HD

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35 Adding Transitions
You can add cross dissolves and other transitions between
cuts to make your program more interesting. You can also
add a cross fade audio transition to smooth abrupt changes
in audio.
This chapter covers the following:
 Learning About Transitions (p. 507)
 Adding Transitions (p. 511)
 Moving, Copying, and Deleting Transitions (p. 515)
 Modifying Transitions in the Timeline (p. 517)
 Video Transitions That Come With Final Cut Express HD (p. 520)
Note: This chapter mainly focuses on video transitions. However, Final Cut Express HD
does come with two audio cross fade transitions you can use to smooth audible
changes between clips. For information about using audio transitions, see “Using Audio
Transitions to Smooth Audible Changes” on page 442. To apply transitions, both video
and audio, use this chapter.
Learning About Transitions
A transition is a visual effect used to change from one clip in your edited sequence to
the next. In the early days of film editing, the only transition you could immediately
view was a cut. Even a basic transition such as a dissolve had to be specially set up in
an optical printer and sent back to the editor for viewing. The whole process was
expensive and could take several days.