You can change how your clips are displayed in the Media Library. The different views enable you to see varying amounts of detail about the individual clips within the Media Library. You can see the title and a bitmap image of each clip in the Thumbnails view, which is the default, or you can choose the List view to see only the title of each clip. You can also use the Details view to see all the properties of each clip in the Media Library.

Adding a clip to your project

You can use one of the following ways to add a clip to your current project:

• From the Media Library drag the necessary clip and drop it to the storyboard
• Select the necessary clip at the Media Library and click Add to Storyboard

Playing a clip

To play a clip in the Main Preview double click it in the Media Library. You can also right-click the a clip you want to play and select Play point.

Renaming a clip

To rename a clip in the Media Library right click it and select Rename point from right-click menu. Then type a new clip name. You can also highlight the clip you want to rename by clicking it and after that press F2 and type a new name.

Deleting clip(s) from your project

You can use one of the following techniques to delete a clip from your current project:

• Select clips to be deleted at storyboard and click the Delete Storyitem button.
• Select clips to be deleted at storyboard and press Del.

Viewing the properties of an audio clip

To view the properties of a clip please follow the steps below:

1. Click at the clip displayed at the Media Library with the right mouse button.
2. Choose Properties:

Audio properties:

• Duration - length of the movie soundtrack (hours:minutes:seconds.milliseconds);
• Frequency - sampling frequency specified in hertz;
• Bitrate - the number of data points used to approximate the true wave form (kilobits per second);
• Channels - number of channels in the audio track (mono - one channel, stereo - two channels, quadro - four channels, 4.1 - five channels, 5.1 - six channels, 6.1 - seven channels, 7.1 - eight channels);
• Codec - the codec used to compress the audio component of the clip.

Audio Description:

• Title - name of the composition (if there is any), taken from the music file ID3 tag;
• Comments - comments (if there is any), taken from the music file ID3 tag;
• Artist - name of the author of the composition (if there is any), taken from the music file ID3 tag;
• Album - title of the album the composition pertains to (if there is any), taken from the music file ID3 tag;
• Track - number of the track (if there is any), taken from the music file ID3 tag;

Viewing the properties of a video clip

To view the properties of a video clip please follow the steps below:

1. Click at the clip displayed at the Workspace in Storyboard view with the right mouse button.
2. Choose Properties >> Video Properties.
3. At the Video Properties and the Audio Properties tabs of the Properties window you can see the following properties of the selected clip:

   

Video properties:

• Width - the number of pixels that form the video image horizontally;
• Height - the number of pixels that form the video image vertically;
• Aspect - the aspect ratio of the video image, if it is present in the video clip information (the aspect is present only for videos in DVD, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 formats);
• Framerate - the number of video frames displayed every second;
• Bitrate - the number of bits transferred per second;
• Codec - the codec used to compress the video clip.

Audio properties:

• Duration - length of the movie soundtrack (hours:minutes:seconds.milliseconds);
• Frequency - sampling frequency specified in hertz;
• Bitrate - the number of data points used to approximate the true wave form (kilobits per second);
• Channels - number of channels in the audio track (mono - one channel, stereo - two channels, quadro - four channels, 4.1 - five channels, 5.1 - six channels, 6.1 - seven channels, 7.1 - eight channels);
• Audio track - the audio tracks present in the video clip and the codecs used to compress them.
• Volume - the strength of the audio track in the video clip.

Trimming the beginning or end of a video clip

To trim a clip please follow the steps below:

1. Click at the clip displayed at the Workspace in Storyboard view with the right mouse button.
2. Choose Trim.
3. At the Trim tab of the Properties window you can see the start position of the selected clip, in the right window - the end one.

   

4. Drag the slider to the necessary position and click the OK button.
5. Preview the result using Main Preview window.

Note: the duration of your clip is counted according to the framerate you've set in project parameters.

Changing the speed of a video clip

To change the speed of a clip please follow the steps below:

1. Click at the clip displayed at the Workspace in Storyboard view with the right mouse button.
2. Choose Properties >> Speed.
3. At the Speed tab of the Properties window you can choose the speed of the selected clip, dragging the speed adjustment slider.

   

4. You will see the new clip duration in the field below the slider.
5. You can either stretch the sound of the clip to fit the new length or to mute it and record the new one later on. To do that, please press the respective button.
6. Preview the result using the Play button in the Preview window.

Changing the video clip aspect ratio

You might need to change the video clip aspect ratio if it has been previously converted or recorded with a wrong aspect ratio parameters, for instance, if the image seems to be stretched in width or in height. To do that please follow the steps below:

1. Click at the clip displayed at the Workspace in Storyboard view with the right mouse button.
2. Choose Properties >> Aspect.
3. At the Aspect tab of the Properties window you can choose the width to height ratio of the selected clip using the appropriate boxes:

   

4. You can preview the result in the preview window in the left part of the Aspect tab.
5. If you do not want the editor to add black areas to the sides of your video to maintain aspect ratio, you can crop them using Video Crop Scale option.
   Note: the image will be enlarged and not only the black areas will be cropped but also a part of video. For instance, if you would like to crop the black areas on top and bottom of your video, you will also need to crop a part of video image on the right and the left side of your video. See the Appendix section for more detail on this.

Changing the duration of an image clip:

To change the duration of an image clip please follow the steps below:

1. Right-click at the clip displayed at the Workspace in Storyboard view.
2. At the Properties window you can set the duration of the selected clip and view image properties.

   

3. Using spin set the desired duration. If you do not want the editor to add black areas to the sides of your image to maintain aspect ratio, you can crop them using Crop Scale option.
   Note: the image will be enlarged and not only the black areas will be cropped but also a part of image. For instance, if you would like to crop the black areas on top and bottom of your picture, you will also need to crop a part of image on the right and the left side of your picture.
   You can also set the duration manually. Click the OK button to accept all the changes.
4. Preview the result using Main Preview window.

Merging several clips in one

To merge several clip in the Media Library in one please follow the steps below:

1. Select the files you want to merge.
2. Click Merge selected clips at the Top Toolbar.