................................................................................................................. 4-2

II

Table of Contents

Edit

Contents .......................................................................................................................5-1

Introduction ..................................................................................................................5-2

Single-Track versus A/B Editing................................................................................... 5-2

The Logical Sequence for Editing ................................................................................. 5-3

General .........................................................................................................................5-3

What You Need ......................................................................................................... 5-4

Step by Step .................................................................................................................5-5

Drag & Drop ............................................................................................................. 5-5

Source Viewer........................................................................................................... 5-10

Trim Editor............................................................................................................... 5-13

Trimming Transitions................................................................................................. 5-16

Three-Point Editing ................................................................................................... 5-17

Plus ... .........................................................................................................................5-22

Linear Timewarp........................................................................................................ 5-22

Generating a Still with a Snapshot............................................................................... 5-26

Multilayering............................................................................................................ 5-27

Containers ............................................................................................................... 5-30

Multicam Editing....................................................................................................... 5-34

Tips .............................................................................................................................5-38

When Should You Use Which Method? .......................................................................... 5-38

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Clip Viewer

Table of Contents

Contents .......................................................................................................................6-1

General .........................................................................................................................6-1

Here’s How............................................................................................................... 6-1

Automatic Scene Detection......................................................................................... 6-4

Audio...................................................................................................................... 6-6

Realtime Color Correction in the Clip Viewer.................................................................. 6-8

III

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Effects

Contents ...................................................................................................................... 7-1

Introduction .................................................................................................................7-2

Realtime or Rendering ............................................................................................... 7-2

Background Rendering............................................................................................... 7-2

Clip and Transition Effects.......................................................................................... 7-3

General ........................................................................................................................7-4

What You Need......................................................................................................... 7-4

Step by Step ................................................................................................................. 7-5

Clip Effect................................................................................................................ 7-5

Clip Effect Applied to an Entire Track ........................................................................... 7-9

Transition Effect....................................................................................................... 7-9

Applying a 2D Effect.................................................................................................. 7-17

Special Effects ...............................................................................................................7-21

Hollywood FX ........................................................................................................... 7-21

Alpha Magic FX......................................................................................................... 7-23

Audio

Contents ...................................................................................................................... 8-1

General ........................................................................................................................8-2

What Do You Want to Do? .......................................................................................... 8-2

Step by Step ................................................................................................................. 8-2

Turning Down Background Noise ................................................................................. 8-2

Recording Spoken Text with Voice Over ........................................................................ 8-8

One Track for Music ................................................................................................... 8-10

Applying an Audio Crossfade....................................................................................... 8-12

Tips .............................................................................................................................8-14

Adjusting Audio for Entire Tracks ................................................................................ 8-14

Digitizing Audio ....................................................................................................... 8-16

On the Timeline........................................................................................................ 8-17

Disbanding Clips....................................................................................................... 8-18

Output Mapping........................................................................................................ 8-18

Playback.................................................................................................................. 8-21

IV

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Generating Titles

General .........................................................................................................................9-1

Step by Step .................................................................................................................9-2

DVD Authoring

General ....................................................................................................................... 10-1

Step by Step ............................................................................................................... 10-2

Output .................................................................................................................. 10-13

Output

Contents ..................................................................................................................... 11-1

Record to Tape ............................................................................................................ 11-2

Record................................................................................................................... 11-2

Stripe Tape ............................................................................................................ 11-3

Export Sequence .......................................................................................................... 11-4

Functions in the Export Sequence Dialog Box .............................................................. 11-4

Project Administration

Contents ..................................................................................................................... 12-1

General ....................................................................................................................... 12-1

Step by Step ............................................................................................................... 12-2

Creating, Opening and Deleting Projects..................................................................... 12-2

Backing Up and Restoring Projects ............................................................................ 12-3

Cleaning Up ........................................................................................................... 12-5

Deleting Objects, the Trash Icon ............................................................................... 12-9

Finding/Importing Media Files .................................................................................. 12-10

Input Wizard .......................................................................................................... 12-12

Verifying Imported Media ......................................................................................... 12-14

Plus ... ....................................................................................................................... 12-16

Formats and Media Types.......................................................................................... 12-16

Opening Multiple Racks Simultaneously ...................................................................... 12-17

Index ...........................................................................................................I-1

Table of Contents

V

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VI

Table of Contents

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Chapter

Introduction

Contents

Why So Much Paper?.................................................................................................. 1-2

Overview.................................................................................................................. 1-2

General .........................................................................................................................1-3

Buttons ................................................................................................................... 1-3

Text Styles ............................................................................................................... 1-3

Shortcut Menus and Menu Bar..................................................................................... 1-3

It Looks Different in the Book!.................................................................................... 1-4

Where Do I Get the Buttons? ............................................................................................1-7

Taskbar.................................................................................................................... 1-9

Keyboard Shortcuts.................................................................................................... 1-10

But First ... ...................................................................................................................1-12

Media Management .........................................................................................................1-14

1

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Why So Much Paper?

You might wonder why Pinnacle Liquid comes with so much
paper – why have both a Reference Manual and a User’s Guide
– especially when a lot of the contents overlap. Simply put, the
reason is the quality of the editing software, which allows it to
be used by both amateur and professional users.

Considering the different user groups, we thought that in addi­tion to the Reference Manual (which does cover all the func­tions but often takes “basic” knowledge a little far), it would
also be a good idea to have a User’s Guide. The User’s Guide is
primarily aimed at users without a lot of previous knowledge.
It presents the functions in context and with an emphasis on
their practical applications, accompanied by many examples.

In addition to these two manuals, there is also a third that deals
with product-specific information and provides a detailed
description of installation and the settings governing the inter­action of connected devices.

When learning a foreign language, you don’t start out by learn­ing all the grammar and then fill in the blanks with vocabu­lary; the two go hand in hand. The same is true of Pinnacle
Liquid, in which theory and practice complement one another.
Now and then you’ll have to go deeper but for to start, we took
the following principle as our guide:
As much practice as possible, as much theory as necessary.

Overview

This guide is structured according to the same principle:

First of all, you have to get the software onto your computer.
So the first item on the agenda is installation, which is
described in the Product Manual. If you haven’t yet installed
the software, follow the instructions given there.

The Product Manual presents the fairly dry basics of customiz­ing Pinnacle Liquid for your computer system and equipment.
If you only
back and output), you can skip most of the corresponding
chapter.

The “Quickstart” in this User’s Guide takes you on a quick tour
of the most important functions, from input to output. It was
beyond the scope of this quick run-through to describe all pos­sible configurations so we’ve limited ourselves to the most
likely scenario in which material is imported from a remote­controlled digital device and then output to this device or a CD.
This allows you to work through the “Quickstart” chapter
without being bogged down by currently not needed informa­tion, such as the settings for analog equipment.

Subsequent chapters are arranged in roughly the same order as
the chapters in the Reference Manual (based on the workflow –
(see also The Logical Sequence for Editing on page 5-3)) but,
again, with a greater emphasis on practical applications and
with more detailed examples.

use one digital device (same device used for play-

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Chapter Introduction

General

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Buttons

A user interface is largely made up of buttons; otherwise you
would get lost in a jungle of complicated texts. In addition to
some universal symbols (for example, the triangle for “Play”),
you’ll find the typical Windows buttons:

Minimize, Maximize, Close

There are also several symbols that you won’t recognize from
other products or devices.

Here are some symbols that you will often encounter in dialog
boxes and function modules:

The checkmark stands for OK or Apply
and the X stands for Cancel

The running man stands for Exit.
This button serves to close several
different modules.

Reset to default values

For a more extensive assortment of tool buttons, refer to the
Reference Manual, “Basics” chapter.

Text Styles

Text in italics refers to the software (for example, Menu Bar >
To o l s ) where “>” represents one step in a progression.

Keyboard shortcuts are also highlighted:

CTRL + A.

Shortcut Menus and Menu Bar

In developing Pinnacle Liquid’s visual design, there was one
overriding concern: keep it simple and easy to use. Most of the
functions are called either from a shortcut menu (right-click)
or by means of a tool button.

Alongside To o l s , Shortcut Menus are the principal operating
elements in Pinnacle Liquid. All useful functions are grouped
in these shortcut menus specific to objects and certain areas.
And that’s where you should look first.

Right-click here

Shortcut menu (example)

For some commands, you must first select a Rack or several
clips in order to indicate where you want to apply the function.
For example, if you want to import a clip, first select the Rack
to which you want to import it.
You’ll notice that the background of certain windows starts to
flash (light-gray – dark-gray). This means that the subsequent
action will be applied to this particular area. This is especially
helpful when, for instance, you have opened or selected multi­ple Racks.
Almost all these functions are also contained in the Menu Bar,
which wasn’t available in earlier versions of Pinnacle Liquid.

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In this User Guide, we’ll access some of the functions from the
Menu Bar. If you’re already accustomed to using shortcut
menus, you’ll have no trouble finding the corresponding com­mands there. Beginners will find the functions of the Input and
Output Wizards to be especially helpful. If you’re not sure how
to import or output material, turn to the appropriate Wizard for
assistance.

Call Input-Wizard

Call Output Wizard

It Looks Different in the Book!

The User’s Guide is illustrated with many screenshots from
throughout the user interface. In some cases, the user interface
on your screen may look a little different. That’s because this
manual deals with several products that differ in a number of
details. The appearance of the user interface also varies
depending on the resolution of your particular screen. Our
screenshots are based on a specific resolution. They appear
smaller than they do at higher resolutions and a number of tool
buttons that fit beside the Vie wers at a lower resolution are
positioned below the Viewers at a higher resolution. So if Pin­nacle Liquid uses the higher resolution on your computer and
you start running into problems simply because our screen­shots look different from yours, don’t worry!

User interface at 1024 x 768 User interface at 1280 x 1024

Dual monitor operation:
Left - Project Window;
right - Sequence Editor

You can change the resolution by right-clicking on the Win­dows desktop to open the shortcut menu and selecting Proper-
ties. You can then adjust the screen resolution on the Settings
tab. You may have to reinstall Pinnacle Liquid before the soft­ware settings can take effect. There is also another setting that
affects the appearance of the user interface:
Right-click the Toolbar to open the shortcut menu and select
Customize to open the Function Library.

Toolbar
Right-click to open
shortcut menu

In the Function Librar y, select the Special tab. This tab contains
the Inlay Quality Menu button (Q symbol). While holding down
the left mouse button, drag the Q to an empty spot on the To o l -
bar or a place between two other buttons and drop it (see large
figure on the next page). Then click Close to close the Function
Library.

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Chapter Introduction

Special tab

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Function
Library

Chapter Introduction

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Now click the Q button to open the Inlay Quality menu and
select the bottom option to change the display to the smaller
size (no checkmark) so that your screen will look like the
screenshot in the book.

Default Inlay Size

Project Browser Project Window

Because the work situation described in this document
involves only one monitor, the descriptions provided are based
on the use of the Project Browser for managing material. If you
happen to have two monitors, you have the option of using the
left-hand monitor for the Project Window. The Project Browser
and Project Window are basically the same thing – the elements
described here for the Project Browser can also be found in the
Project Window.

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Chapter Introduction

Where Do I Get the Buttons?

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If you come across tool buttons in the User’s Guide that don’t
appear on your Toolbar but can be seen in the screenshots at the
appropriate locations, don’t panic! They do exist. The proce­dure is the same as was described above for screen resolution.

Right-click the Toolbar to open the shortcut menu. Select the
top option in the list (Customize) to open the Function Library
containing the functions for the current module, identified by
symbols. The Function Library contains all the buttons for the
specific module, including those already located on the Tool-
bar.

If you want to use a function repeatedly or at regular intervals,
use drag & drop (click to select, hold down left mouse button,
drag and drop) to position the button on the Toolbar. Like any
extensive library, our Function Library is organized by “sub-
ject”. For example, the Player tab contains the control buttons
that move the Playline to a specific position, whereas the Edit
tab contains Selection and Editing buttons.

To remove buttons that you never use or use only very seldom,
drag the button back to the Function Library. It makes no differ-
ence whether the correct tab is currently selected.

The same functions found on the tabs of the Function Library
are also contained in the list of functions for one-time

execu-

tion, but here they appear as text entries. The arrangement is
the same, i.e. the tabs of the Function Library correspond to the
five entries in the shortcut menu from which you can call the
functions to apply them once.

Be conservative when customizing the toolbar. In the begin­ning, leave things just as they are. Although the Reference
Manual tells you how to return everything to its original state,
you should use this procedure only when you have no other
choice. See the Reference Manual, “Customize” chapter.

Note: The shortcut menus may be only partially dis-

played, depending on the software module from which
you opened the menu.

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Toolb ar

Shortcut menu

Right-click the toolbar to open
the shortcut menu

Function Library – tabs correspond to the
entries in the shortcut menu

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Chapter Introduction

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Taskbar

In the lower right-hand corner of the Taskbar, you’ll find sev-
eral important functions that are always visible. The “thumbs
up” icon tells you that the system started correctly. If a prob­lem occurs, an exclamation point appears in the same spot. The
color of the exclamation point indicates the particular type of
problem (see the Reference Manual).

The sigma icon (the Greek letter S) represents the Render

Viewer window.
Rendering means the computation of effects. Click the S icon

to open the Render Viewer window, where you can monitor the
rendering process, and start and stop rendering. The horizontal
bar next to the window shows the rendering progress.

Note: Some effects (Classic effects) always require ren-

dering. For realtime effects – and depending on your sys­tem’s performance – the computations are sometimes too
time- and resource-intensive to be done in realtime (for
example, when multiple effects are applied simulta­neously). In this case, the effects are still rendered and the
results are then written to a separate file.

The monitor icon stands for Video Output. When editing, you
always have the possibility of viewing the results of your work
on a video monitor or TV as well. To do this, you must have a
monitor connected to a breakout box via the analog ports. Then
select the appropriate cabling option for the Video Output.
These ports are available with the box that is supplied with the
product Liquid Edition PRO:

YUV, Y/C, CVBS, 1394.

If you select None (i.e. no output), a preview is available only
in the inlay. On the other hand, this is the smoothest way to per­form scrubbing.

These settings again become important later on when you want
to output the sequence. Note that for DV-out in particular,
everything must be rendered.

Glossary: The breakout box is a connection box with var-

ious connection options connected to the computer via a
USB2 port or other interface.
The different products – Liquid blue, and Liquid Edition
PRO – use different breakout boxes. No box is delivered
with Liquid Edition.

To access several views for the Pinnacle Liquid interface, click
the View Switcher (eye icon) and select an available desktop
view.

Note: Right-click the Windows taskbar, select Properties

and in the dialog box displayed, deactivate the checkbox
next to Always on top.

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Keyboard Shortcuts

Finally, Pinnacle Liquid has many functions that can be exe­cuted via the keyboard. It is even possible to customize the key
assignments – i.e. to assign functions to keys – to match your
own personal preferences and requirements.
For example, if you’re used to using specific keyboard short­cuts from another program, simply configure these shortcuts in
Pinnacle Liquid.
In the User’s Guide, we will occasionally refer to the keyboard
shortcuts for specific functions. These shortcuts are based on
the default keyboard assignment. As soon as you customize the
keys to suit your own needs, you may find that you can’t exe­cute certain functions as described in the User’s Guide.
The same applies here as to customizing the Toolbar: Be very
conservative in your use of this option and, if at all possible,
don’t start changing assignments until you’ve read through the
User’s Guide.
To view the commands that can be executed in the current
module, click the Key boa rd (Key Caps) icon in the Taskbar.

Keyboard assignments for the desktop

If you want to change the assignment:
Select Pinnacle Liquid Menu Bar > Edit > Control Panel to open
the Control Panel and then double-click Keyboard Settings to
open a dialog box.

In the Keyboard Settings dialog box, open the drop-down menu
and select the module for which you want to change the assign­ment. Global Shortcuts indicates the commands that are avail­able in each module. In the event of a duplicate assignment –
module-specific and Global Shortcuts – the module-specific
shortcut has priority.
On the right side of the dialog box, a toolbox is displayed con­taining the functions represented as symbols. Use drag & drop
to assign the functions to keys.

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Chapter Introduction

Drop-down menu

Open/close the toolbox

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Chapter Introduction

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But First ...

If you run Pinnacle Liquid with only one controllable device
(generally a DV camcorder):

1 Connect the device.

2 Switch on the device.

3 Start your computer.

4 Start Pinnacle Liquid.

In nine cases out of ten, Windows automatically detects the
device.

The first time you start Pinnacle Liquid, the New Sequence dia­log box opens automatically. Enter a suitable Name in the f ield
provided and an appropriate Format under Edit Presets. Don’t
change the entries in the other fields; they represent default
values for the particular Formats. The first four settings are fol­lowed by the abbreviation “CCIR”, referring to an interna­tional standards committee.

Avoid changing the Format unnecessarily. Create your
Sequences using a uniform Format, play them in this Format
and output them in this Format. See “Standards and Formats”
on page 1-12.

Some of the problems that can arise during the initial steps
have to do with the settings related to your equipment.

So take a little time to read the corresponding section in the
Product Manual.

As far as possible, Pinnacle Liquid functions independently of
your equipment. Nevertheless, two important tools require set­tings that regulate interaction with your equipment and will be
mentioned here. These are the Logging Tool (Capture), which
processes video material played from your system, and the
Record To Tape module.

Differences exist between the Liquid Edition, Liquid Edition
PRO and Liquid blue products. Because each product can also
be operated in combination with different devices, the specific
settings are beyond the scope of this User’s Guide. At this
point, we’ll just briefly describe Media Management.

Standards and Formats

As far as the different Formats and standards are concerned,
you should at least understand the background. The Formats
are determined by four basic parameters:

Resolution,
Aspect Ratio,
Frame Rate and
Interlacing.

Increasing the Resolution improves image quality. A higher res­olution lets you show images in more detail, but may also
reveal unwanted details.

The Aspect Ratio refers to the traditional 4:3 format and the
16:9 (widescreen) format.

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Chapter Introduction

Many additional combinations are possible with Frame Rate
and Interlaced/Non-interlaced. In this context, the second
parameter refers to full-frame or field interlacing, as was for­merly common in television standards. With full-frame inter­lacing, image sequences containing a lot of movement flow
more smoothly.

After examining the format options, determine the format(s) of
your original material and consider your own purposes for out­putting the fully edited Sequence later on.

For example, if most of your original material was processed at
a resolution of 720 x 576 pixels, it wouldn’t make sense to
choose a higher resolution for the Sequence because this would
only have the appearance of improving the quality.

The same is true of the Aspect Ratio: If almost all of the origi­nal material was filmed at a ratio of 4:3, stick with this ratio.
Note that inserting elements with other Aspect Ratios results in
black bars or a cropped image. Although there are a few such
elements that can be incorporated in a Project, they should
remain the exception.

With regard to the Frame Rate, only one Timecodec System can
be used in the current Sequence. Clips using a different Time -
code System are played at the Sequence’s Frame Rate. Frames are
omitted or new Frames interpolated as necessary – one second
is still one second.

For all these reasons, you can take full advantage of HD video
only if you use suitable material throughout. Large-format pro­jections, such as those used for lectures, will turn out better.

Preset
Formats

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Media Management

When you installed Pinnacle Liquid, you already defined a
storage location for data you transfer to your system. You can
look up these settings in the Media Management dialog box and
modify them.

Select Pinnacle Liquid Menu Bar > Edit > Control Panel > Site
> Media Management Settings.

Although a hard disk is a high-capacity storage medium, often
one hard disk is not enough. “Drive” is a superordinate term
for a data medium.

Many computers now have several hard disks installed; Media
Management Settings lets you administer these drives.

See also “Alternative AV Drives/Directories” on page 3-18. Here
you will find instructions on how to add drives.

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Chapter Introduction

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Chapter

Quickstart

Contents

What Do You Want to Do?........................................................................................... 2-2

Step by Step ..................................................................................................................2-2

Inserting Clips on the Timeline .........................................................................................2-9

Output .........................................................................................................................2-20

Output with the RS 422 Control Protocol....................................................................... 2-22

General

First a few preliminary remarks:

This Quickstart chapter is intended to familiarize you with the basic functions of Pinnacle Liquid. In order
to get the desired results, it’s important that you follow the steps exactly.
If you happen to hit a wrong key, button or menu click the Undo button to restore the previous state.

2

Undo button

It is assumed that your system is correctly configured, Pinnacle Liquid is installed and you have a play
source (camera or recorder) plus one recorded tape and

one blank tape.

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Text in italics refers to the software (for example, Menu
Bar > Tools) where “>” represents one step in a progres-

sion.

Saving: With Pinnacle Liquid you don't need to give it a
second thought because the Instant Save technology
ensures that every single step and every change is saved
immediately.

What Do You Want to Do?

You want to cut your video material, edit it and then output it
again. The workflow looks like this:

Step by Step

Before starting the software (by double-clicking the icon on
the desktop), connect your camera (or your player or output
device) and switch it on. If your device is a DV device, it will
be detected automatically when you boot the software.
After booting the software, you would normally either con­tinue working on a Project you previously started or create a
new Project. Let’s do just that:

1 Transfer the material to your computer.

2 Edit the material – for example, by trimming it and apply-

ing an effect.

3 Output the material to a tape, SVCD or DVD.

Note: While filming, you should already be concentrating

on producing a consistent timecode and making sure you
have a little extra material before and after your scenes.
Leave the tape in the camera for as long as you want to
continue recording more material and use short tapes.

1 Select Pinnacle Liquid Menu Bar > File > New > Project.

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Chapter Quickstart

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2 In the dialog box displayed, enter a Project Name of your

choice and click OK to confirm.
We’ll start out using the default template for this Project.
We’ll also retain the default storage location for the Pro-
ject. Later on, you’ll create your own templates.

3 Use the View Switcher to display the Timeline on the bot-

tom and the Sequence Editor on top (see large figure, bot-
tom right).

4 Insert a (recorded) tape in your player. (For the steps that

follow, it is assumed that you use a controllable DV
device for playback.)

Note: A Project is made up of Sequences, which are in turn

made up of clips (video, audio, titles...).

5 Select Pinnacle Liquid Menu Bar > File > Input Wizard to

open the Input Wizard.

6 For this example, click the top icon (with the video cam-

era) in the Input Wizard; this icon represents playing a
video device.

7 The Select A Rack dialog box is displayed. Select New

Rack to create a new Rack.

8 Enter your name for your new Rack and then click Create.

9 A Rack with this name is then added to the list in the Sel-

ect A Rack dialog box.

Chapter Quickstart

10 Select this Rack and click Select.

11 The Logging Tool is now displayed.

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12 You are prompted to select a Reel. Because this is the f irst

time, type in a name. Especially in the case of Projects
where multiple tapes are used, it’s important that you
select a unique name that is significant for you. If appro­priate, combine names and numbers (Spain1, Spain2), but
never use the exact same name twice. If your DV cassette
already has a name (such as Spain1), simply assign the
same name to the Reel.

13 Click Apply and Close (checkmark).

Glossary: Reel is simply the name of a signal source, usu-

ally a video cassette but it can also be a live TV signal.

14 Use the control buttons to shuttle the tape back and forth

in the player. In addition to the buttons you’re already
familiar with from other devices – Play, Stop – you will
also find a Shuttle button.

Mark-in / mark-out

Glossary: The Mark- in is the starting point and the Mark-

out is the end point. Be generous in your definition of

clips so you’ll have enough leeway later on when you
trim. See “Leeway” on page 5-2.

1 frame
ahead/back

Shuttle: Using the
mouse, drag the
slider in order to
fast-forward or
rewind

15 Set a Mark-in at the beginning of the scene and a Mark-

out at the end. Try to create a clip that’s about 20 seconds
long. That will be sufficient for the exercises that follow.

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Chapter Quickstart

13

Apply and Close

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View of
Timeline
and
Sequence
Editor

Chapter Quickstart

Click eye to open menu

3

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16 The Timecode fields below the Viewer contain the values

for the Mark-in and Mark-out as well as the length of the
clip you just defined.

17 Before selecting the audio channels, look at the Au dio tab

to see exactly what you’re dealing with.

Register
Audio

18 Should this clip be a video clip or an audio clip, or should

it contain both? Activate the Source tracks by clicking V,
A1 - A4 (yellow = active). The Audio tab shows input

only for 1 and 2, only these Source tracks (V, A1, A2) can
be digitized.

Note: Mono audio clips are set to “Center” at the Master

output (right and left channel played at the same volume).
In the case of Stereo Audio Clips, the left/right distribution
of the source material is of course retained.

20 You need to name the clip. Select the Clip tab and type in

a name under Title.

21 Click the checkbox to the right of the appropriate text box

to add the entry to the Clip names.
Click an individual plus sign to increment the count by
one. If you activate automatic counting (double plus
sign), numbering is performed automatically.

22 A field in the upper right-hand corner displays the Rack

for the clips.

Note: Clicking the name of the field opens a list from

which you can select an existing Rack.
Double-clicking the icon opens a dialog box for creating a
new Rack.

Glossary: Source tracks – Tracks containing the original

material.

19 Mono or Stereo? One ring means Mono and two rings

mean Stereo. If your camera records stereo sound, select
Stereo.

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Glossary: Rack – The place where clips are stored.

Chapter Quickstart

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18

20

22

21

16

Chapter Quickstart

15

19

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23 Digitizing (capture): Click the Digitize button. The player

goes to the Mark-in and starts digitizing the material, i.e.
starts saving it to the hard disk that appears in the AV f i e ld
when you move the mouse pointer across it.

Digitize button. Button flashes red dur­ing the digitizing process.

Move mouse across this field

Read storage location here

24 Repeat Steps 14 to 23 until you have digitized a total of

five clips.

25 Click the Exit button (running man) to exit the Logging

To o l .

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Chapter Quickstart

Inserting Clips on the Timeline

26 In the Project Browser, click the Rack that you selected for

your clips. If you’re working with two monitors, use the
View Switcher to select a view where one of the monitors
displays the Project Window. Then perform the steps
described below in the Project Window instead of the Pro-
ject Browser.

Open Project Browser

Glossary: The Project Browser serves to administer clips

and effects.
Drag & drop: Click the clip to select it, hold down the left
mouse button, drag the clip to the desired location and
drop it.

PINNACLE

Source Viewer

27 Use the drag & drop method to drag the first digitized clip

to the Source Viewer. As soon as the mouse pointer is
located on the Source Viewer, another arrow appears next
to it. You can now drop the clip.

Chapter Quickstart

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