Trim Video

[goddi]

Greetings,

When I want to Trim a video, I play the video and stop it (red triangle) at the point that will be the beginning trim point. But I have to type in that time position (from the play line) where I stopped playing the video into the Start Time box to get the grey triangle to match up with the red triangle to establish the beginning trim point. The same process is needed to set the end trim point.

It seems that this is a bit backwards.

It would be more helpful if, after you set the red triangle where you want the beginning trim point to be established, all you should need to do is click in the Start Time box to bring the grey triangle to meet the red triangle’s position. And the same function should be made for the end trim point.

The trim points, beginning and end, are usually positioned by sound when the video is played. The current way of setting the trim points seems backwards and more difficult than it needs to be.

Am I missing anything…?

Gary

[jkb]

If you use the Timeline view rather than going into O&A to trim the video, then just play the video up to the point you want it to start.

Then right click & Trim Beginning of video.
For the end point I just drop the next slide in at the point I want it to end.

If you don't get it exactly right then you can always fine tune it in O&A afterwards.

I find this method quick & easy

Jill

 

[goddi]

Greetings Jill,

Yes, I understand this method and have used it. For short video clips, it works well.  However, I was helping a friend that has a very long video...about an hour long. He wants to trim out many short clips from this video. To have to scroll around to find the next trim points in such a long video is a pain. And, when your method is used, each clip would have the same filename so that would also cause a problem. Using the Trim process, each clip can be saved as a different name to keep better track of the many multiple clips. 

I just think that the current process of using the Convert/Trim is really backwards when trying to use the triangles to establish the trim points. I'd like to make it logical and useful.

Gary

[canaro99]

Wouldn't it be possible to use I(n), O(ut), markers and use C(ut) where to trim? If you need a little more/less drag the cut selection to your needs.

[goddi]

Greetings, Yes, anything would be nice to improve the current Trim process. When it comes to a little 'more/less', I know I can drag the following slide to the left to shorten the previous video clip. But I can't do it to shorten the beginning of a video clip. I have to go into the Adjust Time Range to do that. Is there a way to just drag the beginning of a video clip to tweak it in the Timeline? (Besides using the Trim Beginning of Video).

Gary

[jkb]

1 hour ago, goddi said:

I can't do it to shorten the beginning of a video clip

just drag the left triangle to the right to adjust the start time.

What I do when working with a long video is to open another copy of PTE & add the original video.

I can easily drag the play head to roughly where I want to edit, then Trim the start.
I then adjust that mostly in Timeline, but with fine adjustments in O&A.
I then copy that Slide into my Project & the video is the correct length for what I want.

If you are worried about them all having the same name, then just change the Slide Name in Slide Options.
If you keep it all with the same filename then PTE is only having to load it once, rather than having to load lots of separate files.

Hopefully there will be easier ways to edit video in V12

Jill

[goddi]

Greetings Jill,

What I was talking about is to shorten the beginning of a video clip while in the Timeline, not getting into the Trim function (dragging the beginning of the clip to the right to shorten it as you can do to the end of the clip, dragging it to the left to shorten it).

As I mentioned, I want to play the clip (red triangle) to the point of where I can hear where I want to make the trim. So the red triangle will stop at that point. However, when I click on the bottom triangle to move it to the red triangle's position, the red triangle jumps to the bottom triangle's position...losing the selected trim point. This is not logical and useless.

There are ways around this process but it seems that the established method in the Trim function should be made to work effectively without having to do work-arounds. I am trying to teach the Trim process to a newbie so it has not been easy when the logical steps don't work. When the red triangle snaps back to the bottom triangle and you lose the position of your trim point (red triangle), it just does not make sense.

This should be an easy fix.

Gary

[tom95521]

I agree video trim could be improved by using keyboard shortcuts. I use the Objects and Animation editor without using the Adjust Time Range window.

My video trim workflow (accurate to within a few frames).
1. Move the video you want to trim to slide 1.
2. Scrub the timeline to where you want the the video to start, note the time, and then set the start time of the video (in).
3. Scrub the timeline to where you want the video to end, note the time, and then set the duration of the video (out).
4. Adjust the slide duration equal to the video duration. It would be nice if this was updated by PTE when the video duration changes.
5. Move the slide back to the previous location.

When using multiple parts of a long video, just make a copy of the slide before moving it to slide 1 to set the trim. PTE is smart enough that you don't have to create links to a master video since it only keeps one copy in the published slideshow.

I have not been following posts related to possible PTE 12 features so split and trim may be much easier in the future.

Tom