How to Join or heal files in timeline? not group

ddm wrote on 8/28/2015, 9:21 PM

I don't think there's a join or "heal", I've never heard of such a thing. You can easily apply any setting (or settings) on the track level and it will adjust all the clips on that track, just put your other clips on a different track. Probably a few more ways to accomplish this as well.

musicvid10 wrote on 8/28/2015, 9:42 PM

Do you want them joined correctly on the timeline?
-- Use Vegas device explorer instead of Windows explorer.

Do you want them physically joined into one big file without rendering?
-- Use VideoRedo instead.

Will Dearborn wrote on 8/28/2015, 9:44 PM

There doesn't seem to be a crop tool or fx for Video Track FX. Using track fx has worked with color correction though. How would I crop a 30min video that is segmented into 7 files?

Will Dearborn wrote on 8/28/2015, 9:53 PM

Is vegas Device Explorer in Movie Studio Platinum 13? I just clicked add media and it shows the 7 files, select all and drag them onto the timeline. They all line up but are segmented. Where is the Vegas device Exploorer? Thanks for the info on video Redo.

wwaag wrote on 8/28/2015, 10:03 PM

@Will Dearborn

The problem I've run into is that if I want to crop the video or color correct, I have to save a preset and then use that preset over and over and over again on the segmented clips even though it might just be one 30min clip.

If this really is your problem, there is a far easier solution. Do your cropping/color correction on the first event. Once you're happy, copy the event, then select the remaining events on the track, right-click, and select Paste Event Attributes. Done. Don't waste your time trying to join these events. Very simple.

@DDM

I don't think there's a join or "heal", I've never heard of such a thing.

There is a "one-click" join function in Vegasaur. For example, if you've split an event and later want to "join" them. Works well.

wwaag

john_dennis wrote on 8/28/2015, 10:13 PM

"[I]How would I crop a 30min video that is segmented into 7 files?[/I]"

Apply Pan/Crop to the first event on the timeline. Right-Click on the first event and "Copy". Select the rest of the events on the timeline, Right-Click and select Paste Event Attributes. The crop should affect all the events.

If you're really excited about combining / joining the events into one event (I'm generally not) consider rendering to an uncompressed or visually lossless intermediate for later stages of the project.

john_dennis wrote on 8/28/2015, 10:15 PM

Slow typists finish last!

Grazie wrote on 8/28/2015, 10:17 PM

Wwaag, yes. But he needs to COPY on that first Event, then PEA.

Grazie

Will Dearborn wrote on 8/28/2015, 10:21 PM

Thank you, that's good to know and will help if I have to work with separated clips. Is there a way to join the files though on the timeline though?

wwaag wrote on 8/28/2015, 10:30 PM

@Grazie

But I had already corrected my mistake, thanks to John Dennis, long before your post. I believe it was exactly 8:17:10. Top of the morning to you. LOL.

wwaag

Grazie wrote on 8/29/2015, 12:07 AM

. .. coffee . . I need coffee . .

PeterDuke wrote on 8/29/2015, 12:21 AM

I presume the files in question are MP4. I suspect that there will be no hiccup at the join when you drag the bits onto the timeline, or whatever, but check carefully whether this is true or not. If you do this with AVCHD files (m2ts or MTS) then you WILL get a glitch in both audio and video, and so you need to take other action first.

I suspect that there is no way to join your clips on the timeline because they started out as separate files. Even Vegasaur would be helpless here, is my guess. The clips are not from a single file that has been split within Vegas. (My way of joining such splits is to disable ripple editing, delete the second part on the timeline and drag the end of the first part to where the end of the second part used to be.)

altarvic wrote on 8/29/2015, 6:04 AM

> "I suspect that there is no way to join your clips on the timeline because they started out as separate files. Even Vegasaur would be helpless here, is my guess."

You're right, you can't combine different mediafiles into a single event. Alternatively, you can use nested projects.
Vegasaur has Create Nested Project (from Selected Events) command.

Arthur.S wrote on 8/29/2015, 6:48 AM

Device explorer is definitely part of Movie Studio. Look under the 'View' drop down menu.

Also:

About 4mins 20secs ;-)

farss wrote on 8/29/2015, 7:06 AM

The lack of a join facility is a pain, one that should have been addressed years ago.
There's other ways to fix this problem though and they all revolve around physically appending all the files into one file.
I do this all the time with the files from my EX1 using Sony's Content Browser but I doubt that's going to work with files from the GH4. I'm surprised Panasonic don't provide a tool for doing this. Failing that it might be possible using nothing more than DOS's Copy program. That'll only get the job done though is the files don't have headers, DOS will do a dumb binary append.
I'd also check out Sony's range of Catalyst products.
Last but not least you could put all the files onto the T/L and render them out to a suitable DI and edit that.

Bob.

Gary James wrote on 8/29/2015, 8:36 AM

You may want to look at your camera settings to see if you can disable the auto-clip detection feature. There is a similar feature in the Vegas video capture tool that will disable auto-clip detection.

Shinra Bansho wrote on 8/29/2015, 6:00 PM

I use GH4 as well and personally suggest nesting. On Vegas timeline, place all the spanned MP4 (or MOV) files you require, and save it as a project (veg) file, say, "GH4_joined" for the sake of this discussion. You then import (i.e. nest) the "GH4_Joined" veg file into a new veg project file, in which case Vegas treats the "GH4_Joined" file as a single video clip. No need for rendering into another format to physically combine. You do not need Vegasaur either.
I have used this method to "pseudo" combine my GH4 spanned video files (MOVs) and, as far as I know, there is no gap in video or audio. You could even apply a video effect (in fact, a group of FXs, I believe) to the entire MOV files with a single action, which otherwise I would have done on a clip-by-clip basis (very cumbersome). This works for crop/pan as well since Vegas treats the nested event as a single video file.

Will Dearborn wrote on 8/30/2015, 12:58 AM

Thank You for all the replies everyone. Shinra, thanks for the tip on nesting. I will try that out.

Could I just point out though that Sony should really just add a join/heal button? It's no different than grouping except it would remove the extra crop & fx icons, and just use one set instead. Wouldn't this be like the easiest thing in the world for sony to do? It would be so easy to implement I just don't get it.

Who here votes for Sony to add a join/heal button in the next update?

1+

Will Dearborn wrote on 8/30/2015, 2:41 AM

Shinra, I don't see an import function in Movie Studio Platinum 13. Trying to drag the .vf file onto a new projects timeline just opens that project back up segmented video and all.

Shinra Bansho wrote on 8/30/2015, 4:13 AM

Will, I incorrectly assumed that you were using Vegas Pro as opposed to Vegas Movie Studio which may not support nesting. Your option then to physically merge the spanned files. I hear that MPEG Streamclip can do this.

Chienworks wrote on 9/13/2015, 9:22 AM

Now that i think of it, there already is one join function in Vegas: import still image sequence. This function takes hundreds or hundreds of thousands of individual files and allows one to edit them as a single event on the timeline. Of course, it's limited to still images.

Seems like it would take very little effort to extend this to video files as well as stills.