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Hi,
The top track is the primary track/sound, the subsequent tracks (which you can have up 999) are overlays and appear on top of the main track. As stated see the tutorials to learn what can be accomplished usinng these tracks.
Jim Intel i7-2600@3.4Gz Geforce 560ti-1GB Graphic accelerator, windows 7 Premium 12GB memory

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Quote: What use is there to having multiple tracks on the same time-line?

I used to think exactly the same, as I like to keep things "really" simple, so it made sense for me to put everything on the same track in the logical viewing sequence for when it's produced.

I still do it that way in the main, but I find a 2nd track really handy for doing short cutaways, say 2 - 4 seconds, as I can put them on the second track and drag them to wherever I want, say to hide an unwanted camera movement in a long sequence or just to break it up, so it keeps the interest

I either plan the cutaways from short-takes at the outset or sometimes just copy a short section from the main time-line, and alter the speed or colour or something, just to contrast with the flow at the time. So my 2nd track has quite a few cutaways just placed there ready for positioning once I've done the main track. Those I don't need I just delete before the final "produce" Trevor . . My YouTube site . . (Bristol, UK) . . My JVC GZ-HM1 Camcorder

Thanks James and Trevor. I see now that the multiple tracks are used to add video on top of the main track. I can put items like transitions and cutaways there. Marc

Hi smarc1214,

Transitions and cutaways are just scratching the surface.

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How so?

What do you do with multiple tracks? Marc

Marc,

Welcome to the forum.

You will find as you get into using PD9 more that there are many uses for the extra tracks. The more complex you want to make your production the more tracks you will use.

So far the most tracks I have been required to use to get the desired result has been 12. Ten for the actual production and two for place holders. Some of the other editors here have used many more.

This short video (Mirrors) requires 10 tracks for the media.

One thing to note is, the more tracks you use, the more processing power (CPU & GPU) you are going to require. I recommend that you test your set-up to find the limit of your processing power. It is not unusual for me to see my CPU usage at 100% (all 4 cores) while rendering some of my productions. My system specs below. Although not as powerful as some of the other editors, I have had, for the most part, excellent results.

There are time I find some things that are just too stressful for my machine. In this case I pre-produce the sections that I think are causing the problems, then use the produced file in the final production. I have found this to work 99% of the time.

I hope this will help a little.

Hal

Edited to add screen shot of Mirrors timeline

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