Greetings Roger,

I Love the written word but it can at times be difficult to understand the exact problem you are having without seeing you assemble your actual project.

I am trying to visualize the steps you have taken, so correct me if I am wrong.

You have placed various clips and stills placed onto the Main Timeline. You also have added a music track to Music Track 1 and various voice-over captures in the Voice Track to coincide with your previously placed clips.

Everything looks great, sound matches your video clips, etc. etc.....and then, in a magical and creative moment, you say..."I want to add Three Five second video clips to the Main Time Line. You have now added 15 seconds to the total length of your project. The music track and the voice over track are now at the original length, but they no longer match up because of the 15 second shift.

Is this the scenario that happened to you?

If this is the case, I am not aware of a method to have PD8 automatically shift ALL the other tracks simultaneously. But I think I understand your frustration because you would have to readjust all the sound to get the result you want.

On the left side of each Track there is a padlock symbol which allows you to lock the selected track from chages, but this wouldn't have helped you in the end anyways.

In my own opinion, I think it boils down to how best to assemble a project. It's a matter of preference, I personally lay out the soundtrack and then place all my clips and stills to match the audio. If at a later stage I decide to change a clip or image down the road, I then replace it with the same duration so as not to change the sync.

You probably are saying, "What the heck is this guy talking about?" But it was my best attempt at nswering your question. It just evolved into the Long Form, sorry about that!!

Kevin
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Cap'n Kevin -

That response DID evolve, didn't it? You're right - the problem is not entirely clear.

Roger -

On the main video track there's a video with its own soundtrack... yes?
As well as that, you have added voice-overs & other music... yes?

What I would do is:
1. Pre-produce the video (without the extra clips and images) to (say) mpeg2 format... so that locks all that together, unless you start splitting etc.
2. Replace everything on the timelines with the produced mpeg2 file.
3. Insert clips, images, voice-overs, sound effects, music into the PIP tracks & do whatever modifications are needed.
4. Produce the whole assembled project as mpeg2 (svrt will save time).

Might that work for you?

Cheers - Tony
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Cap'n Kevin, Tony-

Sorry if my original request was not clear. I tried to keep it reasonably short. No matter - You got it exactly right.

I have taken my various video clips from a holiday and assembled them. I edited them fairly tightly (to remove the "yawn" factor) by, for example, selecting two or three bits each no longer than about 5-10 seconds from a clip sometimes one or two minutes long. In doing so I sometimes split off the audio and trim it separately to match the length of the video bits I trimmed out. Other times I dump the original audio (wind noise etc.) and do a voice-over, again to match the length of the video clips I trimmed out.

Having got that far I decided to put into the project some JPEG stills, after seeing what was missing from the video, as I need them to fill out the story of our holiday. We take close-ups of flowers or telephoto shots of birds etc.

It would be great if I could "sync" the start of an audio (or music) clip to the start of a particular clip in the video track, so that when the video track expanded the audio and video were"locked together". I envisage something akin to selecting multiple objects on different layers in Photoshop then moving them about together in an image.

Tony's suggestion of pre-production then add the inserts seems a good way to go. I will give it a go after I have a play with PIP tracks. Never used them before for my previously simple editing needs.

Thanks for the help guys - much appreciated.

Roger.

Roger,

Glad you are making headway on your project!! Tony's application of the K.I.S.S. method (Keep it simple stupid) no disrespect intended, is great advice. Preproduction is a great method for locking your finished segments as a unit.

I am interested in seeing your finished video, so post it on Youtube and supply a link to it.
: : :
Happy Editing!!

Kevin
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Hi Kevin,
How big's the boat?

Cap'n Dafydd
Condor

Cap'n Kevin, Tony-

I solved the problem in the strangest way.

I went to change the export file location preference and while there took a look at the Editing Preferences. One of them is:-

Link all tracks when moving/removing content in Video track: links titles, video effects, music and PIP clips to clips in the Master Video track. Selecting this option moves these clips when a video clip in the Master Video track is moved. Uncheck this option to allow for the movement of all Timeline clips separately.

It was already checked so I wondered why it was not working, as it seemed it might do what I needed. Then I noticed that there was no mention of the audio track. So I moved a couple of audio clips down to the music track and then inserted a JPEG at the start of the video track. The audio clips moved to the right and stayed synced to their relevant video clips. But I also noticed the audio I had not dropped down to the music rack had also moved right and stayed in sync. So I put all the audio back in to the audio track and everything is now working as I want.

I have no idea why it was not working before. but then PD7 is full of little surprises like that.

Back to editing.

Roger.

Roger,

Now that's very interesting to here about that preference, as mine is set to that option as well (default I suppose), but I have always had your similar problem. I just ASSUMED that was how things should function . Well uncovering these little editing secrets is what makes this hobby fun, frustrating, a blast, and a pain in the #$%, all at the same time!

Well it sounds like you are back to creating your masterpiece!!

Cap'n Dafydd - You too? Let's see the Ferry (not huge) a 52 foot, 47 ton, 119 passenger, 2 decks (upper deck is closed when it's blowing 60 knots and snowing sideways ) It is without any doubt...THE BEST JOB I HAVE EVER HAD!!! I am looking forward to getting some good footage of it breaking ice this winter.

Kevin
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