clip speed behaviour

Asked by reinhard

Hi,

I've just read your comments about clip speed and that the clip length on the timeline will be changed...
But I would suggest to keep the length, but just add a symbol to the clip that indicate that a clip speed change was applied - maybe a spiral spring e.g....
Because I think it will introduce problems when clip speed will be changed afterwards on a clip that is at the beginning of the timeline, for example:
I just added 3 clips to the same track and changed the speed of the second one, which let the second clip slips under the third and the third clip is actually no longer shown during playback.
Second problem might be to lost sync with audio only clips on another track...
Let us assume clip 1 and 3 are synced to prominent audio samples of a audio clip in another track, like snare shots or other musical beats - so when changing clip speed of the second will lead to lost this synchronisation, because clip 3 needs to be rearranged, which seems not very comfortable IMHO

greetings

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Revision history for this message
Jonathan Thomas (jonoomph) said :
#1

Thanks for the question! I agree with you that when a clip changes size on the timeline, it disrupts all the clips around it. However, if you change the speed of a clip to 1/2 speed, it really does take twice as long to play on the timeline. In effect, it's like a clip that is twice as long as the original clip. So... we probably need to find a way to help move other clips out of the way, ya know? Let me think about how to solve this.

Thanks!
-Jonathan

Revision history for this message
reinhard (protux) said :
#2

Ok, I, understand your point, but I don't understand why the clip length on the timeline must be adapted in any case...
Is this caused by melt or by some/the code in general?

btw - IIRC also AVID does not change the clip length when changing speed in all cases, instead a new source clip will be rendered and the editor has to put the part of the new clip he wants back to the timeline...

greetings

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Thomas (jonoomph) said :
#3

I think we might need to agree to disagree on this point... at least for the moment. For OpenShot's timeline to stay in-sync with the Preview window, I have to increase the visual length of the clip. I would be happy to learn more about how AVID handles this. Feel free to send a link or picture of how you imagine this feature working. Thanks!

Revision history for this message
Helen McCall (wildnfree) said :
#4

Reinhard's idea of a symbol such as a spiral spring sounds a good idea.

At present I have to check the properties boxes to find the clips which have speed changes.

I can of course also try running the assembly on the time line, but this is still difficult if the speed change is subtle for a purpose of syncing movement with a piece of music etc.

But a spring symbol would help a lot.

Helen

Revision history for this message
reinhard (protux) said :
#5

I can collect some more info about avid, if you want, but I really like your actual solution!

But when thinking about speed changes I wonder why the effect tab is still empty...?
Isn't changing speed a candidate to be an effect?
As well as the audio fade in/out and the layout stuff?
Apropos 'layout' - it seems that other video editors call this PIP-effect (Picture In Picture)

So, after adding an effect to a clip, a symbol could be displayed at the buttom of the clip, indicating that an effect has been added...

greetings

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Thomas (jonoomph) said :
#6

I suppose lots of the settings in the clip properties window are actually "effects", as far as the user is concerned. However, MLT doesn't consider these things "effects" or "filters". There is a large library of video and audio effects that I will be adding to the "effects" tab (eventually). Such as "black and white", "reverb", etc... I do like the idea of adding an icon for the speed changes. I have some changes I'm going to make to the clip properties soon. Let's re-visit this after I've made these changes. Thanks!

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reinhard (protux) said :
#7

ok, just a final question.
Do you need to follow the MLT conventions closely that determine what has to be an effect or filter or whatever?
To simplify things it might be helpful to have just effects and transitions and that's all?!?
So when you think 'layout' (aka PIP) is some kind of effect, just put it into the effects tab... ;)

greetings

Revision history for this message
Helen McCall (wildnfree) said :
#8

Hello Reinhard,

I thought I would give my view on the effects which are not "effects".

The effects which are in the clip properties dialogue are all really
compositing functions.

Another set of effects which I would like to see in an expanded
Compositing Window would be the following:

brightness
contrast
gamma
hue
saturation
white balance
along with the Audio equivalents such as reverberation etc

This set of effects is very important for matching the visual and audio
qualities of adjacent clips in compositing.

To me the ideal expansion of the clip properties dialogue would be to
have a separate Compositing Window with 2 viewing ports so that I could
compare clips (and also the zooming and select wire-frame movable on the
viewport, with possibly a set of pre-set aspect-ratios for the movable
wire-frame).

Incidentally, on the subject of "ideals", I never did find one of my
"ideals" on any of the many non-linear editors I tried out.
This was my "ideal concept" for a story-board editor which could either
import story-board drawings, or allow simple drawing. It would save all
notes on which scene, take, clip and cut numbers each drawing refered
to. It would allow re-ordering on the main drafting board, with
automatic updating of the properties, and would update the information
in the relevant clip label in the clips in Project Files. And it would
be able to print story-boards in various formats.

When we have got our full stable release of OpenShot released, I might
write a blue-print for the Story-Board editor, and see if I can build
one myself for inclusion in OpenShot.

Helen McCall

On Tue, 2009-07-21 at 11:40 +0000, reinhard wrote:
> Question #76941 on OpenShot Video Editor changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/openshot/+question/76941
>
> Status: Answered => Open
>
> reinhard is still having a problem:
> ok, just a final question.
> Do you need to follow the MLT conventions closely that determine what has to be an effect or filter or whatever?
> To simplify things it might be helpful to have just effects and transitions and that's all?!?
> So when you think 'layout' (aka PIP) is some kind of effect, just put it into the effects tab... ;)
>
> greetings
>

Revision history for this message
reinhard (protux) said :
#9

wow, sounds nice - I hope you can find some time to tackle this!

But again the effects question:
Is it really so important to exactly differentiate between effects, filter, compositing,.... and so on?
Because I still think this would simplify things a lot IMHO
Maybe it would be enough to differentiate in the effects tab only to have sections like compositing effects, audio effects, filter effects,....

btw - i really like to have every 'effect' as simple as possible, I mean as less properties as possible.
So, when i speak about a resize 'effect' I just want this effect to only resize the video and not more.
When I also want to change the position of this clip I would prefer to add an position-effect, and so on...
This way the user could create an optimal effect-chain adapted to his needs.

Does this makes sense and maybe does this save hardware resources as an side effect, because this simplified effects might needs to reserve less memory?

greetings

Revision history for this message
Jonathan Thomas (jonoomph) said :
#10

Reinhard, yes that makes sense. Once I improve the right click menus to include some basic features, such as resizing, positioning, zooming, and animating, I think it will address some of the usability issues. Whether we call it an effect, a setting, a filter, etc... is up for debate. Let's refine some of the menus first, tweak the clip properties screen, and then re-evaluate how this feature works. =)

Revision history for this message
bbneo (brad-banko) said :
#11

What exactly *is* the behavior of the clip speed setting? I set the clip to 1/2 speed, the clip on the track timeline shows the same length as the original? Does the clip end at the normal time (getting cut in half?) or does it run out to twice its length "invisibly"?

I think that the clip length on the track timeline should be expanded to represent the time of the clip... the transitions and other clips should be linked/bumped in their current relationship with the expanded clip... resetting the clip speed would then return it to the original setting again.

Great application, btw. Thanks so much.

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