Pinnacle STUDIO 8 User Manual

Studio Version 8

Professional Quality Movie-Making

Special thanks to Mike Iampietro, William Chien, Richard Edgley, Ivan Maltz, Jon McGowan, Keith Thomson, Jörg Weselmann, and Chris Zamara.

Documentation: Nick Sullivan

Studio, Studio AV, Studio DC10plus, Studio Deluxe, Studio DV, SmartCapture, SmartSeek, Pinnacle Systems, and the Pinnacle Systems logo are registered trademarks of Pinnacle Systems, Inc.

The RealProducer is included under license from RealNetworks, Inc. Copyright 1995-2002, RealNetworks Inc. “RealProducer,” “RealVideo,” “RealServer,” and “Real” logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of RealNetworks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. QDesign MPEG-2 Layer II Fast Encoder/Decoder © 1996-2002 by QDesign Corporation. Windows Media is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. You agree not to remove any product identification or notices of the property restrictions from Pinnacle Systems’ products or manuals.

All products mentioned in this manual are trademarks of their respective owners.

No part of this manual may be copied of distributed, transmitted, transcribed, stored in a retrieval system, or translated into any human or computer language, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, manual, or otherwise, without the express written permission of Pinnacle Systems, Inc.

Pinnacle Systems, Inc. 280 North Bernardo Avenue Mountain View, CA 94943

Printed in the USA.

ii Studio 8

Table of Contents

GETTING STARTED VII

On-line help vii Equipment requirements vii Abbreviations and conventions ix

CHAPTER 1: THE STUDIO INTERFACE 1

Capture mode 3

The Diskometer 5 The Camcorder Controller 6

Edit mode 6

The Album 7 The Player 8 The Movie Window 12 The toolboxes 17 The Video toolbox 18 The Audio Toolbox 22

Make Movie mode 24

CHAPTER 2: CAPTURING VIDEO 27

Capture hardware 27 The capture process 28 Automatic scene detection 31 DV, MicroMV and analog captures 32

DV capture 32

SmartCapture: Preview-quality capture 33 Full-quality capture 35 Audio and video levels 36

Analog capture 37

Capture quality options 38 Audio and video levels 38

Table of Contents i

CHAPTER 3: THE ALBUM 41

The Video Scenes section 43

Opening a captured video file 44 Viewing captured video 46 Displaying scene start and length 47 Selecting scenes 47 Combining and subdividing scenes 48 Redetecting scenes 49 Scene comments 50

The Transitions section 51

The Titles section 53

The Still Images section 54

The Sound Effects section 54

The Disc Menus section 55

CHAPTER 4: VIDEO CLIPS 57

Video clip basics 58

Trimming video clips 60

Trimming on the Timeline using handles 60 Clip-trimming tips 63 Trimming video clips with the Clip properties tool 63 Resetting trimmed clips 66

Splitting and combining clips 66

Advanced Timeline editing 68

Insert Editing 69 Split edits 71

Video clip effects 75

The Adjust colour/Visual effects tool 75 The Vary playback speed tool 77

ii Studio 8

CHAPTER 5: TRANSITIONS 79

Transition types and their uses 80 Previewing transitions in your movie 83 Audio transitions 84 The Ripple Transitions command 85

Trimming transitions 86

Trimming with the Clip properties tool 86

CHAPTER 6: STILL IMAGES 89

Editing still images 91

Trimming with the Clip properties tool 92

The Frame Grabber 93

The Frame grabber tool 94

CHAPTER 7: THE TITLE EDITOR 97

Launching the Title Editor 98

The Title Editor controls 99

Title-type buttons 99 Object toolbox 100 Editing-mode selection buttons 103 Object layout buttons 104 Clipboard and delete buttons 106 Text-styling controls 107

The Title Editor Album 108

The Looks Browser 108 The Backgrounds section 110 The Pictures section 111 The Buttons section 111

CHAPTER 8: SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC 115

The Timeline audio tracks 116 The CD audio tool 117 The SmartSound tool 119 The Voice-over tool 121

Table of Contents iii

Trimming audio clips 124

Trimming with the Clip properties tool 124

Audio volume and mixing 126

Anatomy of an audio clip 127 Adjusting audio volume on the Timeline 127 Adjusting levels with the Volume tool 129

CHAPTER 9: DISC MENUS 131

Understanding menus 131 Disc authoring in Studio 133 Using menus from the Album 134 The DVD Player Control 136 Editing menus on the Timeline 138 Editing with the Clip properties tool 140 The Disc menu tool 144

CHAPTER 10: MAKING YOUR MOVIE 145

Outputting to a camera or video recorder... 146 Output your movie to videotape 147 Save your movie as an AVI file 149 Save your movie as an MPEG file 151 Save as RealVideo or Windows Media 153 Share your movie via the Internet 155 Output your movie to DVD, VCD or S-VCD 156

APPENDIX A: SETUP OPTIONS 161

Capture source settings 162 Capture format settings 165 Edit settings 170 CD and Voice-over settings 172 Make tape settings 174 Make AVI file settings 175 Make MPEG file settings 178 Make RealVideo file settings 180 Make Windows Media file settings 183 Make disc settings 184

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APPENDIX B: TIPS AND TRICKS 187

Hardware 187 Software 189 Increasing the frame rate 191 Studio and computer animation 192 Smart Capture Tips (DV only) 192

APPENDIX C: TROUBLESHOOTING 195

Installation 196

Operation 201

APPENDIX D: USEFUL HINTS 207

Video Editing and Capturing 207 Creating a Shooting Plan 207 Editing 208 Rules of Thumb for Video Editing 212 Soundtrack Production 214 Title 215

APPENDIX E: GLOSSARY 217

APPENDIX F: LICENSE AGREEMENT 233

APPENDIX G: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 237

INDEX 241

Table of Contents v

vi Studio 8

Getting Started

On-line help

On-line help is always available while you’re working in Studio.

• On-line help: Click the help button in the Studio

main menu bar, or press F1 to display the table of contents page of the standard help topics. Click the Help > Help Topic > Index menu if you want to search for a specific topic or command.

• Tool tips: To find out what a button or other Studio

control does, pause your mouse pointer over it and a “tool tip” appears explaining its function.

Equipment requirements

In addition to your Studio software, here is what you need to make a Studio editing system.

Computer

• Intel Pentium or AMD Athlon 500 MHz or higher.

• Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows

Millennium, Windows 2000 or Windows XP

• DirectX-compatible graphics card

• DirectX-compatible sound card

• 128 MB of RAM (256 MB recommended)

• CD-ROM drive

• Speakers

Getting Started vii

• Mouse

• A microphone, if you want to record voice-overs

• 300 MB of free hard disk space to install software.

Your hard drive must be capable of a sustained reading and writing at 4 MB/sec. All SCSI and most UDMA drives are capable of this. The first time you capture at full quality, Studio will test your drive to make sure it is fast enough. DV-format video occupies 3.6 MB of hard disk space for every second of video, so four minutes of DV video will require almost 900 MB of hard disk space. If disk space is a concern with DV captures, use SmartCapture to capture your video at Preview-quality (see Chapter 2: Capturing Video). This feature uses much less disk space. An entire tape can fit in as little as 360 megabytes.

• We recommend using a separate hard drive dedicated

to video capture to avoid competition for the drive with Windows and other software during capture.

Video capture hardware

Studio can capture video from a variety of digital and analogue sources. Please see “Capture hardware” on page 27.

Video equipment

Studio can output video to:

• Any DV or Digital8 camcorder or VCR. This

requires Pinnacle Studio DV or other OHCIcompliant 1394 port. The camcorder must be enabled to record from DV Input.

• Any analogue (8mm, Hi8, VHS, SVHS, VHS-C or

SVHS-C) camcorder or VCR. This requires Pinnacle

viii Studio 8

Studio DC10plus, Studio AV or another Pinnacle card with analogue outputs. Output to analogue camcorders or VCRs is also possible using a Pinnacle Studio DV or other OHCI-compliant 1394 (FireWire) port if your DV or Digital8 camcorder or VCR can pass a DV signal through to its analogue outputs (see your camcorder manual and Chapter 10: Making Your Movie, for more information).

Abbreviations and conventions

This guide uses the following conventions to help organise the material.

Terminology

Studio: Studio refers to the editing software.

DV: The term DV refers to DV and Digital8

camcorders, VCRs, and tapes.

1394: The term 1394 refers to OHCI-compliant IEEE1394, FireWire, DV or iLink interfaces, ports and cables.

Analogue: The term analogue refers to 8mm, Hi8, VHS, SVHS, VHS-C or SVHS-C camcorders VCRs and tapes, and to Composite/RCA and S-Video cables and connectors.

Buttons, menus, dialog boxes and windows

Names of buttons, menus and related items are written in italics to distinguish them from the surrounding text, whereas window and dialog names are written with initial capital letters. For example:

Click the Edit Menu button to open your menu in the Title Editor.

Getting Started ix

Choosing menu commands

The right angle-bracket symbol (>) denotes the path for hierarchical menu items. For example:

Select Toolbox > Generate Background Music.

Keyboard conventions

Key names are spelled with an initial capital and are underlined. A plus sign denotes a key combination. For example:

Press Ctrl+A to select all the clips on the Timeline.

Brackets denote keys that do not have names printed on them:

Press [Spacebar] to display the tool.

Mouse clicks

When a mouse click is required, the default is always a left-click unless specified:

Right-click and select Go to Title/Menu Editor.

x Studio 8

Chapter 1:

The Studio Interface

Creating movies with Studio is a three-step process:

1. Capture: Import source video material to your PC hard drive.

2. Edit: Arrange the material as desired by reordering scenes and discarding unwanted footage. Add visuals, such as transitions, titles and graphics, and supplementary audio, such as sound effects and background music. For DVD and VCD authoring, create interactive menus that give your audience a customised viewing experience.

3. Make movie: Generate the finished movie in your choice of format and storage medium.

Set which step of the movie-making process you want to work on with the three mode buttons at the top left of the Studio window:

Undo, Redo and Help

To the right of the mode buttons are

the Undo, Redo and Help buttons. Undo allows you to back out of any changes you have made to your project during the current session, one step at time. Redo reinstates the changes one by one if you undo too far. The Help button launches Studio’s on-line help system.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 1

All other controls on the Studio screen are dedicated to tasks within the current mode.

Starting with “Capture mode” on page 3, this chapter introduces the Studio user interface in each mode.

Setting options

Most options in Studio are set using two tabbed dialog boxes.

The first lets you control options related to Capture mode and Edit mode. It has four tabs: Capture source, Capture format, Edit and CD and Voice-over.

The other one is concerned with options relating to Make Movie mode. It has six tabs, one for each of the six movie output types:

Each panel of both dialog boxes can be accessed individually with a corresponding command on the Setup menu (e.g. Setup > Capture Source). Once a dialog box is open, however, all its panels are available through the tabs.

For simplicity, this manual generally refers to the different option panels independently, as in “the Capture source options panel”.

Detailed explanations of the options in both dialog boxes are contained in Appendix A: Setup Options.

2 Studio 8

CAPTURE MODE

Capture is the process of recording from a video source to your PC’s hard drive.

The tools and controls you see in Capture mode are different depending on whether you are capturing from a DV or MicroMV source or from an analogue source.

If your video source is analogue, you will connect to your computer hardware with either a composite or an S-Video cable. Your Capture mode screen will look like this:

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 3

If you are capturing from DV or MicroMV equipment connected to a 1394 port, the capture screen looks like this:

These set-ups have two major differences in capability:

• The analogue set-up lets you modify audio and video

levels dynamically during capture.

• The DV set-up lets you control the tape transport of

the camcorder or VCR using an on-screen control – the Camcorder Controller.

As the capture process proceeds, Studio fills the Album (top left of screen) with the captured video scenes, while the Player (top right of screen) shows the incoming video and the Diskometer monitors the free space on your hard drive. Readouts on the Player tell you the exact length of the captured video, and the number of dropped frames during the capture (normally zero).

4 Studio 8

The Diskometer

The Diskometer displays, both numerically and graphically, the amount of space available on your capture drive. It also indicates the approximate duration of video that can be accommodated, which depends on both the available space and the configured capture quality. Capture quality settings are selected using the preset buttons displayed on the Diskometer for some capture devices, or by entering custom settings. See

Chapter 2: Capturing Video and Appendix A: Setup Options for information on capture settings.

The Start Capture/Stop Capture button on the Diskometer begins and ends the capture process. The default location for captured video is:

C:\My Documents\Pinnacle Studio\Captured Video

To save newly captured videos to a different location, click the file folder button to display the Browse for Folder window. The folder you assign will be used to store captured video during the current and future sessions.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 5

The Camcorder Controller

Use these on-screen transport controls to view your tape and to seek to the location on the tape at which capture is to begin. The counter window displays the current position of the camcorder tape, along with the current transport mode of the camcorder.

From left to right, the transport

control buttons are: Stop, Rewind /

Review, Play, Fast forward / Cue

and Pause. The Frame reverse and Frame forward buttons (second row) let you locate the exact frame you want.

Reminder: The Camcorder Controller is available only for a DV or MicroMV device connected to a 1394 port.

EDIT MODE

Studio opens in Edit mode each time it is launched, because that is the mode you use most often. The Edit mode display includes three main areas: the Album, the Player, and the Movie Window.

6 Studio 8

The Album

The Album contains the source materials for your video production. It is divided into six sections, selected by tabs as follows:

Video Scenes: Your captured video footage. To

use a given scene in your movie, simply drag it into place in the Movie Window. See Chapter 4: Video Clips.

Transitions: Use fades, dissolves, and other

transitions by dragging them into place between video clips and graphics in the Movie Window. See Chapter 5: Transitions.

Titles: Editable titles to use as overlays or as full-

screen graphics. Studio supports scrolls, crawls, and many typographical effects. See Chapter 6: Still Images.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 7

Frame Grabs: Your collection of bitmapped

images and grabbed video frames. These can be used as overlays or as full-screen images. See Chapter 6: Still Images.

Sound Effects: Windows wav and mp3 files can

be added to your production. A full range of supplied sound effects gets you started. See Chapter 8: Sound Effects and Music.

Disc Menus: A collection of chapter menus to use in DVD, VCD and S-VCD authoring. See Chapter

9: Disc Menus.

The Video Scenes section of the Album. Click the tabs down the left side of the Album to access the materials in the other sections.

The Player

The Player displays a preview of your edited movie, or shows what is selected in the Album. It consists of two main areas: a preview window and playback controls. The preview window displays video images. The playback controls allow you to play the video, or go to an exact position within it. These controls come in two formats: standard and DVD.

8 Studio 8

The standard playback controls are similar to those you find on a camcorder or VCR. They are used for viewing ordinary video.

The DVD playback controls emulate the navigation controls on a DVD player or remote. Use them for previewing your DVD, VCD or S-VCD disc productions, including menu interaction.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 9

Switch between the two types of playback control with the DVD toggle button – a small oval with the legend “DVD”. This button is only available when your edited movie contains at least one menu. The DVD controls are automatically selected when you begin playback from within a disc menu.

Preview window

This is a point of focus in Studio because you use it so often. It displays moving video during playback. It also displays still images, titles at your current position, and still video frames when you select a scene in the Album or a clip in the Movie Window, or when you “jog” forward or back by single frames.

Standard playback controls

↔

These buttons control playback in the Player.

Play / Pause: The Play button previews

the movie from the current position. Once preview begins, Play becomes Pause. When paused, the Album scene or Movie Window clip at which previewing stopped remains selected.

Jog buttons

10 Studio 8

Fast reverse: Plays movie in fast reverse (10x normal speed).

Fast forward: Plays movie in fast forward (10x normal speed).

Go to beginning: Moves scrubber to the first frame of your movie.

Step the movie forward and backward by single frames.

Player scrubber

Use the Player scrubber to quickly traverse forward and backward through your captured video or through your edited movie. The scrubber position corresponds to the position of the current frame in the captured video file (not just the current scene) or in the edited movie (not just the current clip). Thus the scrubber bar always represents the entire length of the content being viewed.

As you move the scrubber, the preview window shows the current frame.

The ability of the preview to keep up with the scrubber depends on the speed of your computer. If you move the Player scrubber slowly, the preview display responds smoothly. As you increase the rate at which you move the scrubber, the preview will jump frames. The point at which it does so depends on your hardware.

Counter

The counter displays your current position in hours, minutes, seconds and frames. You can directly modify the counter fields to select an exact point to view or at which to start playback. Simply click on the number you wish to change and type a new value. After you click within the counter, you can also control it from the keyboard:

• Step through the fields: Tab

, Shift+Tab, [Left],

[Right]

• Raise and lower field values: [Up] and [Down].

Hold the key down to continuously change the value.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 11

DVD playback controls

These controls include the four standard transport buttons detailed above (Play/Pause, Fast reverse,

Fast forward, Go to beginning) plus the DVD Player Control, which is described under “The DVD Player Control” on page 136.

The Movie Window

The Movie Window title bar contains several important controls and displays. The toolbox buttons at the left of the title bar open the Video toolbox and the Audio toolbox, which are discussed on page 17.

Video toolbox Audio toolbox

To the right of the toolbox buttons is a text area where the project file name is displayed. Status and warning

12 Studio 8

messages are also displayed in this area when required. Further to the right are the Clip Split and Clip Delete buttons, while at the far right are three view selection buttons (see “Movie Window views” below).

Split Clip button – the razorblade

Click this button to split the currently-selected clip in the Movie Window, or the currently-selected scene in the Album. No information is lost: the item is simply duplicated and “trimmed” to the indicated point. This button can be used in conjunction with the tracklocking buttons in the Movie Window’s Timeline view to carry out special operations such as insert editing, and edits in which the audio leads or lags behind the video.

Delete Clip button – the trashcan

This button deletes the currently-selected content in any of the Movie Window views.

Movie Window views

The Movie Window has three views: Timeline, Storyboard and Text. You switch between them by

clicking the view selection buttons in the upper right corner of the Movie Window.

Storyboard view Timeline view Text view

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 13

Storyboard view: Storyboard view shows the order of video scenes and transitions. It uses thumbnail icons for quickly structuring a movie. You can choose large or small thumbnails in the Edit options panel.

Timeline view: Timeline View shows the position and duration of clips relative to the Timescale. This view also displays the five tracks on which you can place various types of clip: video, original (or “synchronous”) audio , title overlays and graphics, sound effects and voice-overs, and background music. A sixth track, for

menus, chapter marks and other return-to-menu links, appears above the Video track whenever the movie has at least one menu.

with a feature that allows you to “lock” any track independently of the others, excluding it from editing and playback operations.

As your cursor passes over the track icons at the left edge of the Movie Window, each displays as a button that can be clicked to toggle locking for that track. Track-locking gives Studio insert-edit and split-edit capability (see Chapter 4: Video Clips).

14 Studio 8

The Video track normally takes precedence over all other tracks when trimming or deleting. This arrangement can be bypassed when necessary

Because many editing operations can be carried out only in Timeline view, it will be your choice whenever extensive, detailed or advanced editing is required.

Text view: Text view is a list showing the start and end times of clips, as well as their duration. In addition, custom names for clips are visible in this view.

Movie Window positioning: Edit line, scrubbers

The current position is the frame showing in the Player. It is indicated in the Movie Window’s Timeline view by the edit line. The current position can be changed by moving either the Timeline scrubber (at the top of the edit line) or the Player scrubber.

Clip placement feedback

Studio gives you several types of feedback about your actions as you place clips in the Timeline view.

The status line: The status line area on the left of the Movie Window title bar displays messages as you place clips and perform other actions.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 15

When the Clip properties tool is open, a third scrubber, the trim scrubber, is available for adjusting current position within the clip during trimming.

Placement symbols: Studio does not allow you to create combinations that cause problems. The mouse pointer symbols and the colours of the vertical placement lines indicate what you can and cannot do. For example, if you attempt to drag a sound onto the Video track, the placement lines turn red, the plus sign becomes an “unavailable” symbol, and the status line

16 Studio 8

tells you, “Only scenes, titles, photos and transitions on video track.”

Green placement lines with a “copy” sign

mean that

an action is legal; red placement lines with the “unavailable” sign ; show that you cannot perform the action.

The toolboxes

The toolboxes provide a convenient point-and-click interface to the operations of adding clips to your movie and adjusting existing clips. Studio provides separate toolboxes for video clips and for audio clips.

The toolboxes are available only in Edit mode. They are opened and closed with the buttons at the top left of the Movie Window.

Select the toolbox you want to open by moving your cursor over the icons. The individual buttons highlight, indicating which toolbox will open when you click. The Album is then replaced by the toolbox display, which contains two main areas:

• Tool selector buttons in a panel on the left. Clicking

one of these opens the corresponding tool.

• The currently selected tool on the right. Double-

clicking a clip in the Movie Window also displays the corresponding tool (except for title and still image clips, which are opened in the Title Editor on double-click).

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 17

All the tool-selector buttons, except the top one in each set, open specialised tools. The top button in both toolboxes is the Clip properties tool. It displays a tool appropriate for trimming and otherwise editing the type of clip currently selected in the Movie Window.

The Title Editor

One powerful tool that is not directly accessed through the toolboxes is the Title Editor, in which you can combine text, images and other graphic resources to make titles and disc menus for your Studio productions. Access the Title Editor through the Title and Menu tools, or with the Go to Title/Menu Editor command from the right-button context menu in the Movie Window.

The Video toolbox

The six tools in this toolbox modify or create visual clip types, including video clips, titles, still images and disc menus.

18 Studio 8

Clip properties: The Clip properties tool adjusts the start and end times of any type of clip. This is also called trimming. The tool also allows you to type in descriptive names. Different types of clip present a different interface in this tool. In this example, we are trimming a video clip.

Titles and graphics: This tool lets you edit the name and duration of titles and other still images. The Edit Title button takes you to the Title Editor for changing the visual appearance of the image.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 19

Disc menus: The Disc menus tool has a number of controls for editing the links between the buttons on disc menu and entry points into your movie called chapter marks, which are represented on the Menu track in the Movie Window. The Edit Menu button opens the Title Editor, where you can modify the visual appearance of a menu.

Grab frames: This tool takes a snapshot of a single frame from your movie or from your current video source. You can use it in your movie, or save it for use in other applications. As with Capture mode itself, this tool presents a different interface if your current capture source is DV (pictured here) than if you are using a non-DV source.

20 Studio 8

Adjust colour/Add visual effect: This tool adjusts the visual components of the selected clip: Hue, Saturation, Brightness and Contrast. It can also apply any of four filters to the selected clip: Blur, Emboss, Mosaic and Posterize. The Default button restores the clip to its original state.

Vary playback speed: The left-hand slider in this tool window allows you to vary the playback speed of a clip, from five times normal speed down to one-tenth normal speed. The right-hand slider allows you to repeat frames in a selected clip from zero (no strobe effect) to fifty repeated frames. The clip length remains the same: Studio replaces frames from the clip with the repeated frames.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 21

The Audio Toolbox

The five tools in this set operate on or create audio clips – “original” audio, voice-overs, sound effects, CD tracks and SmartSound background music.

22 Studio 8

Change volume: This tool gives you a master audio level control for all three audio tracks: “original” audio (audio captured with video), sound effects and music. It also enables you to mute any or all of the tracks, and add real-time volume fades to any of the tracks.

Record voice-overs: To record a voice-over, simply click the Record button and begin speaking into your microphone.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 23

Add Audio CD: Use this tool to add tracks, in whole or in part, from an audio CD.

Automatic background music: This tool lets you add background music using SmartSound, Studio’s powerful background music generator. Just choose a style, song, and version and Studio will create a musical soundtrack that matches the duration of your movie.

MAKE MOVIE MODE

Make Movie mode allows you to output your movies to several media types and in a variety of formats. During output, the Timeline scrubber advances across the Movie Window, and the Player shows the material currently being recorded.

24 Studio 8

Making videotapes

Just as the Capture screen layout depends on your choice of capture hardware, the Make Movie screen display also reflects the hardware available on your system. Making a videotape, for example, is possible only with a Pinnacle Studio DV or other IEEE-1394 board, a Pinnacle Studio DC10plus, or a Pinnacle Studio AV.

Making digital movies

You can also make digital movies (MPEG1, MPEG2 or AVI) or streaming video (RealVideo or Windows Media files) to email to your friends or to put on a web page. Select the output format using the buttons located just to the left of the Status Window. To the right of the Status Window is the Diskometer, which shows both the amount of space available on your output drive and the amount required to store the digital movie file.

Chapter 1: The Studio Interface 25

Making discs

You can also output your movies in VCD, S-VCD and DVD formats directly to your disc-burning hardware for playback in a compatible device. The make disc interface features a Diskometer-style readout showing the amount of space your movie will use on the target disc type at your chosen quality settings.

With DVD discs, you have the additional option of creating an “image” of the disc in a specified folder on your hard drive. Studio can burn the image onto an actual disc when you are ready. This is helpful for testing your disc using a software DVD player, and for making multiple copies of your DVD.

26 Studio 8

Chapter 2:

Capturing Video

Capture is the process of importing video from a video source to your PC’s hard drive, where it can be used in the creation of your edited movie.

Studio is able to capture from both digital (DV, MicroMV) and analogue video sources (see “Capture Hardware” below for details). The captured video is stored in a file on your hard drive – the capture file – where it can be used for creating your finished movie. Capture files can be opened in the Album during Edit mode.

The first step in capturing is to switch into Studio’s Capture mode by clicking the Capture button at the top of the screen.

For an introduction to the Capture mode interface, see “Capture mode” on page 3.

Capture hardware

Studio can capture analogue and digital video from the following sources, depending on your hardware:

• A DV, MicroMV or Digital8 camcorder connected to

a Pinnacle Studio DV, a Pinnacle Studio Deluxe AVDV, or other 1394 port.

Chapter 2: Capturing Video 27

• A camcorder or VCR connected to a Pinnacle Studio

DC10plus, Pinnacle Studio AV, or Pinnacle Studio Deluxe AVDV.

• A camcorder or VCR connected to a Pinnacle Linx

USB Video Capture Cable or other DirectShowcompatible video capture device.

• A camcorder or VCR connected to a Pinnacle PCTV

or other TV-tuner PCI board.

• USB video cameras or webcams.

To select a capture device:

1. Click the Setup > Capture Source menu.

The Capture source options panel appears.

2. Select the devices you want to use from the Video

and Audio drop-down lists in the Capture devices area, and click OK.

See “Capture source settings” on page 162 for detailed information about the Capture source options panel.

The capture process

Here is a step-by-step outline of the capture process. Further information relating to some of the steps can be found later on in this chapter. Also see Appendix A:

Setup Options for detailed descriptions of the Capture source and Capture format option panels.

28 Studio 8

To capture video:

1. Verify that your equipment is properly connected.

For a DV or MicroMV capture, your camcorder or VCR must be connected to your PC’s 1394 port.

For an analogue capture, connect the source video to your hardware’s Composite or S-Video input. Connect your source audio to the audio input of your capture device, if it has one; otherwise, connect the audio to the audio input of your PC sound board.

2. Click the Capture button at the top of the screen if

you are not already in Capture mode. The Capture mode interface is displayed (see Chapter 1: The Studio Interface).

3. Click the desired capture setting on the Diskometer.

If you need to make detailed adjustments, click the Diskometer’s Settings button, which opens the

Capture format options panel (see Appendix A: Setup Options).

For a DV capture, keep in mind that full-quality capture uses much more disk space than does preview quality. If you are planning to output your finished movie to disc (VCD, S-VCD or DVD), you may choose to make your full-quality capture in MPEG rather than DV format. (See “DV Capture” on page 32 for further explanation of these options.)

For an analogue capture, keep in mind that the higher the quality setting, the larger will be your captured video file.

4. Click the Start Capture button on the Diskometer.

The Capture Video dialog box is displayed.

Chapter 2: Capturing Video 29

5. Type in a name for your source video. You can

optionally also enter a limiting duration for the capture.

(If you are making multiple DV captures in preview quality from the same tape, using the file naming convention suggested under “DV Capture” on page 32 will help streamline the Make Movie process later on).

Note: Windows 98 and Millennium have file size limitations. For FAT16 disks the limit is 2 GB. For FAT32 disks the limit is 4GB. Studio estimates the duration of video of the desired quality that the largest allowable file can accommodate, and displays this as the maximum duration for the capture.

6. If you are capturing from an analogue camcorder or

VCR, start playback now. This step is unnecessary with a digital-source capture, as Studio will control the playback equipment automatically.

7. Click the Start Capture button in the Capture Video

dialog box. The button caption changes to Stop Capture.

Capture begins. The Player displays the incoming digitised video that is being saved to your hard drive (unless you have unchecked Capture preview on the Capture source options panel).

During capture, Studio performs automatic scene

detection based on the current setting in the Capture source options panel.

8. Click the Stop Capture button to end capture at a

point you select.

Studio automatically stops capturing if your hard drive fills up or the maximum duration you entered is reached.

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Automatic scene detection

Scene detection is a key feature of Studio. As capturing proceeds, Studio automatically detects natural breaks in the video and divides it up into scenes. A new icon is created in the Video Scenes section of the Album for each scene detected.

You can configure scene detection using the options under Scene detection during video capture on the Capture source options panel (Setup > Capture Source). Not all scene detection options are available with every type of video source. Options that do not apply to your set-up are disabled in the dialog.

The four options are:

• Automatic based on shooting time and date: This

option is available only when you are capturing from a DV source. Studio monitors the time stamp data on the tape during capture, and starts a new scene whenever a discontinuity is found.

• Automatic based on video content: Studio detects

changes in the video content, and creates a new scene wherever there is a large change in the images. This feature might not work well if the lighting is not stable. For example, a video shot in a nightclub with a strobe light would produce a scene each time the strobe light flashed.

• Create new scene every X seconds: Studio

manually creates a new scene at an interval you choose. This is a useful way to break up scenes in a tape that contains long continuous shots.

• Manual: press [space bar] to create a new scene:

Select this choice if you want to watch the entire capture process and decide for yourself where scene breaks should occur.

Chapter 2: Capturing Video 31

DV, MicroMV and analogue captures

The controls and options displayed in Capture mode depend on the capture hardware you select. The remainder of this chapter is divided into two sections as follows:

• If you are using a DV camcorder or VCR connected

to a 1394 port, please refer to “DV capture” immediately below.

• If you are using an analogue device with either a

composite video or S-Video input to your hardware, please refer to “Analogue capture” on page 37.

If you are using a MicroMV camcorder connected to a 1394 port, the Capture mode interface is identical to that for DV equipment. However, most DV capture options and features are not available with MicroMV captures, including preview-quality capture, and the choice of DV encoding. Captures from MicroMV are always MPEG-2.

DV CAPTURE

This section covers capture from a DV source deck (camcorder or VCR) and a 1394 port. If you are instead capturing from analogue hardware, please see “Analogue capture” on page 37.

When capturing in DV format from a DV device, Studio offers two choices for capture settings: preview quality (SmartCapture) and full quality. At full quality, two types of encoding are available: DV and MPEG.

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SmartCapture: Preview-quality capture

SmartCapture is a unique feature of Studio. It allows you to capture from DV videotape in a reduced quality file using minimal hard drive space. With SmartCapture, you can capture an entire tape onto your hard drive, instead of picking and choosing which video clips to capture. You can use this “previewquality” video to build and preview your movie.

When you are ready to make your finished movie, Studio will recapture the scenes included in your movie at full quality, automatically controlling your source deck to locate and capture the desired footage. The reduced quality of the preview video therefore has no impact on the quality of your finished movie. Scenes captured at preview quality are denoted in the Album by a dotted border.

Continuous timecode

For SmartCapture to work well, your digital tape must have continuous DV timecode. Studio cannot capture through breaks in the timecode. If your camcorder has a timecode-striping feature, stripe your tape first. If it does not, there are two ways to ensure that your tape has continuous timecode.

1. Put a tape into the camcorder, put the lens cap on,

and press record. This will record black through the entire tape, creating a continuous timecode source track.

Chapter 2: Capturing Video 33

2. If you don’t have time to record black throughout

your entire tape, make sure to overlap your shots if you start and stop the camcorder during shooting. Before you begin a new shot, rewind a few frames so that there will not be a blank spot between shots.

SmartCapture can still be used with camcorders that do not have continuous timecode throughout, but a separate capture file must be created for each segment of the tape. SmartCapture will stop capturing when a break in timecode is detected. To continue capturing, cue the tape to the start of the next video segment and click Start Capture again.

Naming convention

If you capture multiple segments from the same tape, we strongly recommend the following naming convention: For each capture file that originates from

the same tape, use a name that starts with the same word.

For example, if you have a tape that contains three different activities from your vacation, you might call the captures “vacation-picnic”, “vacation-sailing” and “vacation-soccer”. Following this convention will greatly reduce the number of times you will have to switch tapes during the Make Tape process.

Analogue tapes and Digital8 camcorders

SmartCapture requires DV timecode. Analogue tapes (Hi8 and 8mm) do not have DV timecode even when played in a Digital8 camcorder. As a result, it is not possible to use SmartCapture with analogue tapes played in a Digital8 camcorder. To use your analogue tapes with Studio, either capture them at full quality, or copy them to DV tape.

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Full-quality capture

You have two choices for the way the video data is encoded and compressed in full-quality captures. For most purposes, DV format is the logical choice, but if you are planning to output your finished movie to disc (VCD, S-VCD or DVD), MPEG format may be preferred.

Studio can capture DV in real time, even at full quality. MPEG captures typically are slower. Exactly how much slower depends on the quality settings you choose and on the speed of your machine. An MPEG movie requires much less disk space than the equivalent full-quality DV movie (although with SmartCapture this is not generally a concern).

DV is a high-resolution format with correspondingly high storage requirements.

Your camcorder compresses and stores video on the tape at 3.6 MB/s, which is broadcast-quality video. With full-quality capture, the video data is transferred directly from the camcorder tape to your PC hard drive with no changes or additional compression. Due to the high quality, capturing at this setting does take up a lot of disk space, so you may want to pick and choose small segments to capture instead of the entire tape.

You can calculate the amount of disk space you will need by multiplying the length of your video in seconds by 3.6 MB/s. For example:

1 hour of video = 3600 seconds (60 x 60)

3600 seconds x 3.6 MB/s = 12,960 MB

Hence 1 hour of video uses 12.9 GB of storage.

Chapter 2: Capturing Video 35

To capture at full quality, your hard drive must be capable of sustained reading and writing at 4 MB/s. All SCSI and most UDMA drives are capable of this. The first time you capture at full quality, Studio will test your drive to make sure it is fast enough.

MPEG

DVD and S-VCD discs both use files in MPEG-2 format, an extension of the MPEG-1 format used for VCDs. MPEGs intended for use on the Internet will be at lower resolutions and in MPEG-1 format.

The Capture format panel (Setup > Capture Format) includes a variety of options to control the quality of MPEG captures.

Another option lets you adapt the way MPEG encoding is carried out to the speed of your computer.

• The first option, Use default encoding mode, leaves

it up to Studio to decide which of the other options to apply, based on its estimate of what is likely to work well on your machine.

• The best choice for very fast machines is Encode in

real time, in which capture and encoding are carried

out simultaneously.

• Finally, slow machines will use the fallback mode,

Encode after capturing, which obviously takes longest but ensures that capture will be as near to error-free as possible.

Refer to “Capture format settings” on page 165 for detailed information about MPEG quality options.

Audio and video levels

With DV and MicroMV captures, you are using audio and video that have been encoded in the DV file format

36 Studio 8

during recording, right in the camera. When you transfer the footage through an IEEE-1394 port to your computer, the data remains in the compressed digital format throughout, so you cannot adjust the audio or video levels during the capture. This is in contrast to analogue captures, where the audio and video can be adjusted as capturing takes place.

With digital captures, you defer any needed adjustment of audio and video levels until Edit mode. The Adjust colour / Add visual effect tool in Edit mode provides sliders (Hue, Saturation, Brightness and Contrast) to adjust video levels, while the Volume tool allows you to adjust audio levels. These tools allow you to adjust individual clips rather than making global adjustments on all the video in a capture file.

ANALOGUE CAPTURE

The topics in this section relate to capture with analogue equipment, such as:

• A camcorder or VCR connected to a Pinnacle Studio

DC10plus, Pinnacle Studio AV, or Pinnacle Studio Deluxe AVDV.

• A camcorder or VCR connected to a Pinnacle Linx

USB Video Capture Cable or other DirectShowcompatible capture device.

• A camcorder or VCR connected to a Pinnacle PCTV

or other TV Tuner PCI board.

• A USB video camera or web-cam.

• If you are using a DV or MicroMV camcorder

connected to your computer via a 1394 port, please refer instead to “DV capture” on page 32.

Chapter 2: Capturing Video 37

Capture quality options

Studio offers three preset quality choices – Good, Better and Best – and a Custom option. The video

capture settings for each of the presets, including picture size, frame rate, compression characteristics and quality, depend on the capabilities of the capture hardware being used. Keep in mind that the higher the quality, the more disk space is required. Choose the Custom preset to configure your own video capture settings. For more information on video capture settings, see Appendix A: Setup Options.

Audio and video levels

Studio provides slide-out panels for controlling video and audio levels during capture. This feature is especially useful for compensating for differences in video captured from multiple sources.

Although you can also adjust these levels with the Toolbox controls in Edit mode, setting them correctly for capture can save you from having to carry out timeconsuming scene-by-scene colour correction.

Setting your audio options correctly as you capture will help in achieving consistent volume levels and quality.

Particular capture devices may offer fewer options than are shown and discussed here. For instance, with hardware that doesn’t support audio captures in stereo, a balance control will not appear on the audio panel.

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Video

Choose the type of video you are going to digitise by clicking the appropriate Source button (Composite or S- Video). The five level sliders allow you to control the brightness (video gain), contrast (black level), sharpness, hue and colour saturation of the incoming video.

Audio

Use the Audio capture buttons to control whether Studio should capture the audio along with the video. Select the Off button if your source is video only. The sliders on the tray let you control the input level and stereo balance of the incoming audio.

Chapter 2: Capturing Video 39

40 Studio 8

Chapter 3:

The Album

The source materials you need for making a movie are stored in the various sections of the Album, each accessed by its own tab as follows:

Video scenes: Your captured video footage. Each scene in the capture video file is represented by a

thumbnail frame.

Transitions: Fades, dissolves, slides and other

transitions, including the elaborate Hollywood FX transitions.

Titles: Editable titles to use as overlays or as full-

screen graphics. Studio supports scrolls, crawls, and many typographical effects.

Still images: Photographs, bitmaps and grabbed

video frames. These can be used as overlays or as full-screen images.

Sound effects: A collection of wav and mp3 files,

including a full range of supplied sound effects.

Disc menus: A collection of chapter menus to use

in DVD, VCD and SVCD authoring.

Each section of the Album contains as many pages as are necessary to hold the icons representing the items in that section. At the top right of each Album page,

Chapter 3: The Album 41

Studio shows the current page number and the total page count for the section. Click the arrows to move forward or back through the pages.

All types of Album content can be previewed simply by clicking on the icons. During preview, most items display a small progress bar along the bottom of the icon (the exceptions are transitions and sound effects).

This chapter introduces each of the Album sections in turn, beginning with a detailed discussion of the allimportant Video Scenes section. Actually using the contents of the Album to create your edited movie will be the subject of Chapters 4 through 9.

Source folders for Album content

The contents of the Video Scenes section come from a captured video file, while the Transitions section is filled from resource files associated with the Studio program.

The icons in each of the other four Album sections are different: they represent the files contained in a particular disk folder. Each of these sections – Titles, Images, Sound effects and Disc menus – has a default folder assigned to it, but you can select a different folder if desired. The source folder for the section’s content is listed at the top of the left Album page, next to a small Folder button the current section, click this button, browse to another folder on your system, and select any file. (The file you select will be highlighted in the repopulated Album section, but is not otherwise affected.)

42 Studio 8

. To change the source of

THE VIDEO SCENES SECTION

This is where the editing process begins – in the

Video Scenes section of the Album with your captured raw footage. In a typical production, your first step will probably be to drag selected scenes from the Album down into the Movie Window (see Chapter 4: Video Clips).

In the Album, scenes are displayed in the order in which they were captured. This order cannot be changed, since it is determined by the underlying capture file, but scenes can be assembled in the movie in any order you choose. Similarly, while you can’t trim (edit) scenes in the Album, in your movie you can use as much or as little of a scene as desired.

Interface features

The Video Scenes section offers several special interface features:

• The icons of scenes captured in preview quality are

drawn with a white dotted outline in the Album. Scenes captured at full quality do not show this outline.

• Scenes that have been added to the Movie Window

are distinguished in the Album by a green checkmark. The checkmark remains as long as any clip in the Movie Window belongs to that scene.

• To see how a particular Album scene is used in your

current project, use the Album > Find Scene in Project menu command. Studio highlights any clips in the Movie Window based on the selected scene (or scenes). The same trick also works in reverse, using

Chapter 3: The Album 43

the Find Scene in Album command on the right-click menu for Movie Window clips.

• Nearly all menu commands that apply to scenes are

available both on the main Album menu, and on the pop-up menu that appears when you right-click a selected scene. When this documentation calls for a menu command like Album > Combine Scenes, remember that an equivalent command is usually available on the pop-up “context” menu as well.

Summary of operations

Because of its central role, the Video Scenes section provides an extensive set of operations. These are covered below in the following topics:

• Opening a captured video file

• Viewing captured video

• Displaying scene start and length

• Selecting scenes

• Combining and subdividing scenes

• Redetecting scenes

• Scene comments

Opening a captured video file

Captured video files are stored on your hard drive. They are selected and opened with standard Windows file navigation tools accessed from the top of the left Album page.

44 Studio 8

To select and open a captured video:

1. Open the Video Scenes section of the Album, if it is

not open already, by clicking on the uppermost tab.

The Album flips to the Video Scenes section and displays file navigation tools at the upper left.

2. Select a video from the dropdown list or press the

Folder button

to navigate to a different folder.

In the standard file open dialog that appears when you click the Folder button, locate the folder you want and select a captured video file (avi or mpg). That file becomes the current capture file, and other capture files in the selected folder can now be accessed via the dropdown list.

The Album is now populated with the detected scenes from your captured video. Each scene is denoted by a thumbnail frame – an icon of the scene’s first frame.

It may be that the first frame doesn’t make a good icon for the scene, so Studio lets you pick a different one if desired.

To change thumbnails in the Album:

1. Select the scene to be changed.

2. Use the Player to find the frame you wish to be the

thumbnail.

3. Click the Album > Set Thumbnail menu.

Chapter 3: The Album 45

Viewing captured video

Scenes in your captured video can be reviewed at any time during the editing process.

To view captured video starting at a selected scene:

1. Click on the scene’s icon in the Album.

The Player displays the first frame of the selected scene.

2. Click the Play button in the Player.

The Player now plays the selected scenes and any subsequent ones. Progress is indicated in three ways.

• The scenes highlight successively as they are

played.

• The Player scrubber shows the current point of

play relative to the entire movie.

• Like most Album icons, scene icons display a

progress bar during preview. As you continue to view your captured video, the progress bar moves from scene to scene.

46 Studio 8

Displaying scene start and length

As you move the mouse pointer over scenes, the pointer changes to a grabber symbol. If you pause momentarily on the scene, the start time and length is displayed. If you leave the grabber on the scene, the display persists for several seconds.

Note that the start time is the timecode from the original source video in minutes, seconds, and frames.

Selecting scenes

Studio offers a variety of ways to select scenes in the Album. Selection techniques follow standard Windows conventions. A highlighted border indicates selected scenes. You can use combinations of these techniques:

• Choose the Edit > Select All menu or press Ctrl+A to

select all the scenes in the Album, including those on other pages.

• Shift-click to select a range of contiguous scenes.

• Ctrl-click to make discontiguous selections.

• Starting with the mouse pointer over the Album page

but not over a scene icon, click-hold-drag to “marquee” an area, selecting all the scenes that intersect the area.

• Use the arrow keys to navigate the Album grid. Use

the arrows in combination with Shift

to select scenes

as you go.

Chapter 3: The Album 47

Combining and subdividing scenes

After previewing your scenes, you might want to combine or subdivide some into larger or smaller units. Both techniques are easy, and are similar to each other.

To combine scenes in the Album:

1. Select the scenes to be combined.

2. Select the Album > Combine Scenes menu.

The selected scenes are combined into one. Only selected adjacent scenes can be combined. Furthermore, they are joined in the order in which they appear in the album, regardless of the order in which they were selected. (Album order proceeds across rows and then down the page.) To revert, press Ctrl+Z, or click the Undo button.

Non-adjacent scene is not combined

If the scenes you selected were not all contiguous, each set of adjacent scenes is combined, but the different sets are not combined with each other.

48 Studio 8

To subdivide scenes in the Album:

1. Select the scenes to be subdivided.

2. Select the Album > Subdivide Scenes menu.

The Subdivide Selected Scenes dialog box appears.

3. Choose the length of the subdivided scenes by

typing in a value.

The smallest allowed subdivision is one second. Any video remaining after subdivision is added to the last scene.

4. Click OK.

A progress bar appears, the scene is subdivided, and new scenes are added to the Album. To revert, press Ctrl+Z, or click the Undo button.

Note: You can subdivide these scenes still further, down to the minimum duration of one second.

Redetecting scenes

If you combine or subdivide scenes and later decide that you’d prefer to restore them to their original state, you may redetect any scene or selection of scenes. The detection results are identical to those obtained after capturing, provided the same scene detection technique is used.

If you have subdivided scenes, you must first recombine them. Even if you cannot exactly recall the initial state and so recombine more than is necessary, the detection process will restore the original scene sequence.

To redetect scenes:

1. If you need to recombine any scenes, first select the

subdivided scenes. then click the Album > Combine Scenes menu.

Chapter 3: The Album 49

2. Select the scenes you wish to redetect.

3. Select one of the menu commands Album > Detect

Scenes by Video Content or Album > Detect Scenes by Shooting Time and Date.

A progress window appears as Studio detects the scenes and repopulates the Album.

Scene comments

The default view for the Video Scenes section is the Icon view, in which each scene is represented by a thumbnail frame icon.

You can give custom captions to scenes as they appear in the Album, then sort and display scenes by these captions, which you can use as either names for the scenes or comments describing them.

Click the Album > Details View menu to display the caption for each scene along with its icon. The default caption is generated from the scene’s sequence number and duration (e.g. “Scene 3, 7:21”).

Left-click the scene: an in-place text field appears, allowing you to enter the custom name or comment.

A related option lets you select Album scenes by comment. Use Album > Select By Name to open this dialog box:

50 Studio 8

Enter a keyword into the text field and click OK to highlight all Album scenes whose caption contains the keyword. The default captions are not searched – only the ones you have customised. In this example, the keyword was “2-shot”:

THE TRANSITIONS SECTION

The Transitions section of the Album provides a

large set of drag-and-drop clip transitions. To keep things manageable, the transitions are divided into groups. Use the drop-down list to select which group of transitions you want to view. All the transitions in the group are displayed, using as many Album pages as necessary.

Chapter 3: The Album 51

Studio’s transitions collection includes 74 standard transitions, 52 Alpha Magic transitions, 16 Hollywood FX 3-D transitions and more than 100 (watermarked) Hollywood FX 3-D transitions in two categories (“Pro” and “Plus”).

To learn about transitions, and how you can use them in your movies, see Chapter 5: Transitions.

Displaying the transition name

As you move the cursor over the transition icons in the Album, the cursor changes to a grabber symbol (indicating that the transition can be dragged from the

Album to the Movie Window). If you pause momentarily on the icon, the name of the transition is displayed. The display persists for several seconds or until your mouse

pointer moves off the transition.

Previewing transition effects

When you click on a transition icon, the Player demonstrates the transition using the convention that “A” represents the current clip and “B” the new clip. The demonstration cycles for as long as the icon remains selected.

52 Studio 8

To see a detailed view, stop the Player and use the jog buttons (Frame reverse and Frame forward) to step through the effect one frame at a time.

THE TITLES SECTION

This section of the Album contains a collection

of text titles in a variety of styles. They can be used in your movie as either full-screen or overlay titles. The difference is that in an overlay title the solid black background you see in the Album is replaced by other material – usually a video clip.

With Studio’s powerful built-in Title Editor, you can readily create your own titles when needed. However, you may find it easier to start with one of the 36 supplied titles and customise it in the Title Editor.

The Titles folder: The icons in the Titles section represent files in the folder named at the top of each left-hand page in the section. Titles that you have created or modified can be added to the section by saving them into this folder from the Title Editor. You can also select a different folder to be the source of the section (see “Source folders for Album content” on page 42).

For information on using titles in your movie, see Chapter 6: Still Images.

Chapter 3: The Album 53

THE STILL IMAGES SECTION

This section of the Album displays thumbnail

icons of image files, which may include grabbed video frames, photographs and bitmapped drawings. Most standard Windows image formats are supported.

The Still Images folder: The icons in the Still Images section represent files in the folder named at the top of each left-hand page in the section. Images can be added to the section by storing them in this folder. For instance, you can save grabbed video frames into the folder from the Frame Grabber tool, or save a title from the Title Editor. You can also select a different folder to be the source of the section (see “Source folders for Album content” on page 42).

For information on using still images in your movie, see Chapter 6: Still Images.

THE SOUND EFFECTS SECTION

A wide range of sound effects is supplied with

Studio. These wav files are installed into a number of folders, covering categories such as “animals”, “bells” and “cartoons”.

This section of the Album displays the sound files contained in one disk folder, named at the top of each left-hand page in the section. You can display the sounds in a different folder – not necessarily one of those installed by Studio – by selecting a different folder to be the source for the section (see “Source folders for Album content” on page 42).

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Besides wav (Windows “wave”) files, music files in mp3 format and avi animation files are also displayed

in this section of the Album, and may be drawn upon for supplemental audio in your productions.

Any sound clip can be previewed simply by clicking its name or icon.

For information on using sounds in your movie, see Chapter 8: Sound Effects and Music.

THE DISC MENUS SECTION

This section of the Album contains a collection

of artist-designed menus for VCD, S-VCD and DVD authoring. Menus in Studio are really specialised titles: they can be created and edited in the Title Editor, and either saved from the editor into a disk folder or incorporated directly into your movie.

The Disc Menus folder: The icons in the Disc Menus section represent files in the folder named at the top of each left-hand page in the section. Menus can be added to the section by storing them in this folder. You can also select a different folder to be the source of the section (see “Source folders for Album content” on page 42).

For information on using disc menus in your movie, see Chapter 9: Disc Menus.

Chapter 3: The Album 55

56 Studio 8

Chapter 4:

Video Clips

The cornerstone of most Studio video projects is the Album section containing your captured video scenes. To create your edited movie, you drag scenes from the Album into the Movie Window, where they are treated as editable video clips.

This chapter explains how to set the “in” and “out” (start and end) points for each clip. The Movie Window’s editing interface makes this “trimming” process simple, rapid and precise. The methods covered here for trimming video clips can for the most part also be applied to the other types of clip (such as titles and sound effects) that are covered in later chapters.

A later section of the chapter covers more advanced editing techniques, including split edits and insert edits, that can give your movie a more professional look. See “Advanced Timeline editing” on page 68.

Finally, we’ll look at two tools for applying special effects to your video clips: the Adjust colour/Add visual effects tool (see page 75), and the Vary playback speed tool (see page 77).

Chapter 4: Video Clips 57

VIDEO CLIP BASICS

Adding video clips to your movie

There’s more than one way to add a video clip to your movie:

Drag and drop: Drag a scene from the Video Scenes section of the Album and drop it into the Movie Window. This is normally the easiest and quickest way to put together a rough cut of your movie.

Use the clipboard: The standard clipboard operations (Cut, Copy and Paste) can be used with video clips in the Movie Window. The Copy operation also works on Album scenes.

When a scene or clip is pasted into the Movie Window, it is inserted at the first clip boundary starting at the edit line position. You can use the standard keyboard shortcuts for clipboard operations (Ctrl+X for cut, Ctrl+C for copy, Ctrl+V for paste), or select the desired operation from the right-button menu.

If the Movie Window is in Timeline view, drop the scene or clip onto the Video track. The only exception would be in cases where you want only the audio portion of the scene, in which case you can drop it onto either of the lower two audio tracks instead.

Interface features

Studio provides a variety of visual cues regarding the video clips in the Movie Window:

• Clips from video that was captured at preview

quality are shown with a white dotted outline. These clips will be recaptured at full quality during the Make Movie process.

58 Studio 8

• When a clip is added to the Movie Window, a green

checkmark appears on the Album’s icon for the corresponding scene. The checkmark remains as long as any clip in the Movie Window belongs to that scene.

• To see the original location of a clip in your source

video, use the Find Scene in Album command on the right-click menu for Movie Window clips. Studio highlights any scenes in the Album based on the selected clip (or clips). The same trick also works in reverse, using the Album > Find Scene in Project menu command to show how a particular Album scene is used in your current project.

• When neighbouring scenes from the Album are

placed in sequence in the Movie Window, the border between the clips is displayed as a dotted line. This is to help you keep track of your clips, and does not affect how they can be manipulated in the Movie Window.

Working with multiple capture files

For some projects you may want to incorporate scenes from multiple source tapes, or scenes from the same tape captured into separate files. Simply load in each of the files in turn:

1. Drag scenes from the first captured file into the

Movie Window.

2. Using the drop-down list or the Folder button in the

Video Scenes section of the Album, open the second captured file. Studio displays scenes from only the current file in the Album.

3. Drag scenes from the second captured file into the

Movie Window. Continue in this manner until you have gone through all the files.

Chapter 4: Video Clips 59

TRIMMING VIDEO CLIPS

In general, captured video scenes contain more material than you actually require for your movie. “Trimming” – the process of adjusting the in and out points of a clip to remove unwanted footage – is a fundamental editing operation.

No data is lost by trimming: Studio sets new start and end points for the clip in the Movie Window, but does not alter the original Album scene. This means you can always reset clips to their original state, or select different trim points.

Studio offers two ways to trim any clip (video scenes, transitions, titles, still images, audio clips and disc menus):

• Directly on the timeline (see “Trimming on the

Timeline using handles” below).

• Using the Clip properties tool (see “Trimming video

clips with the Clip properties tool” on page 63).

A video clip can be trimmed to any desired in and out points within the limits of the original scene.

Trimming on the Timeline using handles

The quickest way to trim is by dragging the edges of clips directly on the Timeline. Watch the Player as you trim, so you can find the frame on which you want to begin or end.

Let’s first consider the simplest trimming case, in a movie with only one clip. Then we’ll turn to the more usual situation of trimming a single clip that is surrounded by other clips.

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To trim a single clip on the Timeline:

1. Delete all but one clip from the Timeline. If the

Timeline is empty, drag a scene in from the Album.

2. Expand the Timescale to make fine adjustments

easier.

Position the mouse pointer anywhere on the Timeline except directly over the edit line. The pointer becomes a clock symbol. Click-drag it to the right to expand the Timescale.

This illustration shows maximum expansion, where each tick mark represents a single frame:

3. Position your mouse pointer over the right edge of

the clip. The pointer becomes a left-pointing arrow.

4. Click-drag to the left while keeping an eye on the

Player, which updates continuously to show the last frame in the trimmed clip.

As you shorten the clip, the arrow cursor becomes two-directional, indicating that the clip edge can be dragged both left and right. You can reduce the clip to as little as a single frame, or increase it up to the end of the source scene.

5. Release the mouse button. The clip is now trimmed.

Chapter 4: Video Clips 61

Multiple clips

The secret to trimming a clip when multiple clips are on the Timeline is that you must first select the clip to be trimmed by clicking on it with the mouse.

To trim with multiple clips on the Timeline:

1. Set up the Timeline with two short clips.

2. Expand the Timescale by right-clicking in the ruler.

Choose 30 seconds from the pop-up menu.

3. Click the second clip. The Video track should now

look like this:

You can trim the right-hand edge of the clip just as in the single-clip example above. As you do so, the last frame of the clip is displayed in the Player. As long as the second clip remains selected, you can continue to trim more video by dragging the edge to the left, or restore some of the trimmed video by dragging the edge to the right.

4. With the second clip still selected, move your

mouse pointer over the left edge of clip until the pointer changes to a right arrow.

5. Drag the left edge of the second scene to the right.

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As you drag, the first frame of the clip is displayed in the Player. As long as the clip remains selected, you can continue to trim more video by dragging the edge to the right, or restore some of the trimmed video by dragging the edge to the left.

6. Release the mouse button. The clip you trimmed

snaps back against the right edge of the first clip.

Clip-trimming tips

If you are having difficulty manipulating the edges of clips, try the following:

• Verify that the clip you wish to trim is selected, and

that it is the only one selected.

• Expand the Timescale until it is easier to make fine

adjustments.

• Avoid expanding the Timescale too far, which makes

clips appear very long. If that happens, undo until the scale is the way you want it; or reduce the scale by dragging it towards the left; or select an appropriate value from the Timescale’s context menu.

Trimming video clips with the Clip properties tool

Although it is possible to trim video clips directly on the Timeline with full frame accuracy, rapid, precise trimming is often easier

to achieve with the Clip properties tool. To access this

Chapter 4: Video Clips 63

tool, select the clip you want to change, then click one of the toolbox buttons at the top left of the Movie Window. Clicking the same button a second time will close the tool.

In the case of video clips (in fact, any clips other than titles and still images), you can also open and close the Clip properties tool by double-clicking the clip in any Movie Window view.

The Clip properties tool can be used to modify any kind of clip. It offers an appropriate set of controls for each type.

The Name text field: For a video clip, most of the clip property controls are for trimming. The only exception is the Name text field, which lets you assign a custom name to the clip to replace the default one assigned by Studio.

The Name field is provided on the Clip properties tool for all clip types. Clip names are used by the Movie Window’s Text view, and can also be viewed as fly-by labels when your mouse moves over clips in the Storyboard view.

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Preview areas: Separate preview areas show the in and out frames of the trimmed clip, together with a counter

and jog buttons. The layout of each preview area is very similar to that of the Player during normal editing.

Setting playback position: A scrubber control across the bottom of the tool lets you set the playback position anywhere within the clip. You can also set the playback position using the counter and jog buttons located between the two preview areas.

Using the counters: The positions reported by all three counters are relative to the beginning of the clip, which is position 0:00:00.0. As with the counter on the Player, you can adjust the counters in the Clip properties tool by clicking in one of the four fields (hours, minutes, seconds, frames) to select it, then using the jog buttons. When none of the fields is explicitly selected, the jog buttons apply to the frames field.

Transport controls: While the Clip properties tool is in use, the transport controls in the centre area substitute for those that normally appear on the Player. These special transport controls include a Loop

play/Pause button

that can be used to cycle repeatedly through the trimmed portion of the clip while the trim points are being adjusted.

Setting the trim points: The Left bracket button beside the counter in the left preview area, and the Right bracket button beside the counter in the right preview area, set their respective trim points to the current position.

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You can also adjust either trim point by:

• Entering a value directly into its counter

• Adjusting a counter field with the jog buttons

• Dragging the corresponding trim caliper

The Duration text field: This field shows the length of the trimmed clip in hours, minutes, seconds and frames. If you modify the value, either by editing the numbers directly or by clicking the associated jog buttons, the effect is to change the out point of the clip. Of course, you cannot reduce the duration to less than a frame, or increase it beyond the limits of the original video scene.

Usage tip: If you want to switch from trimming one clip on the video track to trimming another, just click on the new clip while the Clip properties tool remains open, or drag the Timeline scrubber to the new clip.

Resetting trimmed clips

If you don’t like the results of a trim, either use the Undo button (or Ctrl+Z) or manually reset the trimmed clip using one of these methods:

• Drag the clip’s right edge directly on the Timeline

until it stretches no further

• In the Clip properties tool, drag the trim calipers to

the ends of the clip

SPLITTING AND COMBINING CLIPS

If you want to insert one clip on the Video track into the middle of another clip, split the latter into two parts then insert the new item. “Splitting” a clip actually results in it being duplicated; both clips are then automatically trimmed so that one ends and the other begins at the split point.

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To split a clip in Timeline view:

1. Choose the split point.

You may use any method that adjusts the current position, such as moving the Timeline scrubber, clicking Play and then Pause, or editing the counter value in the Player.

2. Either right-click within the clip you wish to split

and select Split Clip from the pop-up menu; or, make certain the edit line is positioned where you wish to split the clip, and click the Split clip (razorblade) button (see page 13).

The clip is split at the current position.

To restore a split clip:

• Use the Undo button (or press Ctrl+Z). Even if you

have performed other actions since you split the clip, the multilevel undo allows you to step back as far as needed. Or,

• If undoing is not desirable because of intervening

actions that you don’t want to discard, you can replace both halves of the split clip with the original from the Album. Or,

• Delete one half of the split clip, and trim out the

other.

To combine clips in the Movie Window:

Select the clips you wish to combine, then right-click and choose Combine Clips.

The operation is allowed only if the combination of clips will also be a valid clip – that is, a continuous excerpt of the source video. On the Timeline, clips that can be combined meet along a dotted edge.

Chapter 4: Video Clips 67

ADVANCED TIMELINE EDITING

During most editing operations, Studio automatically keeps the clips on the various Timeline tracks synchronised. For instance, when you insert a scene from the Album onto the Video track, the relative positions of all clips to the right of the insertion remain unchanged.

Sometimes, though, you might like to override the default synchronisation. You might want to insert a new video clip into your project without displacing any clips of other types. You might want to edit video separately from its accompanying original audio – a valuable technique with several variations, discussed below.

Such special edits are possible using the track lock buttons at the left of the Movie Window in Timeline view. Each of the five standard track indicators (all except the Menu track) doubles as a button for locking its track.

A locked track is immediately greyed out in the Timeline view, and a small lock symbol appears beside the track button. The clips on the locked track cannot be selected or edited in any of the three views; nor are they affected by editing operations on unlocked tracks.

Any combination of tracks may be locked (excluding the special Menu track that appears above the Video track when your project contains menus).

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Locking the Title Overlay track prevents an overlay’s duration from being changed even when you trim audio and video clips at the same time index.

When the track is unlocked, trimming the video clip above it automatically trims the overlay or title.

Insert Editing

In ordinary Timeline editing, a video clip and the original audio that was captured with it are treated as a unit. Their special relationship is symbolised in the Movie Window by the dotted line connecting the Video track indicator with the Main Audio track indicator, showing that the latter is dependent on the former.

The track lock buttons make it possible to deal with the two tracks independently for operations like insert editing, which typically means replacing part of a clip on the video track while the audio track continues uninterrupted.

For instance, in a sequence that shows a close-up of someone recounting a story, you might wish to insert a shot of an audience member smiling (or sleeping!) without breaking away from the main audio.

Chapter 4: Video Clips 69

To perform an insert edit on the video track:

1. In the Timeline view of the Movie Window, click

the Main Audio Track indicator to lock the track.

The track indicator switches to the down

position and a small padlock icon appears. The Audio track is greyed to show that its contents will not be affected by editing operations.

2. Clear space on the Video track for the video clip

you want to insert. Position the Timeline scrubber at the point you want the insertion to start and use the Split clip button. Now move to the point where the insertion should end and again split the clip. Finally, delete the portion of video that will be replaced by the insertion.

Because the audio track is still intact, the video to the right of the insertion point does not move leftwards to fill the gap you have made in the Timeline, since the video and audio would then no longer be synchronised. If you were to preview your video now, you would see a black screen as the gap portion played back, but the soundtrack would be normal.

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3. Now all that remains is to place the clip you want to

insert. Drag the clip (whether from the Album or elsewhere on the Timeline) into the hole in the video track that you’ve just opened up.

If the inserted clip is too long for the space you created it will be trimmed to fit the space.

Insert editing on the audio track

The converse insert-editing operation, in which a sound clip is inserted into the audio track over unbroken video, is needed less often but is also readily performed in Studio.

The procedure is analogous to the one for inserting video: simply reverse the roles of the two tracks at every step.

Split edits

In “split editing”, a clip’s audio and video are separately trimmed so that the transition to one occurs before the transition to the other.

In an “L-cut”, the video precedes its sync audio; in a “J-cut”, the audio comes first.

Chapter 4: Video Clips 71

The L-cut

In an L-cut, the cut to new video comes before the cut in the audio.

Imagine a videotaped lecture in which the video periodically cuts away from the speaker to show travel or nature scenes illustrating the lecture topic.

Audio and video cut simultaneously.

Instead of cutting the audio and the video simultaneously, you might decide to let the speaker’s voice overlap into the following scene. This makes it clear to the audience that the new scene they are now watching illustrates whatever explanation the speaker is just completing..

Notice that the video and audio clip boundaries in the completed cut form an L-shape.

There are many effective uses of this technique. It can be considered whenever the second clip’s video serves to illustrate the first clip’s audio.

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Audio cuts after video.

To perform an L-cut:

1. Adjust the Timeline so you can easily count off the

number of frames or seconds you want to overlap.

2. Select the left-hand clip and trim its right edge to

the left by the desired overlap interval.

3. Lock the video track. Now drag the right-hand edge

of the same clip’s audio back to the right by the overlap interval.

4. Unlock the video track.

The video now cuts away to the second clip ahead of the audio. Video has been trimmed from the end of the first clip, and audio has been trimmed from the start of the second clip.

Chapter 4: Video Clips 73

The J-cut

In the J-cut, the new audio cuts in before the video switches. This can be effective when the second clip’s audio prepares the viewer for the material in the scene.

Returning to the videotaped lecture example, let’s say we are now going to switch back to the speaker at the end of the interpolated footage. If we let the next part of the lecture appear on the soundtrack a moment or two before the video shows us the podium again, the change will be much less abrupt.

This time the clip boundaries outline the letter J:

Audio cuts before video.

To perform a J-cut:

1. Adjust the Timeline so you can easily count off the

number of frames or seconds you want to overlap.

2. As before, trim back the right edge of the left-hand

clip, both video and audio, by the overlap interval.

3. Lock the audio track. Now drag the right-hand edge

of the same clip’s video back to the right by the overlap interval.

4. Unlock the audio track.

The audio now cuts away to the second clip ahead of the video.

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VIDEO CLIP EFFECTS

Most video editing consists of selecting, ordering and trimming video clips, of connecting clips with transition effects and combining them with other materials such as music and still images. Sometimes, though, you also need to modify the actual video images, manipulating them in some way to achieve some desired effect. The Video toolbox has two special tools of this type:

• The Adjust colour/Visual effects tool lets you control

the colour, contrast and brightness of your video, and apply blur, emboss and other effects.

• The Vary playback speed tool lets you speed up or

slow down the video, and also offers a Strobe filter for experimental or humorous effects.

The Adjust colour/Visual effects tool

Studio provides video property effects that you

can adjust interactively. The Adjust colour/Visual effects tool lets you choose a colour mode and adjust eight video parameters for each video clip or still image clip in your Movie Window.

The colour mode for the clip is set with the Colour type dropdown at the top of the tool tray. The choices are:

• All colours: The default – colours display normally.

• Black and white: The clip is rendered in shades of

grey.

• Single hue: The tonal values of the clip are converted

to varying intensities of a single colour.

• Sepia: A special case of Single hue using sepia tones

for an antique look.

Chapter 4: Video Clips 75

Some of the Colour type choices override some of the individual video parameter settings. In general, though, you can adjust video parameters in three categories:

• Chrominance (hue and saturation).

• Luminance (brightness and contrast).

• Style (blur, emboss, mosaic and posterize).

Hue: This is the visual property that allows us to distinguish colours. The slider biases all the colours in a clip towards red (left) or green (right). This can be especially useful for correcting flesh tones in some video.

Saturation: This is the quantity of pure colour, ranging from zero (no colour at all – a grey scale) to fully saturated (the maximum colour intensity your output system can deliver). Move the slider leftwards for a tonally-reduced, washed-out look; or rightwards for extra vibrancy.

Brightness: This is the relative intensity of light, without regard to colour. Try adjusting both brightness and contrast to correct video that is underexposed or overexposed.

Contrast: The range of light and dark values in a picture or the ratio between the maximum and the minimum brightness values. Moving the slider to the left lowers contrast, forcing all areas of the image towards medium brightness values. Moving the slider to the right increases contrast, making dark areas darker and bright areas brighter.

Blur: This is an effect akin to defocusing a camera. Studio offers ten steps of blur.

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Emboss: This specialised effect emulates the look of an embossed or bas-relief carving. Studio offers ten steps of emboss.

Mosaic: This effect breaks an image into increasingly large collared squares as you move the slider to the right. The mosaic effect has 64 levels.

Posterize: This effect progressively reduces the number of colours used to render an image, with the effect that regions of similar colour are coalesced into larger flat areas. Studio offers seven steps of posterization.

The Vary playback speed tool

This tool allows you to set the speed of any video

clip from one-tenth to five times normal. Set the slider to the speed you wish to apply to the clip. Notice that the clip changes length in the Movie Window as you vary its speed.

Conversely, you can change the playback speed by sizing a clip to a specific duration in the Timeline view of the Movie Window (as long as it is between onefifth and ten times the clip’s original duration). Just select the clip while the Vary playback speed tool is open: your cursor changes to the Speed change cursor

when you drag the right edge of your clip. The

trimming of the clip is not affected.

Slowing down your clip (increasing its duration) can make motion look choppy. You can smooth the motion by interpolating frames (that is, creating intermediate frames). Check the Smooth motion between frames checkbox to activate this feature.

Chapter 4: Video Clips 77

Clicking the Reset button in the Speed box sets the playback speed back to unity, so that the clip plays for its normal duration.

Strobe filter

The Strobe filter on the Vary playback speed tool creates a “frozen motion” effect reminiscent of a dancer under strobe lights. The displayed number indicates how many times to repeat each displayed frame in the currently-selected clip. The maximum setting is 50.

The clip duration remains constant; Studio drops frames to make room for the repeated ones.

In this illustration, the upper row represents the first nine frames of the original clip, before strobe filtering is applied. With strobing set to 2, frames 1, 4 and 7 are each repeated twice, while the other (shaded) frames are discarded. The lower half of the illustration shows the result. Clicking the Reset button in the Strobe box sets the strobe value to zero, turning off the effect.

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Chapter 5:

Transitions

A transition is an animated effect that eases – or emphasises – the passage from one clip to the next. Fades, wipes and dissolves are common types of transition. Others are more exotic, and may even involve sophisticated 3-D graphics.

Transitions are stored in their own section of the Album (see “The Transitions Section” on page 51). To use a transition, drag it from the Album into the Movie Window and drop it beside any video clip or still image.

A series of transitions (the icons between the video clips) in Storyboard view.

In Timeline view, you can drop the transition on either the Video track or the Overlay track. On the Video track, the transition provides a bridge between two fullscreen clips (or between one clip and blackness if the transition has only one neighbour, as at the beginning of the movie). On the Overlay track, the transition bridges two overlays, or one overlay and transparency.

Diagram: Five snapshots from the life of a 2-second diagonal wipe transition.

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If a transition is to last for two seconds (the default transition duration in a fresh Studio installation), the second clip begins to run two seconds before the first clip is finished. At the outset, only the first clip is visible; by the end, the second clip has completely replaced the first. The details of what happens in between, as the first clip is gradually removed and the second gradually appears, depend on the transition type. Since the video clips overlap, the total duration of the pair of clips is reduced by the duration of the transition.

Here is the same transition as above, this time using actual video. For clarity, the transition boundary in the three centre frames has been emphasised in white. Both clips continue to run while the transition is in progress.

Transition types and their uses

Like all effects, transitions should be used not for their own sake but to serve the overall needs of your movie. Well-chosen transitions can subtly reinforce the meaning of the movie and how it plays without drawing attention to themselves. Observing the way transitions are used in professionally-produced video on television will suggest many ways to improve your own movies. Generally, it is advisable to refrain from overusing transitions that cause abrupt changes or otherwise draw attention to themselves: there’s a big difference between a subtle dissolve and a heart-shaped wipe.

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The basic transitions discussed below – fades, dissolves, wipes, slides and pushes – are all among the first group of transitions (the Standard Transitions) in the Album.

A set of more elaborate transitions is found in the Alpha Magic group, which is the second entry in the drop-down list of transition groups in the Album.

The many other groups on the list all belong to the Hollywood FX, a large set of complex transitions featuring three-dimensional graphics. The Hollywood FX transitions are discussed at the end of this section (page 82).

Cut: A cut is the absence of a transition – an instantaneous shift from one scene to the next. A cut is appropriate when there is a strong inherent connection between one clip and the next; for instance, when the camera changes position or angle within a scene.

Fade: This transition fades into the beginning of a video clip from a black screen, or from the end

of a clip to a black screen. A fade dropped between two clips creates a cross fade, where the first clip fades down before the second fades up. The fade transition is the first transition icon in the Album.

A fade is usually used at the beginning and end of a movie, or when there is a large break in continuity, as when a new section begins. For example, a movie of a play might benefit from cross-fading between acts.

Dissolve: A dissolve is similar to a cross fade,

except that the new scene begins to fade up even while the old one is fading down. The visual overlap this produces is less dramatic than a cross fade, but less abrupt than a cut. A short dissolve can take the edge off a cut, while a long dissolve is useful to suggest the passage of time.

Chapter 5: Transitions 81

Wipe, slide and push: In each of these standard transition types, the

incoming video is gradually revealed behind an edge that moves across the frame in a certain direction. The Album icons at the head of this paragraph represent a leftward wipe, a down-and-left slide and a rightward push respectively.

In a wipe transition, both the old and new video occupy their normal position in the frame throughout the transition. The new video comes into view as the transition edge crosses the frame, rather like new wallpaper being rolled on over old.

A slide is similar to a wipe, but in this case the frame of the new video slides across the screen until it reaches its home position. The effect is reminiscent of a blind being pulled down over a window.

A push is similar to a slide, except that the old video is pushed out of the frame as the new video enters, like advancing a filmstrip from one from frame to the next.

Hollywood FX for Studio

Pinnacle Systems’ Hollywood FX includes a

large number of dramatic 3-D transitions and effects. These are ideal for opening sequences, sports and action footage or music videos. Hollywood FX satisfies professional expectations for quality without sacrificing ease of use.

Studio includes 16 unique effects from Hollywood FX Basic for Studio. In addition, Studio includes demo versions of scores of other effects from two other products: Hollywood FX Plus for Studio and Hollywood FX Pro for Studio. The demo effects are

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watermarked with a Pinnacle "P" logo, but otherwise can be previewed normally within Studio. If you like the demo versions, you can purchase the add-on packages by clicking the e-commerce link within Studio.

In addition to the full unwatermarked versions of the effects, Hollywood FX Plus and Hollywood FX Pro both include the Easy FX editor, which lets you customise all of your Hollywood FX by giving you control of numerous settings. These include angle of flight, forward or reverse flight direction, shadows, lighting and anti-aliasing (edge smoothing).

Previewing transitions in your movie

Studio lets you preview transitions in the Player. Just drag and drop a transition into the Movie Window, click the Play button (or hit [Space]) and see how the transition works with your material.

You can also preview transitions by scrubbing through them in the Player or on the Timeline of the Movie Window.

Background rendering of Hollywood FX

Background rendering is an optional feature in which the computation needed to perform a detailed preview of Hollywood FX transitions is carried out as a “background task” with no interruption of your workflow. Background rendering can be enabled or disabled in the Edit Options panel (Setup > Edit). See “Edit settings” on page 170 for details.

Chapter 5: Transitions 83

Until the rendering of a transition is complete, the Player will preview it at reduced resolution and frame rate. Studio gives you feedback on the progress of background rendering with

a temporary progress bar graphic in the Timescale. The bar gradually changes from blue to grey as the rendering operation progresses.

3-D acceleration for Hollywood FX

Studio can use the 3-D accelerator hardware on your graphics board to speed up the computation of Hollywood FX previews. If you have 3-D acceleration, select it in the Edit Options panel (Setup > Edit).

If you don’t have hardware 3-D acceleration, the 3-D calculations are performed in software, which generally takes longer.

Audio transitions

Clips in the Movie Window normally have synchronous video and audio. In the absence of a transition, both video and audio cut from one clip to the next. When a transition is placed between two clips, the audio cross-fades.

The only exception to this rule is the Fade transition, which takes the audio completely out then back in again.

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Normal transitions cause a cross fade in the audio (left). In a Fade transition (right), the audio fades down then up along with the video.

The Ripple Transitions command

This Studio feature is especially useful for creating a quick slideshow from a set of still images, or a video pictorial from a set of short clips. Such a presentation is more interesting if you connect each pair of clips with a transition. Ripple Transitions gives you a quick and easy way of achieving that.

Begin with a set of a clips on the Timeline, then add a transition of the desired type between the first two clips.

Now select all the clips except the first, click on any of them with the right mouse-button, and select Ripple Transition from the pop-up menu.

Studio inserts a duplicate of the original transition between each pair of selected clips.

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TRIMMING TRANSITIONS

Although transitions are not true clips, they are handled very similarly to clips within Studio’s editing environment. Like clips, you can trim transitions either directly on the Movie Window Timeline, or by using the Clip properties tool.

See “Trimming on the Timeline using handles” on page 60 for a discussion of the first method. he maximum allowed duration of a transition is one frame less than the shorter of the neighbouring clips.

Trimming with the Clip properties tool

The Toolbox > Modify Clip Properties menu command invokes the Clip properties tool for the selected clip. For all transition types, this tool provides previewing controls, and the ability to set two properties:

• To set the duration of the transition, change the value

in the Duration counter. A transition’s duration must always be less – if only by a single frame – than the shorter of its neighbouring clips.

• The Name text field lets you assign a custom name to

the clip to replace the default one assigned by Studio. The Name field is provided on the Clip properties tool for all clip types. Clip names are used by the Movie Window’s List view, and can also be viewed as a fly-by label when your mouse moves over a clip in the Storyboard view.

Many transition effects also support a “reverse direction” option, which causes the transition animation to run backwards, allowing a rotary wipe, for example, to be either clockwise or anticlockwise. The Reverse checkbox is enabled when the current transition supports this option.

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If you have purchased and installed the Hollywood FX Plus or Hollywood FX Pro transition collections, the Clip properties tool for transitions provides an additional Edit button for Hollywood FX transitions. This button invokes the Hollywood FX Editor, an external program with many options. The use of this program is described in its accompanying documentation.

Previewing in the Clip properties tool

The Clip properties tool provides previewing controls for transitions similar to those for video clips. See “Trimming video clips with the Clip properties tool” on page 63 for more information.

The preview areas show the last full frame of the outgoing clip and the first full frame of the incoming one. The preview frames update as you edit the Duration field.

The transport controls let you preview the transition effect in the Player either frame by frame or at full speed. The Loop play/Pause button through the transition repeatedly at normal playback speed.

cycles

Both the counter (with its associated jog buttons) and the scrubber give you direct access to any desired point within the transition.

Chapter 5: Transitions 87

88 Studio 8

Pinnacle STUDIO 8 User Manual

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