There is an elegant solution here! Just hit M to create a marker. Then select the event and click on that markerline to go to it, and hit S. You can delete the marker afterwards.

Hi Mick,
As from before, yes, video editting sure can be fun :)
As for this problem, I had it too, and it really bothered me. What I figured out was to click on the 'track number' on the left of the time line, and it highlights that track and allows you to use the 'S' key without it moving the cursor. Hope it helps. Cin

If I understand the problem correctly, the situation is something like this: you probably have multiple tracks of video, you have the cursor positioned just where you want it, but you only want to split on one particular track of video -- not on all of them.

I was playing with this in Vegas 7, so I don't know if VMS behaves differently, but for me, this seems to summarize the Split behavior:

- Look up and down at all the events on the timeline at the cursor position. If any of those individual events are selected (the event itself has a colored background behind the thumbnails) then only those events are split when the S button is pressed.

- Otherwise, if any events anywhere else in the project are "selected", but none of them are touching the cursor position, then the S button has no effect at all (nothing is split)

- Otherwise, if *no* events are selected anywhere in the project, then *all* events at the cursor position are split by the S button.

OhMyGosh -- your suggestion didn't work for me. If I place the cursor over an event, but that event isn't selected, and I then select the track header for that event, it doesn't seem to make any change to the behavior I described above. (And actually, selecting the track header as you suggested was the very first thing that came to my mind when I read the post, so I was surprised that it didn't work as I expected it would.)

The marker approach was the second thing that came to mind, but after playing a bit I have an even simpler approach: I was going to say "Right click on the desired event and then click on 'Select Events to End'". This selects the desired event (and all events to the right of if) without moving the cursor. Now you can Split, and only the selected event will split

But... then I realized even simpler is just to right-click on the event, which brings up the pop-up window, then simply hit Escape. Right-click then Escape results in selecting *only* the event you just right-clicked on.

And also -- you can always use Ctrl-click to select/deselect events without moving the cursor. The only disadvantage is that events that were already selected elsewhere on the timeline before you did ctrl-click will still be selected. So if your next move after splitting is to hit delete to remove the right side of the split, you will also be deleting events elsewhere on the timeline -- probably without realizing it.

Tim L

But... then I realized even simpler is just to right-click on the event, which brings up the pop-up window, then simply hit Escape. Right-click then Escape results in selecting *only* the event you just right-clicked on.

Yes, right-click then escape seems to be the easiest way. Too bad there isn't a keyboard shortcut to select a specific track.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I like the right-click-then-escape approach - that seems to be the one method mentioned that has less overhead than what I'm doing today. I'll keep that in my bag of trix.

OK here's a tip for those who don't know it, since I like to give back. I've found this is a relatively unknown feature, even to some experienced folks, and yet is very useful:

Aligning the middle of one event with the middle of another can be tricky (as opposed to aligning the middle of one event with the end of another, which can be done with just the cursor). Such a middle-to-middle sync situation arises, for example, when you're trying to sync an audio event with a video event taken from another source.

Now you can do this by splitting one of the two events at the desired sync point, -but- the better solution is to use the "snap". It's located at the bottom-left of the event, and looks like a little white triangle. Find the sync point in event "A" with the cursor, then move the "snap" to that position. Now find the sync point in event "B", and drag event "A" until the "snap" triangle aligns with the cursor. You're done, no splitting needed! Enjoy

Mick

Nice one ... I hadn't noticed it in the manual till now ... it's under "Event Snap Offset". It's a pity the offsets can't snap on each other, without using the cursor.

Position the cursor first, then SHIFT-click anywhere on the clip to select it. The cursor stays put. Press S and split the clip.

Nice. Ctrl + click works as well ... it allows multiple selections and deselections, without moving the cursor.

But just a reminder about Shift-click and Ctrl-click: these options may leave other events selected on your timeline.

Now this won't affect the Split operation itself, but for many people, Split is immediately followed by "Delete" -- to delete the second half of the split event. If you do this, you will also be deleting the "other" selected events, which might be events that aren't even visible on your screen. You could end up deleting something clear at the beginning or end of your project, and not even notice it.

Tim L