edit and save video file: RE meet ATR in Premier Elements thread

[provobis]

Hello ATR and thanks for the helpful response in the beginners forum. I did what you suggested and evidently ran into the same difficulty I had before I came here with questions. I am (was always) able to drag (or import) my mpg file to the timeline and the entire movie shows on that timeline. But as you suggested I reviewed the trimming video help, and am unable to use the step of using anything on the scene line to edit because nothing shows there except the first scene of the movie. (I assume when I "click on the sceneline" as the help indicates I should normally see all movie scenes from beginning to end). So is there a problem with DV-AVI compatibility issues, and should I now resort to conversion software as you suggest so as to enable editing?

[ATR]

Good Morning....

A single movie (video clip) will be shown in only one "Scene" of the Filmstrip of the Sceneline View. After you trim/split the video into clips, then you will see each of the split clips in its own "Scene" in the Filmstrip. In the Sceneline View, you can:
a. trim clips (See Edit Mode, the Orange Tab, Project View, Double Clicking your whole video there, and using the Preview Window that opens and its IN/OUT points to trim/split the clips).
or instead....
b. split clips (above the Filmstrip is a purple bar with a gray top tab..move that along the video and use the Split Clip icon at the bottom right of the Monitor to split the video into clips).

BUT, I would strongly recommend that you use the Timeline View instead of the Sceneline View for what you want to do. In doing that, I feel that you have better control of the situation..a lot because you can see what is going on.

Check this out in the Premiere Elements PDF Help which is quite good. After you do, I will post a step by step if necessary. You will be surprised how easy it is. You just need a few guiding words, not necessarily a video tutorial.

To be continued.....

ATR

[provobis]

Thanks ATR, I have experimented and studied the help files, finally able to edit out the few frames at the end of my movie with great difficulty, then save as AVI so as to make available to burn to DVD. (I use DVD Flick). I don't learn fast so I must say for me it will take a lot of practice and experimenting, trial and error. Don't know if I'll get back here to ask for more help so thanks again.

[ATR]

Provobis

I am pleased that you edited your video and saved it to .avi for future use. There should not have been that much difficulty trimming the clip. But, if you were still having problems after the reading, exploration, and experimenting, you should have contacted me immediately with the biggest or smallest question (either in the thread or by Elements Village Private Message System). If I did not communicate well one way, I will try another. I am not a one response person and will stay with you until you succeed.

Everyone learns at his or her own pace. When that moment arrives in which you have mastered the learning curve, you will wonder what all the fuss was about. Do not be discouraged and do not give up.

I will be watching for your progress whenever you have the time to post again. You should give a try at: Burn to Disc among other features.

Good luck.

ATR

[provobis]

ATR, I might ask you about getting the entire movie in the scene line. As I mentioned I was able to do a (simple) edit and save the movie to work with later. But I was only able to do that in the time line. I dragged the selection into the time line and it automatically loaded of course, thereafter I used the selection tool to slice off the end scenes. But I was never able to get the entire movie into the scene line no matter what I tried, only succeeding in chopping everything up or (creating) black frames. I know you recommended using the time line but in tutorials I recall seeing the entire time line filled up with complete movies or videos. How do I get that to work for editing purposes? I know I can drag the selection into the scene line but only that first frame (title scene) of the video/movie shows and I've been beating my head against the wall to view and edit all the frames in the scene line.

[ATR]

provobis

Part 1.
You may want to skip to Part 2 to get to trimming the video in the Sceneline. I add Part 1 so that you are aware of the feature described.

I have Premiere Elements 2, 4, and 7, not 3, but I think that trimming/splitting clips is the same in the 3. If any problems, let me know right away. I think that I have the Premiere Elements 3 PDF somewhere, and I will dig it out.


Sceneline View.

If you have a video clip and import that into Premiere Elements 3.0.2, as you know, that will appear in one scene (thumbnail) of the Sceneline Filmstrip, with just the opening scene of the movie seen in that thumbnail.

How could I see each of the scenes of my movie as more than one scene/thumbnail in the Sceneline Filmstrip?

The following is possible only with an integrated Photoshop Elements/Premiere Elements pair 5/3, 6/4, or 7/7 and using the Premiere Elements Send To Premiere Elements Command:

If you had created a slideshow in Photoshop Elements 5 Slideshow Editor, consisting of (for example) 3 videos and 8 photos and used the Photoshop Elements 5 Slideshow Editor Output “Send to Premiere Elements”, then:
a. the slideshow would arrive in the Premiere Elements grouped, and would occupy one scene of the Filmstrip, with the opening scene of the slideshow showing in the thumbnail.
b. if you decided that you wanted to edit the slideshow further, you could right click the thumbnail and select “Break Apart Slideshow” from the pop up menu.
c. at this point, you would have 8 scene spaces filled, each with one of the 8 photos and 3 scenes spots filled, each with one of the 3 videos. But with each of these videos, only the first scene of the video would be seen in the thumbnail.

So, great if you are dealing with photos. But, when whole videos are involved and you want to edit them, we need to get into trimming the clips in the Preview Window with the In/Out points or using the Split Clip Tool to do the job when it is done not in the Preview Window. As I said before, this is best visualized in the Timeline View where you can expand the Timeline and view the frames from beginning to end of the video on the Timeline. But, once you have the details for the Sceneline trimming options, then you can pick what works for you.

I will be back in a short time tonight with Part 2.

ATR

[ATR]

Part 2.

Split Clip Tool.

Tools to be used. Above the Sceneline View Filmstrip is a purple bar. At the top left of that purple bar is a gray tab. To the bottom right of the Monitor is a scissor looking icon which represents the Split Clip Tool.

Procedure. First, with your mouse cursor move the top gray tab mentioned above to from left to right to view your video from beginning to end in the Monitor to get a good idea of what you have scene wise.
Tips:
Instead of moving gray tab with mouse cursor, you can nudge (have better control) if you hit the right or left arrow key to the right of the computer main keyboard.
If you need to get to the beginning of the video, press the Home Key of the keyboard to the right of the computer main keyboard.
If you need to get to the end of the video, press the End Key of the keyboard to the right of the computer main keyboard.

First, we are going to divide the video into its scenes. Move the top gray tab mentioned above to the end of the video’s first scene, click on the Scissors Tool. Scene 1 will occupy Scene 1 of the Filmstrip, and everything else will be in Scene 2 of the Filmstrip. Move the top gray tab mentioned above to the end of the video’s second scene as viewed in the Monitor, click on the Scissors Tool. Scene 1 is still in Scene 1 of the Filmstrip, Scene 2 in Scene 2 of the Filmstrip, and everything else in Scene 3 of the Filmstrip. Continue the process until you have your video split into all its scenes which will occupy their own Scene space in the Filmstrip.


You can right click any of the Scenes in the Filmstrip and select “Delete just scene” if you want to edit out that scene.

If you think that we are going in the right direction with these details, I will post Part 3 which will describe doing this trimming/splitting with the In/Out points of the Preview Window.

If you find any points that need clarification, please let me know.

ATR

[provobis]

Good morning ATR, and I followed your instructions through part 2 successfully. I now see that the help instructions I was trying to understand simply are not as explicit or clear as yours which is why I was getting lost.

One question before you go on to part 3.

Using the sceneline procedure where you divide the video into its scenes (whether using the keyboard arrows or the gray bar) so as to have the video split into all its visible scenes, if the video is fairly long or in fact is full movie length, you could be sitting at the keyboard for a week with callouses on your fingertips before you had all the scenes in the sceneline. Isn't there a click or move that will instantly load all the scenes of the video into the sceneline such as what happens with the timeline? Or is that what you meant by "having more control" with timeline editing?

[ATR]

Timeline View with Video/Audio Tracks advantage....

However, there is another thing that might enter into the mix if your Premiere Elements 3.0.2 has the following feature which Premiere Elements 4 and 7 have.

Typically you think about "Scene Detect" in relation to video capture from a miniDV camcorder (Firewire connection) during which the whole video can be split into scenes by either Scene Detect by Timecode or Scene Detect by Content. You end up with split clips saved to your hard drive and brought into a Premiere Elements project .prel file.

However, versions 4 and 7 have a feature for splitting the video into scenes when it is in the Media area. I have not found this feature in version 2. See if version 3.0.2 has it....

This is the Premiere Elements 4 route...
a. bring in your video from Get Media/Files and Folder
b. click on Edit Tab (Orange), Media, and the Project
c. in the Project View, right click the video in the media list, and from the drop down menu select "Scene Detect".
d. This "Scene Detect" is by Content, not Timecode.
e. Then, in the Project View Media lineup, you end up with your original video plus a folder containing the split clips that were generated in the Scene Detect by Content process

If you do not find it in version 3.0.2, I will go searching for the PDF for 3.0.2 to see if I can confirm its existance or non existance in version 3.0.2.

I will be back later today with Part 3, dealing with trimming/splitting video into clips in the Preview Window. That gets interesting.

Sounds like you are making progress. Great.

To be continued,

ATR

[provobis]

ATR,

By "edit tab" (orange) I assume you mean the edit tab at the top of the PE3 window which is not "orange". In any case there is no Media or Project in the edit menu so I presume I will not be able to get to the Scene Detect you refer to and that version 3.0.2 does not have it. If you want to see what my working PE3 window looks like I could copy it to you in email. Please let me know.

[provobis]

....however I followed directions in pdf help with regard to Scene Detect in using the files source instead of video capture from miniDV and in the capture "more" menu there is a Scene Detect item on the menu which is checked but grayed out. So perhaps I can't use that for content from files?

[ATR]

I am still working on preparing Part 3. It should be ready in a few hours.

The Scene Detect feature via the Media that I described for Premiere Elements 4 is separate from the Scene Detect options of the Premiere Elements 4 Capture from a miniDV camcorder (Firewire). So, if you do not see what I described in your Premiere Elements 3.0.2 Help, it may be that the Scene Detect feature via Media did not start until version 4. But, I will double check to try to get a firm answer on that.

To be continued....

ATR

[ATR]

provobis

Sorry, I got a little behind schedule, but here is Part 3.......




Premiere Element 3.0.2
Trimming Video in Preview Window with In/Out points

Since I do not have this version, I am piecing the details together from various sources, including:
http://www.software-magazine.gr/media/members_content/education_resources/Lessons/adobe_premiere/pre3_edit_clips_uk.pdf

This should be OK whether you have clicked on Timeline View or Sceneline View, but let us assume Sceneline View for this example……


Edit Movie Tab (upper left hand corner)
Available Media
Double click the video that you want to trim (split into clips). For this example, a video with 5 scenes.
Preview Window should open showing the video (at its start) in the Preview Window mini Monitor.
a. Underneath the mini Monitor is a blue bar with an indicator with gray tab at its top. You move this indicator from left to right to view the content of your video.
b. With the indicator at the start of the video, click on the Set In tab. Then move the indicator to the end of that first scene, click on the Set Out tab.
c. Now you have two choices. 1. With your mouse cursor click and drag the image in the Preview Window mini monitor to Scene Spot 1 in the Filmstrip of the Sceneline View and/or click and drag the image in the Preview Window to a blank space in the Available Media area and release the mouse cursor. When you do, that a small “Make Subclip” dialog box will appear. After you name it and click OK, you will then have a copy of this clip as part of the project file's media.
d. For splitting out the second scene of the video…wherever you left the indicator in the Preview Window, move it to the beginning of scene 2 of the video, then click on Set In. Then move the indicator to the end of scene 2 of the video, then click on Set Out. Then you could click and drag scene 2 from the Preview Window to Scene Spot 2 in the Filmstrip and/or save as a subclip as before.
e. You would repeat the process for the remainder of the video scenes. But, keep in mind that you can select In Out Points wherever you want along the course of the video and arrange the clips in the Filmstrip as wanted.

Please let me know if you are OK with Part 3 and if you found anything in my description that does not support what you are actually obtaining using the description.

ATR

[provobis]

ATR, thanks for part 3, sorry I've had some other business/distractions having nothing to do with Elements 3.0.2. I'll get right back when possible and let you know if I have any questions.

[ATR]

Good, that sounds like progress.

Keep up the good work, moving forward in your projects.

ATR