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.
Table of Contents GETTING STARTED On-line help Equipment requirements Abbreviations and conventions VII vii vii ix CHAPTER 1: THE STUDIO INTERFACE 1 Capture mode The Diskometer The Camcorder Controller 3 5 6 Edit mode The Album The Player The Movie Window The toolboxes The Video toolbox The Audio Toolbox 6 7 8 12 17 18 22 Make Movie mode 24 CHAPTER 2: CAPTURING VIDEO 27 Capture hardware The capture process Automatic scene detection DV, MicroMV and analog captures 27 28 31 32 DV capture SmartCa
CHAPTER 3: THE ALBUM 41 The Video Scenes section Opening a captured video file Viewing captured video Displaying scene start and length Selecting scenes Combining and subdividing scenes Redetecting scenes Scene comments 43 44 46 47 47 48 49 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 Trimming on the Timeline using handles Clip-trimmi
CHAPTER 5: TRANSITIONS 79 Transition types and their uses Previewing transitions in your movie Audio transitions The Ripple Transitions command 80 83 84 85 Trimming transitions Trimming with the Clip properties tool 86 86 CHAPTER 6: STILL IMAGES 89 Editing still images Trimming with the Clip properties tool 91 92 The Frame Grabber The Frame grabber tool 93 94 CHAPTER 7: THE TITLE EDITOR Launching the Title Editor 97 98 The Title Editor controls Title-type buttons Object toolbox Editing-mode se
Trimming audio clips Trimming with the Clip properties tool 124 124 Audio volume and mixing Anatomy of an audio clip Adjusting audio volume on the Timeline Adjusting levels with the Volume tool 126 127 127 129 CHAPTER 9: DISC MENUS Understanding menus Disc authoring in Studio Using menus from the Album The DVD Player Control Editing menus on the Timeline Editing with the Clip properties tool The Disc menu tool CHAPTER 10: MAKING YOUR MOVIE Outputting to a camera or video recorder...
APPENDIX B: TIPS AND TRICKS Hardware Software Increasing the frame rate Studio and computer animation Smart Capture Tips (DV only) APPENDIX C: TROUBLESHOOTING 187 187 189 191 192 192 195 Installation 196 Operation 201 APPENDIX D: USEFUL HINTS 207 Video Editing and Capturing Creating a Shooting Plan Editing Rules of Thumb for Video Editing Soundtrack Production Title 207 207 208 212 214 215 APPENDIX E: GLOSSARY 217 APPENDIX F: LICENSE AGREEMENT 233 APPENDIX G: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS 237 INDEX
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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.
• 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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. 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 sound effect.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
• 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: Click the Setup > Capture Source menu. The Capture source options panel appears. 2.
To capture video: 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Video Choose the type of video you are going to digitise by clicking the appropriate Source button (Composite or SVideo). 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.
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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 fullscreen graphics.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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: 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.
To subdivide scenes in the Album: 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.
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. 2. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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 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).
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.
To trim a single clip on the Timeline: 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: 1. 3.
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: 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: 1.
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.
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.
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.
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.
To split a clip in Timeline view: 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. 1.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 6: Still Images Video usually means images in motion, but most productions also include stationary titles or graphics, and may include other types of still image as well. The still images you can use in your movies include: • All types of text captions and graphics, including scrolling credits and “crawled” messages. • Photos or drawings stored in disk-based image files. • Individual video frames obtained with the Frame grabber tool. • Menus for DVD and VCD authoring.
Similarly, still video frames can be added directly from the Frame grabber tool (see “The Frame Grabber” on page 93). Full-screen images A full-screen image is one that is placed on the Video track. It fills the entire screen, replacing the video. When the preceding video clip ends, Studio plays the still image clip. The visual effect is that the video ends, and is replaced by the graphic until the next clip begins. Overlay images An overlay image is one that is placed on the Title Overlay track.
the background disappears, allowing the video to show through. Studio uses the colour of the top-left pixel of the image to determine the transparent colour. Pixels that match this colour are not drawn when the image is rendered over video. This system works well for still images that have consistent solid background colours. Sometimes, you may have to edit the top-left pixel of a bitmapped image to get the transparency effect you want.
duration you choose, whereas a video clip can be no longer than the original Album scene. The Colour/Visual effects tool can be applied to still image clips of all types in the same way as it does to video clips. See “The Adjust colour/Visual effects tool” on page 75. Still image clips of all types – graphics, photos, titles and menus – can be edited in the Title Editor (see Chapter 7: The Title Editor).
as a fly-by label when your mouse moves over a clip in the Storyboard view. Trimming a title with the Clip Properties tool. THE FRAME GRABBER The Frame Grabber can capture a still image from any video capture source supported by Studio, or extract a single frame from any video clip in your current project. The grabbed frame can be added directly to your movie or saved out to disk in any of a number of graphic formats.
The Frame grabber tool Use the Frame grabber tool in conjunction with the Player. Open the Toolbox and click the Frame grabber button. Play the movie or source video until you the frame you want is displayed in the Player, then click the Grab button. The grabbed frame appears in the tool’s preview area, ready to be added to your movie or saved as a file on disk. Grab from: Select a source for the frame grabber by clicking either the Movie or the Camcorder button at the top of the tool.
Reduce Flicker: If the source video of the frame grab contains a large amount of motion, the grabbed frame may show flickering, which can be reduced or eliminated by checking the Reduce Flicker checkbox. Because Reduce Flicker also reduces resolution somewhat, you should turn off the option if the result is undesirable for a particular image. Grab: Click the Grab button when you have located the frame you want to grab in the Player and set the Reduce Flicker option.
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Chapter 7: The Title Editor In earlier versions of Studio, titles were created and edited in an external program – Title Deko. Starting with Studio 8, the many features of Title Deko have been repackaged as a tool within the Studio user interface. Moreover, the new Title Editor tool has been given additional capabilities. The major new feature is the power to add and edit the special buttons needed for creating the disc menus used in VCD, S-VCD and DVD movies.
Launching the Title Editor Reflecting the versatility of the Title Editor is the variety of ways of accessing it from Studio’s Edit Mode: • To create a full-screen title or menu: Select Go to Title/Menu Editor from the right-button context menu in the Timeline Video track. • To create an overlay title or menu: Double-click the Timeline Title/Overlay track. • To create a title from the Toolbox: Open the Create Title tool and click Title Overlay or Full Screen Title.
screen title or menu, or vice versa, just drag it onto the other Timeline track. If you find yourself creating a title when you wanted a disc menu, you can easily switch over in the Title Editor. THE TITLE EDITOR CONTROLS The main Title Editor controls are laid out in groups around the Edit Window (see the picture on page 97). Title-type buttons The four buttons in this group sit on the left side of the screen above the Title Editor’s Edit Window. Only one of them can be selected at a time.
Object toolbox This group of four Title Editor tool buttons is located at left below the Edit Window. The first tool (the arrow) is used for all editing operations upon the currently selected object. A selected object is surrounded by a number of control points with which you can change its size, position, proportions, and other geometrical features. The other three tools are for creating objects in the Edit Window – a text box, an ellipse and a rectangle. Each is used in the same general way.
Reordering objects in three dimensions Because objects can overlap one another, it is easy to get into situations where an object that should be completely visible is partly or whole obscured by one or more other objects. In such cases, use the four reordering commands on the Title Editor’s Layers menu. These commands affect the currently selected object, symbolised by rectangle “3” in the diagram. • Bring to Front: The object is moved out in front all other objects.
The activation of the text field is indicated by a text insertion cursor, the changed appearance of the object frame, and the disappearance of the control points. When a text object is not selected, you can activate its text field directly by clicking in the middle of the object. If you want the selection frame and control points to appear, you must click on the edges of the object. With other objects, you can click anywhere in the object to select it.
Editing-mode selection buttons This pair of buttons forms the second group along the bottom of the Title Editor’s Edit Window. Their function is to govern which of two sets of editing operations is available for the currentlyselected object.
With text objects, the second button provides two further operations, kern and change leading, accessed by control points in the centre of each edge of the text frame: Object layout buttons The two left buttons are for grouping and ungrouping Title Editor objects. The first button is available when multiple objects are selected. It causes the objects to be linked into a group – a composite object – and are treated as a single entity by editing operations.
The second button, which is available whenever a group object is selected, separates the group into its constituent objects. Although it is possible to “group groups”, grouping is always just one level deep – ungrouping a supergroup will result in all the constituent objects being individuals again. The next button opens a pop-out menu of 11 operations that apply only to groups. The first six let you align a set of objects along any one of their four edges or either of their two mid-lines.
Multiple selection of objects The first step in making a group is to select the multiple objects that will comprise it. This can be accomplished in either of two ways: • By clicking and dragging with the mouse to mark out a selection rectangle (a “marquee”) that encloses all the objects you want to group; or, • By clicking the first object you want to group, then Ctrl-clicking each of the others.
Text-styling controls The controls in this group at the top right of the Title Editor’ Edit Window probably look familiar. The controls apply both to currently-selected text and to any new text that may be entered until the settings are changed again. At the left are three font style buttons, which select the bold, italic or underlined styles respectively. Perhaps surprisingly, the underlined style button – alone among these controls – can be applied to any type of object, not just text (try it!).
which is the default for a new text box, resizing the box results in the text being reformatted – word-wrapped – to the new box width (while the resulting new height of the text in turn governs the height of the box). Word wrap off removes all “soft” line breaks (line breaks added for word wrapping), then makes the box as wide as necessary to contain the text. Word wrap mode is automatically turned on again if you type further characters into the text box.
or transparency) for each of the “face” (surface), edge and shadow of the object to which it applies, plus a separate blurring parameter for each. A final parameter is shadow direction, for which there are eight possibilities. To change the look of an existing object, simply click on the look you want while the object is selected. New objects are created with the most recently selected look. The Custom tab lets you customise the supplied looks or create your own by adjusting the parameters described above.
Some of the more elaborate supplied looks cannot be edited. The Favourites tab lets you save particular custom looks that you may want to re-use in the future, to save you from having to remember or record the parameters you used. Click the left-hand button to save the current look as one of your favourites. Click the right-hand button to delete the currently-selected “favourite”.
Normally, though, you’ll use a transparent background for titles, and transparency is the default background selection for a new title or menu. The final option for backgrounds is picture – an image file in any standard format. As with many of the sections of Studio’s main Album, the backgrounds are drawn from a source folder that may be changed using the folder button.
Broadly speaking, a button is an area of the screen with which the user can interact in some way. Buttons are classified according to the action they produce when the user activates them, and not by their appearance, which generally should give a strong clue to their behaviour, but is not required to. The four types of button are: • Normal: Clicking the button causes playback to jump to a chapter (that is, ordinary video) or another menu.
As usual, a folder button lets you select the disk directory from the displayed images are obtained. To use a supplied button, simply drag it from the Album into the Edit Window, where it becomes a button object –essentially an identical twin of the picture object. The default action of the supplied buttons is determined by their file names, but a new action can be assigned to the currently-selected button object from the dropdown list in the Buttons section of the Title Editor Album.
Button highlighting DVD menus (but not VCD and S-VCD menus), give visual feedback by highlighting the current button as the user scrolls around the menu. Special active high– lighting distinguishes a button that is in the process of being actuated, just before the action is performed. (You can preview this highlighting effect in the Player, and interact with the menu using either the mouse or the Player’s DVD controls.
Chapter 8: Sound Effects and Music Video may be thought of as primarily a visual medium, but the role of sound in your movies is often no less important than the images on the screen. Feature film and television productions include numerous types of audio, beginning with the dialog and other sounds created during live action. In your movies, that raw soundtrack is brought in along with the video during Capture Mode. It appears in the Movie Window Timeline view on the Main Audio track below the Video track.
way as video clips and still images. Finally, Studio lets you adjust your audio mix so that your soundtrack is properly balanced throughout the movie. The Timeline audio tracks The Movie Window’s Timeline view contains three tracks for audio: Original Audio track: This contains the audio captured along with your video clips, which is sometimes called synchronous audio because it is synchronous with the video track.
Switching audio tracks Although the three audio tracks do have their specialised roles, as described above, these mainly control on which track new clips will appear. Original audio will always be placed on the Original Audio track when a new video clip is brought in; new voiceovers will always be created on the Sound Effect/Voice-over track; and new CD audio and SmartSound clips will be added to the Background Music track.
If there is a CD in the drive that you have not previously used it with Studio, Studio will ask you to enter its name before continuing. The controls on the tool will become available only when Studio can offer at least one entry on the CD Title drop-down list. Select the CD from which you wish to capture audio in the CD Title drop-down list, and a track on that CD from the Track list. Since CD Title is also an editable text field, you can change the name by which Studio refers to this CD, if desired.
the CD (if it is not already in the drive), so that the audio data can be captured. You won’t need to repeat this step subsequently unless you lengthen the clip. CD Recording Options Depending on your CD drive, Studio offers a number of recording options. The choices are found in the CD/Voice-over tab (Setup > CD and Voice-over): The default method is digitally “ripping” from your CD to Studio, where the audio is transferred digitally.
250 MB), the default install gives you the option of not including them. If you find yourself using this feature a lot, you can install these files at any time for more convenient access, or continue to use them directly from the CD to conserve drive space. To create background music for a particular set of clips, select those clips before opening the SmartSound tool. (To select your whole movie, use Edit > Select All or press Ctrl+A.
The Voice-over tool Recording a voice-over in Studio is as easy as making a telephone call. Just open the Voiceover tool, click Record and speak into the microphone. You can narrate as you watch the movie play so your words match the action on the screen. You can also use the tool as a quick way of capturing music, sound effects, etc. via your microphone. Before you can record audio using the Voice-over tool, you need to connect a microphone to the input jack of your PC sound board.
