USER GUIDE

5.0

www.puremotion.com
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................9
What Is EditStudio? ..................................................................................................................... 9
What You Need ............................................................................................................................ 9
What's In The Manual? .............................................................................................................. 10
How To Use The Manual ............................................................................................................. 10
Getting Help From Within The Program ..................................................................................... 10
Getting Help Online.................................................................................................................... 11
Buying EditStudio ...................................................................................................................... 12
Limitations Of The Trial Version ................................................................................................. 12
GETTING STARTED ............................................................................................................................. 13
Opening A Project ...................................................................................................................... 13
The Interface Explained ............................................................................................................. 13
Playing A Movie In The Monitor ................................................................................................. 18
Adding Clips To The Timeline ..................................................................................................... 19
Deleting Unnecessary Clips ........................................................................................................ 20
Trimming A Clip ......................................................................................................................... 22
Creating A Slideshow ................................................................................................................. 23
Adding Background Music .......................................................................................................... 25
Applying An Audio Fade ............................................................................................................. 27
Changing The Speed .................................................................................................................. 27
Linked Audio And Video ............................................................................................................. 28
Applying A Video Effect .............................................................................................................. 29
Applying An Audio Effect............................................................................................................ 32
Adding A Transition ................................................................................................................... 33
Adding Titles .............................................................................................................................. 34
Changing The Titles Format ....................................................................................................... 37
Adding A Preset ......................................................................................................................... 38
Making A DVD ............................................................................................................................ 38
PROJECTS ........................................................................................................................................ 39
What Is A Project? ..................................................................................................................... 39
Creating A New Project .............................................................................................................. 39
Saving A Project ........................................................................................................................ 39
Saving Variants Of A Project [Advanced] ................................................................................... 40
Opening A Project ...................................................................................................................... 40
The Project Files [Advanced] ..................................................................................................... 40
Backing Up A Project ................................................................................................................. 40
Project Settings ......................................................................................................................... 40
CAPTURING ...................................................................................................................................... 43
What Is Capture? ....................................................................................................................... 43

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 Using Your Digital Camera ......................................................................................................... 43
The Difference Between DV And Analogue ................................................................................. 43
The Advantages Of DV ............................................................................................................... 43
Hardware Requirements ............................................................................................................ 44
Converting Analogue To DV ....................................................................................................... 44
A Word About USB ..................................................................................................................... 44
Connecting A DV Camcorder ...................................................................................................... 44
Connecting An Analogue Camcorder .......................................................................................... 45
Capturing From A DV Camcorder................................................................................................ 46
DV Scene Detection.................................................................................................................... 49
DV Batch Capture [Advanced].................................................................................................... 50
Capturing From An Analogue Camcorder ................................................................................... 51
Video Compression Explained [Advanced] ................................................................................. 53
IMPORTING FILES .............................................................................................................................. 54
Supported File Formats .............................................................................................................. 54
Importing Files From Hard Disk ................................................................................................. 54
Video From Digital Cameras ....................................................................................................... 54
Video From Webcams................................................................................................................. 54
Importing Pictures..................................................................................................................... 54
Importing Audio Files ................................................................................................................ 55
Importing Music From CD .......................................................................................................... 55
Importing Video From DVD ........................................................................................................ 55
Importing Copy Protected Files.................................................................................................. 55
EDITING YOUR PROJECT ...................................................................................................................... 56
Introduction To The Timeline ..................................................................................................... 56
Using The Dual Time Cursor ....................................................................................................... 57
Moving Around The Timeline...................................................................................................... 58
Adding Items To The Timeline ................................................................................................... 58
Moving Items Around................................................................................................................. 60
Selecting Items.......................................................................................................................... 60
Non-Destructive Editing Explained............................................................................................. 61
Splitting Items ........................................................................................................................... 61
Cutting Out A Section Of An Item............................................................................................... 62
Trimming The Ends Of An Item (Mark In/Out) .......................................................................... 64
Previewing The Project .............................................................................................................. 66
Information In The Monitor ....................................................................................................... 67
Monitor Selection Objects .......................................................................................................... 67
Linked Items.............................................................................................................................. 68
Deleting Items ........................................................................................................................... 68
Deleting Space On The Timeline................................................................................................. 68

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 Inserting Space Onto The Timeline ............................................................................................ 69
Locking Items ............................................................................................................................ 71
Renaming Items ........................................................................................................................ 71
Layer Types ............................................................................................................................... 71
Disabling Layers ........................................................................................................................ 72
Adding And Deleting Layers ....................................................................................................... 72
Undo And Redo .......................................................................................................................... 72
Snapping.................................................................................................................................... 73
Automatic Transitions And Crossfades ....................................................................................... 73
Cut, Copy, Paste......................................................................................................................... 74
Information Displayed In Items................................................................................................. 74
VIDEO EFFECTS AND TRANSITIONS ........................................................................................................ 75
What Is An Effect? ..................................................................................................................... 75
What Is A Transition? ................................................................................................................ 75
How To Add A Transition............................................................................................................ 75
How To Add An Effect................................................................................................................. 76
Selecting An Effect ..................................................................................................................... 77
Re-Ordering Effects On An Item................................................................................................. 78
Changing An Effect Or Transition Properties .............................................................................. 78
Deleting An Effect ...................................................................................................................... 78
Changing The Default Transition ................................................................................................ 79
Effects And Transitions That Need Other Layers ........................................................................ 79
Adding An Effect As A Separate Item [Advanced] ...................................................................... 79
Tutorial: Picture In Picture ........................................................................................................ 80
Tutorial: Split Screen [Advanced] .............................................................................................. 81
Tutorial: Making Video Brighter ................................................................................................. 84
Tutorial: Freeze Frame ............................................................................................................... 85
Panning Over A Picture .............................................................................................................. 87
Zooming In To A Picture ............................................................................................................ 88
Effects With Selection Objects ................................................................................................... 89
Applying An Effect To A Region .................................................................................................. 90
Flipping And Mirroring The Frame .............................................................................................. 92
Rotating An Item ....................................................................................................................... 92
Changing The Speed Of An Item ................................................................................................ 92
Reversing The Direction Of An Item........................................................................................... 93
Deinterlacing / Removing Flicker............................................................................................... 93
Action Safe Area ........................................................................................................................ 93
TEXT AND TITLES .............................................................................................................................. 95
Adding Text And Titles ............................................................................................................... 95
Editing Text ............................................................................................................................... 95

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 Scrolling Credits......................................................................................................................... 95
Changing The Text Style ............................................................................................................ 96
Changing The Text Position........................................................................................................ 97
Changing The Text Motion.......................................................................................................... 98
Special Title Effect Styles ........................................................................................................... 98
Changing The Text Effect ........................................................................................................... 99
Adding Dynamic Text ............................................................................................................... 100
The Title Safe Area................................................................................................................... 102
Adding Subtitles....................................................................................................................... 102
Changing The Style Of DVD Subtitles ....................................................................................... 103
AUDIO .......................................................................................................................................... 104
Audio Items Explained ............................................................................................................. 104
Audio Mixing ............................................................................................................................ 104
Changing The Volume .............................................................................................................. 104
Fading Up And Down................................................................................................................ 105
Adjusting The Volume .............................................................................................................. 105
Adjusting The Balance ............................................................................................................. 106
Panning Audio.......................................................................................................................... 107
Adding Audio Effects ................................................................................................................ 107
Removing Audio Effects ........................................................................................................... 108
Changing The Properties Of An Audio Effect ............................................................................ 108
Tutorial: Bass And Treble Boost ............................................................................................... 108
Crossfades Between Two Items ............................................................................................... 109
Adding Background Music ........................................................................................................ 109
Editing Video And Audio Separately ......................................................................................... 111
Tutorial: How To Do A Voiceover.............................................................................................. 111
EXPORTING A MOVIE ........................................................................................................................ 113
Choosing Your Movie Format ................................................................................................... 113
Exporting A DVD Movie ............................................................................................................ 113
Saving A Movie Back To DV Camcorder .................................................................................... 113
How To Make A DVD................................................................................................................. 115
DVD Subtitles And Chapters ..................................................................................................... 117
Exporting A Frame ................................................................................................................... 117
Approximate Times For Export A Movie.................................................................................... 117
Let Me Specify My Own Settings .............................................................................................. 118
MEDIA EXPLORER ............................................................................................................................ 119
Using The Media Explorer......................................................................................................... 119
Suggested Workflow ................................................................................................................ 119
Importing Files Into The Media Explorer.................................................................................. 120
Presets..................................................................................................................................... 120

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 Modifying A Preset ................................................................................................................... 120
Deleting A Preset ..................................................................................................................... 120
Where Presets Are Stored ........................................................................................................ 120
Importing And Exporting Presets............................................................................................. 120
Creating Folders In The Media Explorer ................................................................................... 121
Moving Items In The Media Explorer ....................................................................................... 121
Detecting Scenes ..................................................................................................................... 121
Changing The Poster Frame ..................................................................................................... 122
Changing The Properties Of A Media Preset ............................................................................. 122
Renaming A Preset................................................................................................................... 122
ADVANCED ..................................................................................................................................... 124
Changing The Active Pane........................................................................................................ 124
Importing Video From DVD ...................................................................................................... 124
Archiving Projects For Later Editing......................................................................................... 124
Keyframes................................................................................................................................ 125
Keyframe Interpolation [Advanced] ........................................................................................ 127
Copying Properties Between Keyframes .................................................................................. 128
Deleting A Keyframe ................................................................................................................ 128
J and L Audio Cuts.................................................................................................................... 128
Installing A Package ................................................................................................................ 130
Uninstalling A Package ............................................................................................................ 130
Customising The Toolbars ........................................................................................................ 130
Changing The Program Options................................................................................................ 131
Tutorial: Route Tracer .............................................................................................................. 133
Tutorial: Advanced Panning And Placement ............................................................................. 135
Tutorial: Automatic Colour Correction...................................................................................... 139
Tutorial: Manual Colour Correction .......................................................................................... 141
Tutorial: Automatically Adjusting Colour Levels....................................................................... 143
Tutorial: Manually Adjusting Colour Levels .............................................................................. 143
Tutorial: Automatically Adjusting Colour Curves ...................................................................... 146
Tutorial: Manually Adjusting Colour Curves ............................................................................. 146
Fast Preview Files .................................................................................................................... 149
Updating The Project Source Files ........................................................................................... 150
Show Media Info ...................................................................................................................... 150
Using Markers .......................................................................................................................... 150
Setting Chapter Markers .......................................................................................................... 151
Showing The Installed Plugins................................................................................................. 152
System Information Tool ......................................................................................................... 152
DV Copy Tool............................................................................................................................ 153
DV Type Converter Tool [Advanced] ........................................................................................ 155

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 Using Your DV Camcorder As A Monitor ................................................................................... 158
Changing The Monitor Properties............................................................................................. 158
Unsuitable Formats For Editing ................................................................................................ 160
INFORMATION FOR EDITSTUDIO USERS ................................................................................................ 162
REFERENCE: VIDEO EFFECTS ............................................................................................................... 164
Balance > Adjust HSL............................................................................................................... 164
Balance > Adjust HSV .............................................................................................................. 164
Balance > Adjust RGB .............................................................................................................. 164
Balance > Brightness / Contrast / Gamma .............................................................................. 164
Colour Suite > Colour Correct .................................................................................................. 165
Colour Suite > Levels ............................................................................................................... 165
Colour Suite > Curves .............................................................................................................. 166
Colour > Colourscale................................................................................................................ 166
Colour > Gradient Wash........................................................................................................... 167
Colour > Greyscale................................................................................................................... 167
Colour > Isolate RGB ............................................................................................................... 167
Colour > Negative .................................................................................................................... 168
Colour > Posterize ................................................................................................................... 168
Colour > Simple Gradient......................................................................................................... 168
Colour > Solarize ..................................................................................................................... 168
Colour > Solid .......................................................................................................................... 169
Colour > Swap RGB .................................................................................................................. 169
Colour > Tint............................................................................................................................ 169
Fade > Fade ............................................................................................................................. 169
Flare > Flare ............................................................................................................................ 169
Key > Chromakey RGB ............................................................................................................. 171
Key > Lumakey RGB................................................................................................................. 171
Knock Out > Knock Out............................................................................................................ 172
Legacy > Magnify..................................................................................................................... 172
Legacy > Pan and zoom ........................................................................................................... 172
Legacy > Picture in picture ...................................................................................................... 172
Matte > Matte .......................................................................................................................... 172
Misc > Emboss Low / Emboss High .......................................................................................... 173
Mix > Mix ................................................................................................................................. 173
Mosaic > Mosaic....................................................................................................................... 173
Old Film > Old Film .................................................................................................................. 174
Route Tracer > Route Tracer.................................................................................................... 174
Sharpen and Soften > Blur Low / Blur High ............................................................................. 175
Sharpen and Soften > Gaussian Blur........................................................................................ 175
Sharpen and Soften > Sharpen Low / Sharpen High ................................................................ 175

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 Utility > Copy ........................................................................................................................... 175
REFERENCE: TRANSITIONS ................................................................................................................. 177
Custom > Custom Mask ........................................................................................................... 177
Dissolve > Dissolve .................................................................................................................. 179
Dissolve > Dissolve through black / white............................................................................... 179
Dissolve > Dissolve with blur................................................................................................... 179
Slide > Horizontal slide ............................................................................................................ 180
Slide > Vertical slide ................................................................................................................ 180
Wipe > Circular wipe................................................................................................................ 180
Wipe > Clock wipe ................................................................................................................... 181
Wipe > Diamond wipe.............................................................................................................. 181
Wipe > Elliptical wipe .............................................................................................................. 181
Wipe > Linear wipe .................................................................................................................. 182
Wipe > Rectangular wipe......................................................................................................... 182
REFERENCE: TEXT EFFECTS................................................................................................................. 183
Text > Ripple ........................................................................................................................... 183
Text > Star titles...................................................................................................................... 184
Text > Titles............................................................................................................................. 185
Text > Twist............................................................................................................................. 185
Text > Typewriter .................................................................................................................... 186
Text > Zipper ........................................................................................................................... 186
REFERENCE: AUDIO EFFECTS .............................................................................................................. 188
Balance > Mono ....................................................................................................................... 188
Balance > Mute channel ........................................................................................................... 188
Balance > Swap channel .......................................................................................................... 188
Bass and Treble > Bass ............................................................................................................ 188
Bass and Treble > Treble ......................................................................................................... 188
Echo > Echo ............................................................................................................................. 188
Equaliser > Equaliser ............................................................................................................... 188
Equaliser > Low frequency equaliser ....................................................................................... 188
Filter > Band pass .................................................................................................................... 188
Filter > High / Low pass .......................................................................................................... 189
REFERENCE: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS ..................................................................................................... 190
INDEX ........................................................................................................................................... 193

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INTRODUCTION
What Is EditStudio?
EditStudio is a video editing program for the PC. It allows you to do the following:
• Capture video from your camcorder or video recorder and store the video as files on your PC 1.
• Edit and arrange these files to create a movie.
• Import extra video files taken from other sources (eg. digital cameras) and add them to the movie.
• Import audio files taken from other sources (eg. CD) and add them as background music or sound
effects.
• Import pictures taken from a digital camera and add them to the movie.
• Adjust the colour and brightness of video.
• Add special effects (eg. Old Film effect) to the video.
• Add transitions between video items (eg. wipe from one video clip to the next).
• Add text for titles, subtitles or scrolling credits.
• Make movies ready for sending by Email or putting on a web site.
• Make movies ready for burning to DVD.
EditStudio is designed for users who wish to have the power of a "professional" video editing program,
without having to spend large amounts of money.
EditStudio is not a "hand holding" video editing program. Some programs will create movies very quickly and
easily, but don't offer much flexibility beyond a simple movie. EditStudio is different in that it might take a
few minutes longer to understand as a new user, but you will be repaid by a level of power and flexibility that
you are unlikely to exceed.
Pure Motion is a non-destructive editor. This means that any edits that you perform are not applied to your
original source movie files. You can trim, edit, cut and apply as many effects and transitions as you wish and
your source video files are not touched. This provides amazing levels of freedom, safe in the knowledge that
your source video remains unchanged.

What You Need

If you have a DV format camcorder and a relatively modern PC (2 years old, or newer) then you probably
have everything already. If you are looking to edit video from a digital camera, you probably already have
everything you need.
For your PC, the minimum requirement is:
• 500 MHz Pentium 2 processor, or above
• 256 MB RAM
• Windows XP
• Graphics card capable of 1024x768 resolution, full colour
• Sound card
To capture from a DV camcorder, you will need a FireWire 2 card; most modern PCs come with a FireWire
connector built-in. To copy video files from a digital camera, you will need a USB connector; all modern PCs
include USB. To burn movies to DVD, you will need a DVD writer drive and suitable writing software; most

1
Extra hardware may be required
2
Sometimes called a IEEE-1394 card

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DVD drives come with suitable software, but we recommend DVD-lab by MediaChance for advanced DVD
burning.

What's In The Manual?

The manual has the following main sections:
• Getting Started; try out many of the common operations in EditStudio by either using your own
footage, or our sample projects.
• Detailed Description; each of the main areas of the program are covered: Capturing [page 9], Editing
Your Project [page 56], Video Effects And Transitions [page 75] and Exporting A Movie [page 113].
All the important things that you need to know about editing with EditStudio is in these sections.
• Advanced; topics for advanced users and existing EditStudio users.
• Reference; detailed descriptions of all the effects, transitions and text effects in EditStudio.

How To Use The Manual

Depending on the level of experience you have, you may wish to use the manual in the following ways:
• As a new user, read the Getting Started [page 13] chapter to get a good idea about what EditStudio
can do, as well as how to do the basic operations. Once you understand the basics, refer to the
remaining chapters to read more about specific features.
• As an EditStudio user, read the Information For EditStudio Users [page 162] chapter to find out
what's new with EditStudio. You will find some of the features have been moved or changed to make
them easier to use or more powerful.
• Any user can read the reference section Reference: Video Effects [page 164], which covers all the
effects that you can use in your project. This section gives details on all the effects' settings, and can
be used as a source of inspiration when your current movie needs a little "magic".

Getting Help From Within The Program

The ultimate source of help is this manual, available from within EditStudio by selecting Help > Help from the
menu.
Standard Windows tooltip help is also available by hovering your mouse pointer over a toolbar button.

Additional help information is provided in the status bar.

Some controls, especially in the Properties window, have extended tooltip help. This is used where an effect's
settings are complex.

10
Finally, the status bar takes the place of many typical error dialog boxes. Information messages are shown
with an info icon and are used where non-critical information needs to be displayed.

Click on the status bar to read more details. Click the previous and next buttons to go through any
unread messages.

Getting Help Online

You can visit our online forums to ask for help both from Pure Motion team members and other EditStudio
users. The online forums are at:
www.puremotion.com/forum
This is probably the fastest way to obtain help - most enquiries are dealt with the same day and there are a
large number of helpful users out there that will be happy to help in any way they can!
The forums are also a great source of help by using the Search feature. Click on the "Search" link at the top
of the page to search for any topic - common issues have often been dealt with before.

Also have a look at the frequently asked questions section of the web site.

11
Common questions often have a simple answer.
You can also Email us direct at:
techsupport@puremotion.com
Again, we reply to most questions within a working day.

Buying EditStudio
EditStudio is available from our online store at:
www.puremotion.com/buy
Here, you can select the version of EditStudio that you wish to buy (EditStudio Home or EditStudio Pro).
When you buy EditStudio, we will send you an unlock code by Email that can be used to unlock the
limitations of the trial version. Select Tools > Unlock Program from the menu to enter the unlock code.

Limitations Of The Trial Version

The trial version of EditStudio is fully working, except that output for DVD will be watermarked with the
EditStudio logo. After 30 days, all output video is watermarked with the EditStudio logo.

12
GETTING STARTED
Opening A Project
Let's get started by showing you around the EditStudio interface. Open one of the sample projects by
selecting File > Sample Projects > London from the menu.

EditStudio uses projects to store all your editing changes. You would typically use a project for each movie
that you wish to make (eg. "Susan's Graduation" would be kept in a single project). A project stores the
order of the clips that you wish to use in your movie, their positions in the movie and titles or special effects
that are applied to the movie.
Projects are saved to hard disk so that you can open them later and continue editing. The project that you've
just opened is one that we've created for you, as an example of some of the things that you may want to do
in your movies.

The Interface Explained

The main area of the EditStudio interface is occupied by the timeline - this shows the arrangement of the
clips in the project.

13
At a very simple level, you place clips in your project from left to right and these clips will then play in your
movie in sequence. For more information on the timeline, see Introduction To The Timeline [page 56].
When you work on a project, you will want to see previews of it when you make changes. This happens in
the Monitor window:

14
The Monitor behaves like a video player, with Play and Stop controls to start/stop playback. You will be
referring to the Monitor many times during editing a project, to make sure that it plays as you expect and
that effects and transitions work as you want.
The Media Explorer is the source of all your content for your movies.

15
You will put the raw, unedited source video in the Media Explorer which you will then use as the basis for
your movies. The Media Explorer also holds all of EditStudio's special effects. You can store your own effect
presets here if you wish, and store media that you may wish to use in other projects.
Although EditStudio comes with a large number of effects, you will almost certainly want to adjust them for
your own use. These adjustments happen in the Properties window.

16
When an effect is selected on the timeline, all of the effect's properties are shown here.
At the very bottom of the interface is the status bar.

17
Although this is tucked out of the way during normal use, EditStudio may wish to draw your attention to
important information by putting information here. The status bar will show you what options you have
available to you when you are editing

and will alert you of any warnings when necessary.

Playing A Movie In The Monitor

To play a movie in the Monitor, click the Play button.

You will see the project play, along with sound, allowing you to check that it looks and sounds as expected.
Stop playback by clicking the Stop button.

When the movie was playing, you will see a vertical line move steadily across the timeline from left to right;
this is the time cursor. The time cursor shows whereabouts in the movie you are. You can move the time
cursor manually by clicking and dragging in the time ruler.

18
Adding Clips To The Timeline
To add new clips to your project, drag them from the Media Explorer. Click the Media tab in the Media
Explorer and then click the Sample video folder. Here, you will see a number of additional clips that you can
add to your movie.

Drag a clip from the Media Explorer onto the timeline.

19
If you drag a clip into a space, the clip will be placed in the space. If you you drag a clip between two items,
the items will be separated to provide room for the clip.
Notice how you can only drag clips onto the relevant layers. For example, you can only put video clips on
video layers. This helps keep your projects organised and it helps EditStudio perform certain automatic
operations, which you will read about later.

Deleting Unnecessary Clips

If you decide that you don't want a particular clip in your movie, just click on it to select it.

Now select Edit > Delete from the menu. Alternatively, press the Del key on your keyboard.

20
If you delete a clip from the middle of the project, this will leave a gap in your movie. To delete the gap and
move all the items together again, click in the gap

and press the Del key again.

21
Trimming A Clip
Often you will want to remove either ends of a clip, or cut out part of the clip that you don't want; this is
called trimming. Trimming the ends is easy - click and drag on the item start or end.

The Monitor will show the current frame of the item, as well as other useful trim information.

To cut out a section of a clip, you can use the dual time cursor. Select Play > Use Dual Time Cursor from the
menu to split the time cursor into 2 parts; alternatively, double-click on the time ruler.

22
Move the time cursor over the start end end of the parts of the clip that you wish to cut out. Now click on the
item to select it, then choose Item > Cut Out Section from the menu to cut out the unwanted section.

You may now delete the space if you want to close the gap, see Deleting Space On The Timeline [page 68].

Creating A Slideshow
Now you've used some of the basic editing operations, you can use them to make a slideshow using some
pictures that we've provided. Start with a new project by selecting File > New Project from the menu.
Click on the Media tab in the Media Explorer and select the Sample photos folder.

23
Select as many pictures as you want to add to your slideshow - hold down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and
click to select more than one item.

Now click on a video layer where you want the items to go - this will select the layer.

Finally, select Insert > Insert From Media Explorer to place the selected items onto the timeline.

24
Alternatively, drag the items to the timeline in the same way as shown in Adding Clips To The Timeline [page
19]. You will find that there are often several ways of performing many of the common operations in
EditStudio - you can choose the method that you feel most suits your way of working.
Play the Monitor to see the slideshow in progress.

Adding Background Music

Adding music to the background of a movie is very easy in EditStudio. Open the Slideshow sample project by
selecting File > Sample Projects > Slideshow from the menu.

Click on the Media tab in the Media Explorer and select the Sample music folder.

25
Click on the Background item - this is our background music.

Click on the Audio A layer in the timeline to select it.

Select Insert > Insert From Media Explorer to add the audio item to the timeline.

Play the Monitor to hear the project with background music.

Tip: Background music can be in WAV, MP3 or Windows Media format. It is possible to copy music from a CD,
but only with the permission of the copyright holder.

26
This is only a simple example, but it's easy to shorten the audio item to be the same length as the slideshow
by trimming it - see Trimming A Clip [page 22]. You may also want to add an audio fade at the end, see
below.

Applying An Audio Fade

Fading audio in or out is very simple in EditStudio. Click on any audio item and then select Item > Create
Audio Fade from the menu.

Enter the fade in and out times to apply the fade.

The red line on an audio item shows the volume level for the item. A red line in the centre represents "100%
volume". The line can be dragged down to reduce the volume, or up to increase the volume - see Adjusting
The Volume [page 105].

Changing The Speed

Both video and audio items can be sped up or slowed down. Open the simple London sample project (select
File > Sample Projects >London - simple from the menu) and select the London bus item.

27
Change the speed of an item by selecting the Speed tool in the toolbar and drag the item shorter.

The new speed is shown in the item, to show that the item is no longer playing at 100% (normal) speed.
Play the Monitor to see (and hear) the changes.
Tip: Stretching the item to be smaller will make it play faster; this is because the clip will not play for as long
if it is playing faster. You can remove the gap that follows the shorter clip by deleting the gap - see Deleting
Space On The Timeline [page 68]. Similarly, the clip will become longer when its speed is reduced.

Linked Audio And Video

When you add a video clip that also includes audio, two items are created - one for the video and one for the
audio. Both of these items are linked, which means that they move around together and are edited together.
Linked items are useful because it ensures that the audio and video are not separated and can be edited "as
one".
There are times when you don't want the audio and video item to be linked - perhaps you want to edit them
separately, or you want to delete just one of the items. In such cases, you can break the link.

28
Open the London sample project by selecting File > Sample Projects > London from the menu. Click on any
of the video items to select them and you will see that the linked audio item will also become selected.

With a selected item, choose Item > Break Link from the menu. Both items are now unselected.

Click on the video item again, and now only the video item becomes selected; the items are no longer linked
together. You may now edit the audio and video items separately.

Items can also be re-linked again. Select a single video and audio item and select Item > Link Items from
the menu. The two items now become linked again.

Applying A Video Effect

EditStudio comes with a large number of video and audio effects. To add an effect to an item, simply drag it
from the Media Explorer onto the item that you wish to affect. In this example, we will brighten a video clip
by using the Brightness effect.
Open the London sample project by selecting File > Sample Projects > London from the menu. The video at
the end is too dark, so we will brighten this clip.

29
Move the time cursor to the dark clip to preview the item in the Monitor.

Select the Video Effects tab in the Media Explorer and click on the Balance folder.

30
Drag the Brightness item from the Media Explorer onto the dark clip.

Tip
If you prefer to use the menus instead of dragging, select the effect in the Media Explorer and select the item
that you wish to apply it to on the timeline. Then choose Insert > Insert From Media Explorer to add the
effect to the item.

31
To set the amount of brightness to add, adjust the Brightness value in the Properties window.

You will now see the video brighten in the Monitor.

Applying An Audio Effect

Adding an audio effect is done in the same way as adding a video effect. We will now add echo to an audio
clip. Click the Audio Effects tab in the Media Explorer and select the Echo folder. Drag the echo effect item
from the Media Explorer onto an audio item

Play the clip in the Monitor to hear the echo. Adjust the echo length in the Properties window.

You will notice that when you add an effect to an item, it will be drawn with a green bar at the top of the
item. To change the properties of the effect, click on this green bar.

To change the properties of the item itself, click on the item.

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Adding A Transition
Transitions are used in video to go from one video clip to the next. The simplest form of transition is a simple
cut - this is where one clip ends abruptly and the next clip starts immediately.

To perform a straight cut using EditStudio, simply place items next to each other on the timeline.

EditStudio supports many more advanced forms of transition however, ranging from the Dissolve (which
blends one clip into the next), to the complex wipes and slides. We will now add a Dissolve transition
between two clips.
Open the simple London sample project by selecting File > Sample Projects > London - simple from the
menu. Find any two video items that are next to each other and where you want to add a transition.

33
Drag the second video item over the end of the first.

You will see that EditStudio now creates a new transition item above the overlap - this is our Dissolve
transition. Stop dragging to create the Dissolve transition.
Play the movie in the Monitor to see the new transition.
What happens if you don't want a Dissolve, and want a Wipe or a Slide instead? Dissolve is the default
transition, but you can change the default transition to any transition you want. Select any transition in the
Media Explorer (click the "Transitions" tab) and then choose Media > Set Default Transition from the menu.
The default transition is ticked.

Any transitions are now created with the new default.

Note also how the audio items are also overlapped and fades are applied to the overlapping sections to
provide a smooth transition for the sound.

If you do not want the default audio or video transitions to be created, select Tools > Auto Transitions and
Tools > Auto Audio Crossfades respectively.
Tip: EditStudio will snap the items as they overlap to the default transition length - this is set in the program
options, see Changing The Program Options [page 131].

Adding Titles
All good movies start with a title sequence, so it's only natural to want to add titles to your movie too!
Open the London sample movie by selecting File > Sample Movies > London from the menu. This movie
already has some titles at the start, but they appear before the movie. We're going to add our titles over the
top of the video.

34
Click on the 2 items at the top left of the project and delete them.

Now click in the gap at the start of the movie and select Edit > Delete from the menu to delete this.

We're going to add some titles over the top of the video, so position the time cursor at the start of the
project (it should be there by default) and select Insert > Insert Titles from the menu, or click the Text

button on the toolbar.

Enter the text that you wish to use for your titles.

35
Click OK to add the titles to your project.

Play the Monitor to see the titles over your video.

To make the titles last longer or shorter, simply drag the edge of the titles item to the desired length.

To make the titles fade in or out, click on the titles item to select it and then adjust the Fade settings in the
Properties window.

36
Changing The Titles Format
The default style for titles is pretty basic, but you can improve this greatly by changing the title style.
Click on a titles item and select Edit > Edit Text from the menu to open the text editing dialog box.

Here, you have all the control you would have with work processor. Change the text colour with the
button. For more details on the text formatting capabilities, see Changing The Text Style [page 96].

Tip: If you want to change the colour of the text to be the same as the background of the text entry box, you
can change the text entry box colour by using the button. This does not change the background of the
movie, only the text entry box so that you can read the text while you edit it. If you want to change the
background colour of the text in the movie itself, set the Background in the Properties window.

Further style adjustments can be made to the text by clicking on the text item on the timeline and adjusting
the settings in the Properties window. Here you can add an outline, custom fills and shadows / glows.

37
Adding A Preset
You can add your own presets to the Media Explorer, so that you can re-use the same effects or clips in your
projects again. Simply select an item on the timeline and then choose Insert > Insert Preset In Media
Explorer from the menu to add the item to the Media Explorer.

Making A DVD
Creating a DVD involves using EditStudio to create the DVD movie, then a DVD authoring program to
actually burn the DVD. There are several DVD authoring programs to choose from, but we recommend DVD-
lab by MediaChance.
See How To Make A DVD [page 115] for a tutorial that covers the whole process.

38
PROJECTS
What Is A Project?
When you save your work in EditStudio, you save a project. A project will contain all the work that you've
done in your edited movie, allowing you to open the project at a later date and continue your work. Typically,
you have one project for each movie that you make, so you might have a project called "Tom's Birthday" and
another called "A Day At The Zoo", for example. A project is saved on your hard disk in a folder with the
same name as the project.
EditStudio can have one project open at any time; if you wish to open another project or create a new
project then you must first save your project to disk to avoid losing any of your changes.

Creating A New Project

When you start EditStudio, you will be greeted with a blank project - this is a great way to get started
editing! You don't have to change any project settings - you can just start capturing and editing your video
straight away. You can always change the settings of the project at a later time, see Project Settings [page
40].
If you wish to start a new project, select File > New Project from the menu. If you have made changes to
your current project, you will be asked first whether you wish to save it before you are presented with a new,
blank project.

Saving A Project
To save a project at any time, select File > Save Project from the menu. You will be asked for a name for the
project, as well as the location on your hard disk where the project should be saved.

Saving the project will create a folder with the same name as your project in the chosen location on your
hard disk. The folder will contain a number of extra files and folders that are necessary for EditStudio to work
correctly with your project, see The Project Files [Advanced] [page 40] for a more detailed description of
these files and folders.
After a project has been saved for the first time, using File > Save Project will save the updated project in
the same location.

39
Tip
It's a good idea to save a project before you start capturing any video - that way, all the captured files will
automatically be put in the project folder.

Saving Variants Of A Project [Advanced]

It is possible to save variations of a project in same project folder. This can be useful if you wish to
experiment with a project but still keep a "safe" copy, or if you want to create slightly different movies from
the same basic project (for example, the same movie but with different titles for both your friends and your
grandparents).
Selecting File > Save Project As will allow you to choose a different project filename in the same project
folder.

Opening A Project
You can open any project that you've previously saved by selecting File > Open Project from the menu. This
allows you to continue working on the project, or to build a different movie from the same project.
A list of up to the 4 previously opened projects are listed in the File menu.

The Project Files [Advanced]

Inside the project folder there are a number of files and folders. Most importantly, there is a file with the
same name as your project, but with the extension ".eds". For example, if your project is called "My Movie"
then this file will have the name "My Movie.eds". This file contains all the important information about how
you've arranged your video in your project.
There is also a folder called "Capture" inside the project folder. Any video or pictures that are captured by
EditStudio are stored inside this folder. If you have captured a lot of video for your project, this folder may
be very large.
The project folder may also include a file with the ".eds_bckp" filename extension. This is a copy of the
previous .eds project file and is created when you save the project. This file can be used to recover a project
if the main .eds file becomes corrupt, gets lost or accidentally deleted. To use a .eds_back file, simply give it
the filename extension ".eds" and it will open in EditStudio as a normal project.

Backing Up A Project
It is a good idea to back up your project at regular intervals, in case you have a problem with your computer
or you wish to go back to an older version of the project. To back up your project, simply copy the project
folder to safe location; this can be another hard disk or a CD or DVD disk.
If you have captured a lot of video in your project, the project folder can become quite large.

Project Settings
In most cases, the default project settings that EditStudio has chosen do not need to be changed. EditStudio
will set up your default project to be either PAL or NTSC, depending on your local country's TV standard.
Your default project will also be ready to edit DV directly, turning on various features that allow DV editing to
happen quickly and without any loss of quality during the editing process.

40
It is important to realise that your project settings do not determine what type of movie you chose to export.
From the same project settings, you can make a movie for DVD, Video CD or web use without changing any
of the project settings.
To view or change the project settings, select File > Project Settings from the menu.

The first two options here are optimised for DV projects in either the PAL or NTSC video formats. EditStudio
will have selected the correct video format based on your country, so you should not need to change these.
Click Next to see more advanced project settings.

If you have chosen a PAL or NTSC setting on the previous page, the resolution and frame rate for the project
will match that of both DV and DVD. It is not essential that these settings match that of the movie that
you're going to create. However, the closer these settings are to your final movie then the closer the
EditStudio Monitor window will look to your final movie.
You may also set the default background colour from the checkerboard pattern to a solid colour. The
background is displayed wherever there isn't video or pictures in your movie.

41
Advanced
You should choose a monitor aspect ratio that matches that of the TV or monitor on which you're going to
play your final movie. The "standard" aspect ratio of a TV is 4:3 and a widescreen TV is 16:9. Choose 1:1
(square pixels) if you are going to view the movie on a computer.

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CAPTURING
What Is Capture?
In order to edit video from a camcorder, you must first convert the video from the camcorder into a file on
your computer. The process of converting getting video from a camcorder to a computer is called capture.
Note: some of the newer camcorder use DVD disks or memory cards to store video. There is no widely
adopted standard yet for capturing from these devices, so you should consult your camcorder's instruction
manual to find out how to capture from these devices. Similarly, Sony's proprietary MicroMV format
camcorders are not supported by EditStudio.
Similarly, many digital cameras will take video clips. To read more about getting video from your digital
camera, consult the camera's user manual, as different cameras behave in different ways.
The following sections discuss capturing from both DV and analogue camcorders - the two most common
formats in use today.
To capture video in EditStudio, select File > Capture Video from the menu.

Using Your Digital Camera

Most digital cameras can also take video and you can use this video in EditStudio. In most cases, you will be
able to copy these video files to your PC and EditStudio will edit them like any other media file.
As each camera is different, consult your camera's instruction manual for details on copying video files to
your computer.

The Difference Between DV And Analogue

DV is short for "Digital Video" and is a widely adopted standard and can hold video in broadcast quality. DV is
designed for editing and is quick to edit and, in most cases, retains the full quality of the video even after
editing. DV camcorders have become very low cost over the last few years and are the most popular video
format at the time of writing.
Analogue camcorders are less common now and there are very few analogue camcorder formats available.
DV has the following advantages over analogue:
• The quality of DV is superior to all but the most professional (and expensive) analogue systems.
• DV has support for both standard (4:3) and widescreen (16:9) built in.
• DV contains both video and audio, whereas analogue video and audio have to be captured
separately.
• DV supports transport control, allowing EditStudio to directly start and stop the camcorder during
capture.
• Most DV camcorders allow the edited video to be sent back to the camcorder.

The Advantages Of DV
DV has several advantages over other digital formats:
• It is very quick to edit.
• It allows frame accurate edits.
• Common edits can be performed with no loss of quality.
• DV is a widely used standard and accepted by many other programs.

43
 • Edited DV movies can be sent back to a DV camcorder for storage 3.
We strongly recommend that movies are edited in DV format for the reasons described above.

Hardware Requirements
In order to capture from a DV camcorder you need a FireWire connector in your computer.

Most new computers come with a suitable connector and low cost cards can be bought and installed for older
computers.
FireWire is also known as IEEE-1394 and iLink, depending on the manufacturer.
In order to capture analogue video, you need an analogue capture card. There are many to choose from and
usually come as part of the computer's graphics card. There is no common analogue capture card in use, so
you should choose a card that is suitable for your needs. Choosing an analogue capture card is a complex
topic and we have some advice on our web site about doing this, see www.puremotion.com/forum
EditStudio > Reference > Choosing An Analogue Capture Card
For simplicity and quality reasons, we recommend that you use DV if possible.

Converting Analogue To DV
Connecting and capturing analogue video is more complex than with DV, and often is a lower quality. There
are converter boxes available from a number of manufacturers that convert an analogue signal, to DV. Once
the video is in DV format, it can be captured and edited like any other DV source.
We strongly recommend the use of these converter boxes.
If you have a large amount of analogue video to capture, or which edit in the highest quality, you should be
using DV.

A Word About USB

Some camcorders have USB connectors which allow the camcorder to send still images, and sometimes
video, to the computer. There is no widely adopted standard for capturing from a camcorder using USB, so
you may have to use the capture software that came with your camcorder in order to get the video from
your camcorder to your PC.

Connecting A DV Camcorder
Connecting a DV camcorder to computer is very easy. Connect the camcorder's FireWire connector to the
computer's FireWire connector. This is most commonly done using a 6 pin FireWire connector on the
computer.

3
Most DV camcorders can accept DV input, however some low cost models sold in Europe have
this feature disabled

44
and a smaller 4 pin connector on the camcorder

Some laptops have 4 pin FireWire connectors instead of the 6 pin variety, but the process is the same.
If you wish to capture from a tape, insert the tape into the camcorder and put the camcorder into "VTR" or
"VCR" mode (different manufacturers use different names for this mode). The camcorder is now ready.
If you wish to capture live video from the camcorder, put the camcorder into "camera" mode.

Connecting An Analogue Camcorder

There are several different ways of connecting up an analogue camcorder, depending on the particular
camcorder model and the capture card that you have in your computer. In this example we show how to
connect up a camcorder using the most common video connector - composite video.
The composite video connector on the camcorder will have a yellow colour, however some camcorders use a
smaller connector on the camcorder and use a lead to provide the yellow composite video connector.

45
Connect this connector on the camcorder to the similar-looking composite video input on your computer.
Be careful to connect this to the composite video input - some computers have both composite video inputs
and outputs; consult your computer's instruction manual if you are not sure.
With analogue camcorders, audio must be captured using a separate lead to the video. Audio connectors are
usually red and white connectors, but like video, these might be on a separate lead.

Connect the audio to the "Line In" of your computer.

Capturing From A DV Camcorder

Once you have connected your DV camcorder to your computer (see Connecting A DV Camcorder [page 44]),
you can start to capture video from it. Switch to the Capture page by selecting File > Capture Video from the
menu.

46
You will see a list of available capture devices to the right of the page.

If you cannot see your camcorder listed here, make sure that you have connected it correctly and turned it
on. Click on the DV camcorder in list to select it. You will now see the DV capture page.

47
The preview area will show the video from your camcorder. If your camcorder is VCR/VTR mode, video will
be shown when you start the tape playing. If your camcorder is in camera mode, you will see live video.
In VCR/VTR mode, you can use the transport controls to fast forward, rewind, play and stop the tape so that
you can find the desired place to start capturing.
To start capturing, click on the capture button.

As capture progresses, you will see clips being added to the Media Explorer. EditStudio will automatically
detect when the camcorder was started and stopped during recording and will create separate clips for each
scene.

To stop capture, click the capture button again.

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DV Scene Detection
By default, when capturing DV, EditStudio will automatically detect scenes in the captured footage. Scene
detection can either be by DV timestamp, or optically. DV scene detection only works when capturing from a
DV camcorder, it does not work during analogue capture.
Scene detection by timestamp works by looking for breaks in the timestamp in the incoming DV data. Breaks
are caused by the camcorder being stopped and started during recording.
Optical scene detection works by looking at the incoming video frames and determining scene changes by
differences in the picture. A scene change is identified by a large difference in sequential frames.
We suggest using optical scene detection when a single long recording has been made; timestamp scene
detection when the camcorder was stopped/started during the taking of the raw footage.
The red Scene icon highlights when EditStudio detects a scene break.

To change the scene detection settings, click on the Options button and click the "Scene Detection" tab.

The scene detection tab allows you to change the scene detection settings. For optical scene detection, the
sensitivity slider adjusts how sensitive EditStudio is to changes in the video. Increasing the sensitivity will
result in more scenes being detected, but may cause scenes to be incorrectly created where there aren't
actual scenes in the video. If the video contains rapidly moving action, quick camera pans or flashing lights,
you may wish to reduce the sensitivity to reduce the number of wrongly detected scenes. Finally, set the
minimum scene length control to set the minimum time that EditStudio will use for scene. Increase this
setting if too many short scenes are being detected.

49
Each scene is stored only as a reference to the captured file - scenes are not captured in separate files. This
is useful because you can adjust scenes as part of the editing process to manually add or remove time from
the start and end of the scenes.

Tip
Slow computers may have difficulty performing scene detection during capture, without dropping frames and
becoming "jerky". You may wish to turn off scene detection to help capture on slower computers. You can
always perform scene detection later on the captured files, see Detecting Scenes [page 121].

DV Batch Capture [Advanced]

Batch capture allows you to mark areas of a DV tape, ready for capture in one go. There are several reasons
why you might want to do this, rather than capture the footage manually:
• Batch capture allows you to accurately mark sections of the tape.
• Batch capture allows you to mark large sections of the tape quickly.
• Once started, batch capture does not need any further user input.
• It is possible to save a project with the batch capture items in the Media Explorer. These items can
re-capture the relevant video clips again if required. This makes it possible to backup a project
without storing the actual video files, therefore, saving a large amount of disk space. See Archiving
Projects For Later Editing [page 124] for backup strategies.
To use batch capture, you first need to create some batch clips; this is done by marking sections of the tape.
Wind the tape to where you would like to start capturing and click on the Batch Capture Mark-In button.

Now wind the tape to where you want to stop capturing and click the Batch Capture Mark-Out button.

You will now see a new item created in the Media Explorer called Batch in the Batch Capture section. Click on
this item to select it and choose Media > Media Item Properties to see its properties.

50
The batch clip contains the tape name and the start/stop times; these details are what EditStudio uses to
actually capture the video later.
You can manually create batch clip items in the Media Explorer by selecting Insert > Insert Media Batch Clip
from the menu.

Advanced
Timecodes are a way of representing a particular frame within a tape or movie. The format is hh:mm:ss:ff
where h = hours, m = minutes, s = seconds and f = frame number. With DV tapes, there are two timecodes
that can be obtained. One timecode is the relative timecode which is displayed in the LCD screen of the
camcorder. This timecode can reset to 00:00:00:00 if recording is started in a blank part of the tape. The
other timecode is the absolute timecode, and this is the one that is used by EditStudio. This timecode cannot
be reset mid-tape and this is why it used by batch capture. The two different timecodes explains why you
may find that EditStudio's timecode does not exactly match that shown on the camcorder.

Capturing From An Analogue Camcorder

See Connecting An Analogue Camcorder [page 45] for instructions on connecting your analogue camcorder
to your computer. Once you've done this, switch to the Capture page by selecting File > Capture Video from
the menu.
You will see a list of available capture devices to the right of the page.

If you cannot see your capture card listed here, make sure that you have followed the manufacturer's
installation instructions correctly.
Click on the capture card in list to select it; you will now see the analogue capture page.

51
If everything is connected up correctly, you should be able to the video displayed in the preview. You may
have to change some of capture card settings by clicking the Video Settings button. The popup menu that
appears will depend on the particular capture card in use, but you should be able to select the video source
and video resolution from this menu.
Once you have the video displayed in the preview, make sure that the audio is working correctly. You should
see the bars moving up and down in the VU meter by the side of the video preview. If you can't see the VU
meter working, open the Sounds And Audio Devices Properties Windows control panel and click the Advanced
button for Audio volume; select the Options > Properties from the dialog box that opens and select the
Recording option.

From here, you can select the Line channel that you want to record from. You can also adjust to the slider to
set the volume.

52
If you want to hear the audio while previewing or capturing, select Options > Properties from the menu and
Adjust volume for Playback and ensure that the Line channel is not muted and that the slider is set to the
desired volume.
Before starting to capture you will want to set up the video compressor. If your capture card supports
hardware compression, select "Uncompressed / no recompression" as this will create an AVI file with no
additional compression from which the capture card offers. Otherwise, you may want to choose MJPEG,
Indeo or a third-party compression format like HuffYUV - these will compress the video to produce smaller
file sizes. See Video Compression Explained [Advanced] [page 53] for more information on video
compression.
Now we have adjusted the settings, we can actually begin to capture some footage. To start capturing, click
on the capture button.

From here, you can easily check how capture is progressing, and you can monitor how much disk space is
used.
When you have captured the desired footage, click the capture button again to stop capture. EditStudio will
have added the captured item to the Media Explorer, called something like "Capture001"; the exact name will
depend on how many times you have captured previously.

Video Compression Explained [Advanced]

Compression is a method of reducing the data required to store the video frames. MPEG, DV and DivX are all
methods of compressing video.
Most video compression schemes work by taking the raw video frames and approximating their content by
"throwing away" picture information that most viewers won't notice. Additionally, in many video sequences,
one frame is very similar to the previous and next frames in the sequence. Video can be compressed further
by only storing the differences between the current frame and the surrounding ones.
Both of these methods result in a loss of quality, as the compressed video does not contain all the
information in the original video. There are a few none-lossy compression formats, but these do not reduce
the data size very much, although they are high quality.
With lossy compression formats, there is usually some way of setting the level of compression offered. This is
a trade-off between the amount of data reduction and the quality of the compressed video. For popular
compression formats (eg. DV, MJPEG, MPEG, etc...) it is possible to set an amount of compression that
produces no visible loss of quality - this means that you get all the benefits of compression (small file sizes)
without any obvious deterioration in the video quality.

53
IMPORTING FILES
Supported File Formats
EditStudio imports the following file formats:
• Video: AVI, DV, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, QuickTime (MOV), Windows Media (WMV)
• Audio: WAV, MP3, MP2, Windows Media (WMV)
• Picture: BMP, JPEG, GIF
These formats encompass almost all file formats in popular use today.

Importing Files From Hard Disk

In order to import a file from your hard disk into EditStudio, select File > Import File from the menu. This will
put the file into the Media Explorer (see Media Explorer [page 119]) where it can be added to a project.
Note: In all cases, importing a file from hard disk into a project does not copy or move the entire file into the
project. The file remains on your hard disk, the same location, and EditStudio simply links to this file so that
it knows where to get it when it needs it. As many media files tend to be large (typically from several
megabytes (MB) to several gigabytes (GB)), you would find that your hard disk space would disappear
quickly if EditStudio copied the file every time you added it to a project!
As the original files on your hard disk are used by EditStudio when they are included in a project, you must
not move or delete these files on your hard disk. If you do move or delete a file that is used in a project, the
project will not work as expected an sections of the movie may contain blank areas of video or audio.

Video From Digital Cameras

The ability for digital (still) cameras to take video has improved greatly over the last few years. Low cost
digital cameras are now capable of taking movies that look good when displayed on a TV screen. Movies
taken on digital cameras are usually in AVI, MPEG or QuickTime formats. To use these movies in EditStudio,
simply copy the movie files off the camera using Windows XP onto your hard disk. Once the files are on your
hard disk, import them into a EditStudio project as described in Importing Files From Hard Disk [page 54].

Video From Webcams

Webcams offer low quality video at a low cost, and can connect to the computer in several different ways
(USB or custom card). We suggest that you use whatever software that came with webcam in order to
capture the video to a file on your computer. You can import this file into EditStudio as with any other file,
see Importing Files From Hard Disk [page 54].

Importing Pictures
Picture files, typically from a digital camera, can be imported just like any other file - see Importing Files
From Hard Disk [page 54]. The picture file is imported at full resolution, allowing you to zoom in or pan
across the picture at top quality (see Panning Over A Picture [page 87] and Tutorial: Advanced Panning And
Placement [page 135] for a tutorials on panning across a picture).
[Advanced] Importing high resolution pictures (above 2 megapixels) can result in EditStudio using a lot of
memory to store several of these pictures in memory at the same time. If you are using high resolution
pictures and don't intend to zoom in or pan across them, you do not need the pictures to be kept at their full
resolution. Even the highest resolution High Definition video standards are less than 2 megapixels.

Tip
We suggest that if you are using a lot of high resolution pictures and you don't intend to zoom or pan across
them, reduce the resolution of the pictures before you import them into a EditStudio project. You can reduce
the resolution of a picture using any capable paint program. By using reduced resolution pictures, you get
the same quality in your final movie but EditStudio will run faster and require less memory.

54
Importing Audio Files
MP3 is undoubtedly the most popular audio format at the moment, and EditStudio will import MP3 files direct
into a project. EditStudio also imports WAV files, which are also popular on Windows.
Imported audio files can be used to provide background music or sound effects.

Advanced
Almost all MP3 files will import into EditStudio without problems. Some MP3 files, especially those encoded
with Variable Bitrate (VBR) do cause problems during editing - including very short unwanted gaps at the
start of audio clips. This gap is caused by the MP3 file needing a short while to start the decoding process -
not something that is normally noticeable during normal MP3 playback.
In cases like this, we recommend that you convert the MP3 file to WAV format before importing it into
EditStudio.

Importing Music From CD

EditStudio does not have the ability to directly copy music from CD into a project, however there are many
tools available which will do this for you (and most are free!). Visit our forums (www.puremotion.com/forum)
for a list of suitable tools.
If you are planning to use music from a commercial CD, make sure that you have the permission of the
copyright holder to do this.

Importing Video From DVD

Almost all commercial DVDs are encrypted, which means that it's not possible to extract the digital data from
the DVD. Using the video from a non-encrypted DVD is possible, but still relatively difficult and beyond the
scope of this manual. Visit our forums (www.puremotion.com/forum) for a list of suitable web sites that can
help in this process.
In most cases MPEG files can be extracted from an unencrypted DVD and these can be imported into
EditStudio as with any other type of file, see Importing Files From Hard Disk [page 54].

Importing Copy Protected Files

Some files are deliberately copy protected - these can include files that have been downloaded over the
internet or bought from an online music store. These files are protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM)
and can only be played on the computer that they were downloaded to, or other approved devices.
QuickTime and Windows Media files are often protected by DRM.
It is up to the copyright holder of a DRM protected file to determine how this file can be used, but most are
only suitable for playback and cannot be edited further.

55
EDITING YOUR PROJECT
Introduction To The Timeline
The timeline is where you will perform all the editing of your project. Items on the timeline represent pieces
of video, audio or pictures that will make up your project.

Along the top of the timeline the time ruler which displays the project time associated with each position on
the timeline. Items to the left side of the timeline play before items on the right.

This timeline is built from a number of layers, represented as rows in the timeline.

By default, EditStudio starts with 7 layers and each layer is designed to hold certain types of items.
Items on upper layers obscure items on the layers below.

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A filmstrip across the top of the timeline shows a preview of your project. You can resize the filmstrip to
show bigger, but fewer frames.

The vertical line in the timeline is called the time cursor, and the position of the time cursor is your current
play time and determines what is shown in the Monitor window.

As you play your project, the time cursor will move from left to right across the timeline. Many editing
functions use the time cursor as a reference, so you will soon become familiar with the time cursor!
Move the time cursor by clicking and dragging in the time ruler.

The time cursor will move automatically from left to right across the timeline when you press Play in the
Monitor window.

Tip
For accurate editing, the time cursor can be moved 1 frame at a time. Select Play > Next Frame or Play >
Previous Frame from the menu, or press the Right and Left cursor keys on the keyboard to move the time
cursor 1 frame forward or backwards.

Using The Dual Time Cursor

Some trimming operations (see Cutting Out A Section Of An Item [page 62]) only work with dual time
cursor. To enable the dual time cursor, select Play > Use Dual Time Cursor from the menu. Alternatively,
double-click on the time ruler.

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Each time cursor can now be moved independently. The Monitor will show the project at the position of the
last moved time cursor - this is called the active time cursor. The active time cursor is shown in blue.

Tip
You can change the active time cursor by pressing Tab on the keyboard.

To return to a single time cursor, unselect Play > Use Dual Time Cursor from the menu or double-click on the
time ruler again.

Moving Around The Timeline

To see more of the timeline you can scroll left and right by using the scrollbars at the edge of the timeline:

Zoom in and out of the timeline using View > Zoom In and View > Zoom Out from the menu; this will allow
you to see items in more detail (zoom in) or more items (zoom out). Buttons are provided on the toolbar to
make this easy.

You can move the time cursor to a particular time in the project by typing a new time into the time display,
or selecting Play > Go To Time from the menu.

Move the the start and end of the project using Play > Go To Start Of Project and Play > Go To End Of
Project from the menu. .Go the the next / previous item using Play > Next Item and Play > Previous Item.

Adding Items To The Timeline

Items are added from the Media Explorer (see Media Explorer [page 119]). Select the item in the Media
Explorer and then choose Item > Insert From Media Explorer to insert the item at the current cursor position.
Items can also be dragged from the Media Explorer and dropped on the timeline.

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Multiple items can be added at the same time, and they are added in sequence.

You can also add files direct from your hard disk by using Insert > Insert Files from the menu. This will add
the files direct to the timeline without adding them to the Media Explorer first.

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Moving Items Around
Items can be moved left and right by clicking and dragging them.

Tip: you can "nudge" an item left or right by a small amount by selecting Edit > Nudge Item Left and Edit >
Nudge Item Right, or pressing the Shift+Left and Shift+Right keys. This is useful for performing accurate
edits.
To accurately move all the selected items you can also choose Edit > Move Position and enter the movement
details in to the Move Position dialog box.

You can also move items onto other layers, but you cannot move an item on to a layer of the wrong type
(see Layer Types [page 71]).
With EditStudio's default layer arrangement, you will only generally be moving video and audio items up and
down one layer between the "A" and "B" layers.

Advanced
Layers can also be moved around by selecting Edit > Layer > Move Up and Edit > Layer > Move Down from
the menu. Be aware that layers cannot be moved arbitrarily - items on the layers cannot refer to items on
layers above themselves, so EditStudio may restrict how you move layers. Layers may also be dragged in the
Layer Bar.

Selecting Items
To select an item, click on it with the left mouse button; the item will change to a darker colour.

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You will also notice that the item shows orange bars at the top and bottom edges; this indicates that the
item is focussed. Many items can be selected at any time, but only one item can be focussed.
Many operations apply to all the selected items (eg. deleting or moving), but some operations will only apply
to the focussed item (eg. the Properties window).
Select all items on the timeline by choosing Edit > Select All. You may also select items to the left and right
of the time cursor by choosing Edit > Selection > Select Left and Edit > Selection > Select Right.
To deselect all items and remove the focus, click on a blank area of the timeline.

Multiple items can be selected by clicking and dragging a selection box around them (make sure that the
pointer tool is selected - Tools > Pointer Tool from the menu).

You can also hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard while clicking on items to change their selection status.

Non-Destructive Editing Explained

Whenever you make editing changes in EditStudio, the changes are only made to the items on the timeline.
The original media files on your hard disk are not changed. This means that you can experiment with any
editing, in the knowledge that can undo and re-do any edit later because the original media files are not
being changed.

Splitting Items
Splitting an item is probably the easiest way to start trimming your footage. Splitting allows you to cut
sections of your source footage up into multiple items. For example, you can use this to split clips at scene
boundaries and allow you to edit each scene independently. These smaller items can then be moved (see
Moving Items Around [page 60]), deleted (see Deleting Items [page 68]) or added to the Media Explorer for
later use (see Presets [page 120]).
To split an item, position the time cursor at the position where you want the item to be split.

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Select the item and then choose Item > Split.

The item will be split at the time cursor position to produce 2 smaller items.

Cutting Out A Section Of An Item

There are two common ways of doing this:
Method 1: Split the item at the start of the section that you wish to cut out (see Non-Destructive Editing
Explained
Whenever you make editing changes in EditStudio, the changes are only made to the items on the timeline.
The original media files on your hard disk are not changed. This means that you can experiment with any
editing, in the knowledge that can undo and re-do any edit later because the original media files are not
being changed.
Splitting Items [page 61]).

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Now select the right-hand of the 2 items, reposition the time cursor at the end of the section and split again.

You will now have 3 separate items. Click on the middle one to select it and select Edit > Delete from the
menu, or press the Del key.

Method 2: Use the dual time cursor (see Using The Dual Time Cursor [page 57]). Position one of of the time
cursors at the start of the section and one at the end.

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Select Item > Cut Out Section from the menu.

For both methods you can remove the unwanted space between the items by selecting it and then pressing
Delete, see Deleting Space On The Timeline [page 68].

Trimming The Ends Of An Item (Mark In/Out)

Trimming is a commonly used editing operation. Trimming is used to keep a small section of a larger clip, or
to finely adjust the length of an item. There are several ways to trim an item, choose the method that best
suits your way of working.
Setting the start and end of an item is sometimes referred to as setting the Mark In (start) and Mark Out
(end) points.
Pure Motion is a non-destructive editor, which means that you can trim an item and it won't affect the
original files on your hard disk. You can undo a trim, or edit it again later.
Method 1: The easiest way to change an item's start or end time is to position your mouse cursor over the
edge of the clip and drag the edge.

While you are dragging, the Monitor will show the current item frame.

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Method 2: You can use the dual time cursor (see Using The Dual Time Cursor [page 57]) to trim both the
start and end of an item at the same time. Choose Play > Use Dual Time Cursor form the menu the position
the time cursors over the item start and end.

Click to select the item and then choose Item > Keep Section from the menu.

Method 3: This method uses the Split function, see Non-Destructive Editing Explained
Whenever you make editing changes in EditStudio, the changes are only made to the items on the timeline.
The original media files on your hard disk are not changed. This means that you can experiment with any
editing, in the knowledge that can undo and re-do any edit later because the original media files are not
being changed.
Splitting Items [page 61]. Position the time cursor over the start of section that you wish to keep. Select the
item then choose Item > Split from the menu. Repeat at the end of the item.

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Delete the unwanted items.

Method 4: Move the time cursor the edge of an item and then choose Edit > Trim Start or Edit > Trim End.
Method 1 allows you to both decrease and increase the length of the item quickly and easily. Methods 2-4
only allow you to trim the item shorter, but they offer a greater level of accuracy (down to frame level by
using the Left and Right keys on the keyboard to move the time cursor back / forward one frame at a time).

Previewing The Project

The Monitor shows a preview of the project at the time cursor. You can play the project by selecting Play >
Play from the menu, or clicking the Play button in the Monitor. Stop playback by selecting Play > Stop from
the menu, or clicking the Stop button in the Monitor.
Use Play > Mute from the menu to turn off the audio during the preview - this will play the video smoother.
The Monitor will play in real time, but you may find that not all frames are drawn and the movie looks a bit
more jerky than it should. This is normal - the Monitor will play smoother with a faster computer. Multiple
effects or complex audio will also cause the Monitor to play more jerky.
Don't worry about the Monitor being jerky though - when you export the movie (see Exporting A Movie [page
113]), it will play smoothly.

Tip
You can make the preview smoother by using fast preview files, see Fast Preview Files [page 149].

You can play the project faster or slower by using the speed slider in the Monitor. The speed slider is not
visible by default, so turn it on by selecting View > Monitor Properties from the menu and select Show Speed
Slider.

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Drag the slider to the left or right to play the project backwards or forwards by the desired amount. The
further the slider is dragged, the faster the rate of playback.
Click on the zoom buttons in the monitor to change the level of magnification.

These are also available from the menu: View > Monitor Zoom In, View > Monitor Zoom Out and View >
Monitor Zoom To Fit.
In order to make the Monitor play the project smoother, select View > Draft Monitor Quality from the menu;
this will reduce the resolution and quality of the preview, but will calculate effects quicker. Select View > Full
Monitor Quality for a higher quality preview. The high quality preview is useful for previewing still frames
from the movie at full quality.

Information In The Monitor

The monitor also shows additional information during certain editing operations. For example, when you drag
the edge of a video item you will see the current Mark In / Out time displayed in the Monitor, along with
other important information.

See Trimming The Ends Of An Item (Mark In/Out) [page 64] for more information trimming items in this
way.

Monitor Selection Objects

Some effects have properties that can be changed by dragging objects directly in the Monitor window.

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This is covered in more detail in Effects With Selection Objects [page 89].

Linked Items
When a movie clip which contains both video and audio is imported into EditStudio, the video and audio
items are linked together. This means that operations such as moving, splitting and trimming happen to both
the video and audio at the same time.
There are times when you may wish to edit the video and audio separately; to do this, you must break the
link between the video and audio items. To break the link, select the items and choose Item > Break Link
from the menu. The video and audio items can now be moved and edited independently.

To link a video and an audio item together again, select both items and choose Item > Link Items.

Deleting Items
To delete an item or items, select them (see Selecting Items [page 60]) and choose Edit > Delete from the
menu.
Deleting items from the project will not delete the files from your disk, see Non-Destructive Editing Explained
[page 61].

Deleting Space On The Timeline

After editing a project, you may wish to delete empty space on the timeline to bring the items together
again. First, select the space by clicking in it.

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Now select Edit > Delete or press the Delete key to delete the space.

All items to the right of the space will be moved to close the gap.

Inserting Space Onto The Timeline

Space can be added to a project to create an area to work, or to provide space for new items. To insert
space, place the time cursor at the position in the project where you wish to insert the space.

Select Insert > Insert Space from the menu. Enter the amount of time that you wish to add.

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Space will be added to the project.

Note: You may insert new items between existing items on the timeline and all the items will be moved along
to accommodate the new items. EditStudio 4 required you to first insert space, but this is no longer
necessary in EditStudio. If you drag an item between 2 items, you will see a insert bar appear.

Dropping the item here will move all the items to the right along.

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Locking Items
Items can be locked, so that they cannot be edited, moved or deleted. To lock an item, select the item and
then choose Item > Lock from the menu. The item will be drawn with a decal that shows it is locked.

Lock items to make sure that they are not accidentally changed.

Renaming Items
Items are named by default with their filename, or the name of the effect or transition. You may wish to
rename an item to make it easier to identify (eg. "Sarah's birthday party" rather than "Capture0001.avi").
To rename an item, select it and choose Edit > Rename from the menu.

Layer Types
Layers can be set to be specific types, which can help organise a project. Change the layer type by using the
Edit > Layer submenu.

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The following layer types are available:

Layer Type Accepted Item Types

General Layer All

Text / Effect Layer Text, Effect

Transition Layer Transition

Video Layer Video, Bitmap

Audio Layer Audio

By organising your project with layer types, this can help EditStudio by allowing it to automatically create
transitions by overlapping items (see Automatic Transitions And Crossfades [page 73]) and other time-saving
features.

Disabling Layers
By default, all layers are enabled and any item that is placed on the layer will become part of the final movie.
You can disable any layer so that any item on the layer is not used in the movie. To disable the selected
layer, choose Edit > Layer > Enable from the menu. The menu will be drawn darker on the timeline when
disabled.

To disable all layers except the current one, choose Edit > Layer > Disable Other Layers from the menu; this
is useful if you wish to preview a single layer without effects from any of the surrounding layers. All layers
can be enabled by selecting Edit > Layer > Enable All Layers.

Adding And Deleting Layers

To add a new layer, select Insert > Insert Layer from the menu. The new layer will be placed at the position
of the current layer. You can move this layer by dragging it (see Moving Items Around [page 60]), or using
Edit > Layer > Move Layer Up and Edit > Layer > Move Layer Down from the menu.
To delete a layer, select it by clicking on it in the Layer Bar and then choosing Edit > Delete from the menu.

Undo And Redo

If you make a mistake during editing, don't worry! All operations can be undone. To undo an operation,
select Edit > Undo from the menu.

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If you wish to redo an undone operation, select Edit > Redo from the menu. Undo and redo are also available
from the toolbar.

EditStudio stores up to 99 levels of undo and redo, so you can experiment without fear that you will mess up
your project.

Snapping
Sometimes, while dragging an item or its edge, you will see a flashing vertical bar.

This is the snapping line, and it is showing that the edit is being snapped to a nearby item. This behaviour
can be turned on and off from the Tools menu.

Edits may also be snapped to the nearest frame, with the frame rate being taken from the project settings
(see Changing The Program Options [page 131]).

Automatic Transitions And Crossfades

If two video or picture items are dragged so that they overlap, a transition will be created automatically for
the two items.

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This behaviour can be turned on / off by selecting Tools > Auto Transitions from the menu. Transitions are
covered in more detail in Video Effects And Transitions [page 75].
Similar to above, if two audio items are overlapped then an automatic crossfade will be applied.

This behaviour can be turned on / off by selecting the Tools > Auto Audio Crossfades from the menu. Audio
editing is covered in more detail in Audio [page 104].

Cut, Copy, Paste

Items from the timeline can be cut or copied to the Windows clipboard and pasted either back to the
timeline, or the Media Explorer. Similarly, items can be cut or copied to the clipboard from the Media
Explorer and pasted to either the timeline, or the Media Explorer.
When items are pasted to the timeline, they are placed as close as possible to the time cursor, on the
selected layer. Media items (video, audio, picture) pasted to the Media Explorer are placed in the current
visible folder; all other items are placed in their source folders.
Cut, Copy and Paste are available as Edit > Copy, Edit > Cut and Edit > Paste in the menu.

Information Displayed In Items

Each item on the timeline can be displayed in one of three ways:
1. All Frames; for video and picture items, this shows the item as a filmstrip filling the area with
thumbnails of the item. For audio items, a waveform is shown.
2. Start And End Frames; for video and picture items, the start end end frames only are shown. For
audio items, the start and end waveforms are shown. The middle of the item displays the item name.
3. Text Only; the item name is shown.
To switch between the three display types, select the item and choose View > Show ... from the menu.
The methods above are shown in order of increasing redraw speed. So, method 3 results in much faster
screen redraws of the timeline; method 1 is the slowest.

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VIDEO EFFECTS AND TRANSITIONS
What Is An Effect?
An effect is anything that you do to video or a picture to change it. This can include something simple like
brightening the video, or something complex like advanced colour correction. Video effects can be applied to
both video and pictures in the same way. Effects can be applied separately to each video item in the project,
or across a number of video items together (see Adding An Effect As A Separate Item [Advanced] [page
79]).

What Is A Transition?
A transition is a way of getting from one video item to the next. The simplest form of transition is the
straight cut, which you can do in EditStudio by simply placing two video items next to each other on the
timeline. The next most popular transition is the Dissolve, which is the default transition when you overlap
two video items on the timeline. A dissolve will slowly blend from the end of the first video item to the start
of the next.
Complex transitions include the Wipe and Slide, which can be used to move from one video clip to another in
complex and interesting ways. Complex transitions are usually best left as special effects, as lots of complex
transitions can leave the viewer feeling quite disorientated and confused!

How To Add A Transition

To add a transition between two video items on the timeline, simply drag one item so that it overlaps the
other. The default transition is created at the overlap.

You can change the default transition, see Changing The Default Transition [page 79].
You can also drag any transition from the Media Explorer directly onto the timeline to insert it. Unlike the
method described above, you may have to manually set up the transition's properties after you've added it -
see Changing An Effect Or Transition Properties [page 78].

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How To Add An Effect
To add an effect to an item, select the effect in the Media Explorer and select the video item on the timeline.
Now choose Insert > Insert From Media Explorer to apply the effect to the item.

You can also drag the effect from the Media Explorer onto the item.

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More advanced users can add an effect as a separate item which will be applied to all underlying items - see
Adding An Effect As A Separate Item [Advanced] [page 79].

Selecting An Effect
To select an effect that has been applied to an item, click on the green bar on the top of the video item.

If you have applied more than one effect to a single item, you can change the selected effect by selecting
Item > Order Effects and selecting a different effect from the dialog box.

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Re-Ordering Effects On An Item
As with layers, the effects that are applied to an item are rendered from bottom up (ie. the top effect is
rendered last). You can change the order of the effects by selecting the item and then choosing Item > Order
Effects from the menu. Click on an effect and then the Move Up or Move Down buttons to change the order.

Changing An Effect Or Transition Properties

Most effects have some properties that you can change in order to change how the effect is displayed. To
change an effect's properties, first select it and then you will see the effect's properties shown in the
Properties window.

Now make any changes that you wish to the effect and you will see the results reflected immediately in the
Monitor window.

Deleting An Effect
To delete an effect, first select it and then select Edit > Delete from the menu.

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Changing The Default Transition
You can change the transition that's added when you overlap two video items; by default, the Dissolve
transition is used. To change the default transition, click on the Transitions tab in the Media Explorer, select
another transition and then choose Media > Set Default Transition from the menu.
The default transition is shown with a tick decal.

Effects And Transitions That Need Other Layers

Like transitions, some effects need to take video from other layers in order to work. For example, the
Bluescreen effect needs to use 2 layers: one for the foreground video and one for the background video. You
select these layers in the same way that you change the properties for any effect (see Changing An Effect Or
Transition Properties [page 78]). Here, you will see extra drop-down boxes for the layers that the effect
needs.

Any effect that need other layers cannot be added direct to a video item - it must be added as a separate
item. See Adding An Effect As A Separate Item [Advanced] [page 79] for details on adding an effect as a
separate item.

Adding An Effect As A Separate Item [Advanced]

Most effects are added directly to the items that they are to be applied to. However, there are times when
you may wish to add the same effect to many items simultaneously. Similarly, there are some effects that do
not apply themselves to a single video item, but require video from several source layers in order to work. In
both these cases, you can add an effect as a separate item.
To add an effect as a separate item, simply drag it from the Media Explorer onto a suitable layer. This layer
should be above all the items that you wish to apply the effect to, so that any video item below the effect will
be affected.

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Note: whereas not all effects can be added direct to an item, all effects can be added as separate items.

Tutorial: Picture In Picture

Adding a picture inside a picture is a common requirement for a video editing package. This can be used for
many different purposes and provides two "views" at that are visible at the same time.

With EditStudio, the foreground or the inset picture can either be video or a still bitmap image - the
technique is the same for all cases.
Start by inserting your main image or video sequence on a layer, ensuring that there is at least a free video
layer above the item. Use Edit > Insert > Insert Files to choose a suitable file from your disk.

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This item will be the background image - we're using a close up of the London Eye in this example.
Now add the item that you wish to use as the inset image onto the layer above the main item.

The preview will now show the item on the upper layer completely filling the frame because items on higher
layers obscure items on lower layers. What we need to do now is resize the upper item (a picture of
Buckingham Palace in this example) to be smaller and reveal the item below it; we do this with frame
placement.
Click on the upper item to select it, then click the Move Placement button at the top of the Monitor.

The preview will now show a selection box around the frame. Resize and drag the frame to place the picture-
in-picture.

Tutorial: Split Screen [Advanced]

This tutorial shows how you can show 2 different video sequences in the left / right sides of the screen.

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Add the two video sequences to layers on the timeline by using Edit > Insert > Insert Files from the menu.

To achieve the left / right split, we'll use the Matte effect to show the foreground layer in areas of white in
the matte and the background layer in the areas of black. As such, we will be using the following matte:

The matte bitmap can be created using a bitmap paint package (eg. Paint that comes free with Windows).
Add this matte bitmap above the video items.

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Next, insert the Matte effect from the Media Explorer above all the items.

Select the Matte effect and change the following settings in the Properties window:
• Set the Foreground layer to be the layer that you wish to appear on the right
• Set the Background layer to be the layer that you wish to appear on the left
• Set the Matte layer to be the layer with the matte bitmap item

This results in the desired split screen effect.

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By using more interesting matte bitmaps you can achieve smooth feathered edges between the foreground
and background layers, or even funky shapes to build up the composition.

Tutorial: Making Video Brighter

Performing simple colour correction on a video clip is a really common requirement, so you'll be pleased to
hear that it's really easy in EditStudio!
Start by adding the video clip that you wish to brighten to the timeline.

Drag the Brightness video effect from the Balance folder of the Media Explorer onto the clip.

Click on the effect to select it and then increase the Brightness value in the Properties window.

The clip will be brightened.

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The same technique can be used to adjust the contrast and gamma of the image, as well as advanced colour
correction using the Colour Suite (see Tutorial: Automatic Colour Correction [page 139] and Tutorial: Manual
Colour Correction [page 141]).

Tutorial: Freeze Frame

A common effect is to freeze an action sequence for a short while so that the viewer can get a good look at
the detailed action. In this tutorial, we stop a London bus as it turns a corner.

Start by adding the video clip that you wish to freeze to the timeline.

Move the time cursor to the frame that you want to freeze (look in EditStudio's Monitor to see the frame).

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Save this frame out as a bitmap file by selecting File > Export > Export Frame from the menu. Call the frame
"FreezeFrame.bmp".

Once the bitmap has been saved we can split the video item in the timeline. Click on the video item to select
it then select Item > Split from the menu. This will split the video (and any linked audio item) at the position
of the time cursor.

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Drag the items to the right to make a space for the freeze frame.

Insert the FreezeFrame.bmp into this space by selecting Insert > Insert Files from the menu and selecting
the picture file.

The sequence now has a freeze frame section (shown in red below):

Panning Over A Picture

It is common to include still pictures as part of a movie, and one way that you can keep the viewer's interest
is to slowly pan over the picture. This also reveals more detail to the viewer. To pan over a picture, select the
picture item and then choose Item > Picture Placement > Pan Left To Right or Pan Right To Left from the
menu.

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It is possible to set up much more advanced pans by using keyframes to control the motion of the picture,
see Tutorial: Advanced Panning And Placement [page 135] for more information.

Zooming In To A Picture
If you wish to draw the viewer's attention to detail in a still picture, you can zoom in to the picture. To do
this, select the picture item and then choose Item > Picture Placement > Zoom In. A similar setting exists for
zooming out from a picture.

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It is possible to set up much more advanced zooms by using keyframes to control the motion of the picture,
see Tutorial: Advanced Panning And Placement [page 135] for more information.

Effects With Selection Objects

As well as properties in the Properties window, some effects also have additional selection objects that you
can edit directly in the Monitor window. For example, the Lens Flare effect has an arrow that you can move
around to determine the centre and the size of the flare.

To see the selection objects for any effect, simply select the effect on the timeline and the Monitor will show
if any selection objects that are available in the toolbar.

To edit the selection objects, click the button. You may now drag around the selection objects directly in the
Monitor window.

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Applying An Effect To A Region
Some effects can also be applied to only a region of the frame, instead of the entire frame. To apply the
effect to a region, select the effect and you will see the Monitor show that a region is available.

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Click this button to enable the region to be edited. Drag this region around as you would any other selection
object.
You can invert the region by selecting Item > Region > Invert Region.

The region's shape may also be changed between a rectangle and an ellipse. Select Item > Effect Region >
Rectangle or Item > Effect > Ellipse to change between the two shapes.

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A region may also be feathered, to give it soft edges rather than a harsh outline. Select the amount of
feathering to be applied by entering it into the text box at the bottom of the Monitor, or drag the yellow
region handle on the region.

Flipping And Mirroring The Frame

It's possible to mirror an item from left-to-right, or flip it top-to-bottom. Select the item and then choose
Item > Mirror or Item > Flip to make the change.

Rotating An Item
To rotate an item, select Item > Rotate from the menu.

Only picture items can be rotated.

Changing The Speed Of An Item

You can make an item play faster or slower by changing its speed. Select the item and then choose Item >
Change Speed to open a dialog box.

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Speeds smaller than 100% will make the item play slower (eg. 25% is a quarter of the speed), whereas
speeds above 100% will make it play faster (eg. 200% is twice the speed).
EditStudio also has a high quality Half Speed playback mode that can be used with interlaced video (see
Deinterlacing / Removing Flicker [page 93] for information on interlacing). This works best with formats like
DV or MPEG-2 where interlacing is most commonly used. Selecting "Half Speed" here will result in very
smooth half-speed playback - ideal for slo-mo action.

Advanced
If you find that the Half Speed option gives jerky playback, change the dominant field to the other available
setting. DV is always "bottom field first", but MPEG can use either the top or bottom field first.

You can also stretch an item longer or shorter using the Speed tool in the toolbar, or selecting Tools > Speed
Tool from the menu.

Reversing The Direction Of An Item

Items can be played backwards as well as forwards. Select the item and then choose Item > Reverse
Playback to play the item backwards.
If you find that the reverse playback is not smooth, select Item > Deinterlace / Remove Flicker.

Deinterlacing / Removing Flicker

Movies that are exported for playback on TV (eg. DVD) may show visible levels of flickering that can be
distracting. This flicker can occur where still frames are used, or detailed pictures with high levels of contrast
are displayed. Select the item and then choose Item > Deinterlace / Remove Flicker to help reduce this
problem.
Deinterlacing is a complex topic and covered by visiting our forums (www.puremotion.com/forum) and
reading:
EditStudio > Reference > What Is Deinterlacing?

Action Safe Area

If you are making a movie that will be played on a TV, you should be aware that most TV sets will not display
the entire frame and will lose some information around the edges. This is perfectly normal. The frame that
you see in EditStudio's Monitor window is the full frame and this includes the edges that are usually lost on a
normal TV set (this edge area is sometimes called the "overscan" area).
To help editors anticipate this loss, EditStudio has a feature called the "Action Safe Area" which displays
where these edges are. Turn this on by selecting Play > Show Action Safe Area from the menu. This will
draw a rectangle and anything outside this area may not be visible on a normal TV set.

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This rectangle is only displayed in the Monitor window and is not drawn to the frames when the movie is
exported.
A similar "Title Safe Area" is used for placing text in the frame, see The Title Safe Area [page 102].

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TEXT AND TITLES
Adding Text And Titles
Text is used to show the name of the movie at the start, as well as the list of people who made it at the end.
Text can be used in any part of the movie and added on top of any video that's being shown. Titles can also
be used to provide subtitles, although special DVD subtitles can also be added that can be turned on and off
by the viewer when they come to watch the DVD.
To insert new titles into a project, select Insert > Insert Titles from the menu. A new titles item will be
inserted at the position of the time cursor (or the nearest available position).

Finally, a dialog box will popup that allows you to edit the text for the titles as you would in a normal word
processor.

Editing Text
To edit any text or titles effect, select the item on the timeline and choose Edit > Edit Text from the menu.

Scrolling Credits
A default titles item will have stationary text. To make the text scroll, select the item and then choose a
motion preset from the list in the Properties window.

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Choosing Scroll will result in text that scrolls from the bottom of the frame to the top during the duration of
the item. The speed of the scrolling is determined by the length of the item - the text will always scroll from
bottom to top during the duration of the item. To make the text scroll slower, increase the length of the item.
To make it scroll faster, make the item shorter.

Changing The Text Style

Text may be edited with many of the tools found in a normal word processor. To edit the style of a text item,
first select it and then choose Edit > Edit Text to open the text entry dialog box.

Select some text that you wish to change and then click the font drop-down list.

The text size can be changed from the size drop-down list.

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Be aware that very small fonts can be difficult to read on a TV set at normal viewing distance, so big clear
text is preferable here.
Text can be made bold, italic or underline by clicking on the style buttons.

Finally, the text colour can be changed by clicking on the colour palette button.

It can be difficult to read the text if it is the same colour as the background, so you can change the
background colour with a similar colour palette button.

Note: this only changes the colour of the background in the text entry dialog box, it doesn't change the
background colour for the text in the movie. To do this, see Text > Titles [page 185] where there are a wide
range of background options available.
Finally, the text can be aligned to the left, right or centre of the frame by clicking the justification buttons.

Changing The Text Position

Text can be placed anywhere in the frame. To change the placement of text, select the text item and then
click the Placement button in the Monitor window.

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Simply drag the text around in the Monitor to the desired position.

Tip
EditStudio will attempt to snap the text to the frame edge or frame centre if it is moved close to the
snapping position. To stop this behaviour turn of this feature in the Monitor Properties, see Changing The
Monitor Properties [page 158].

Changing The Text Motion

The Titles effect has several movement presets:

Choose a suitable preset for the movement that you wish. You can also use keyframed motion (EditStudio
Pro only) to move the text using custom motion paths. Read the tutorial on our forums
(www.puremotion.com/forum):
EditStudio > Tutorials > Keyframing Text Motion
on the EditStudio forums for more information on keyframed text motion.

Special Title Effect Styles

The Titles text effect supports many different types of fill and outline.

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Select the fill and outline from none, solid colour, gradient fill or bitmap fill. Text can also be given a wide
variety of shadows and glows.

Changing The Text Effect

The default Titles effect can be used to achieve most of the common uses for text in movies. There are times
when you might want to add some more spectacular text effects in order to catch the viewer's attention.
EditStudio includes a number of additional titles effects which perform complex and eye-catch text motion.

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To change the title effect, select the item, select the desired effect from the Titles tab of the Media Explorer
and then choose Item > Change Text Effect from the menu.

Adding Dynamic Text

All text effects can contain dynamic text as well as normal static text. Dynamic text is text that changes
automatically, depending on external data. For example, text can be added that automatically displays the
time and date that the source video was taken 4. Similarly, dynamic text can be added that shows timecode
or timer information.
To include dynamic text, enter the dynamic text tag inside angle brackets. The following dynamic text tags
are supported:

Tag Displays Description

<TC> Tape timecode Timecode in the format 0:00:00:00 for hours, minutes, seconds and
frames. The timecode is taken from the source DV tape.

<TS> Tape timestamp Displays DV tape time in the format Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 2000. This
format can be changed by adding modifiers in the tag.
Formatting inforamtion can be added in the tag with the use of "%D",
"%M", "%d", "%h", "%m", "%s" and "%y" formatting strings for day,
month, date, hour, minute, seconds and year.
Example:
Taken on <TS%M %d> at <TS%h>:<TS%m>
could display the time as:
Taken on Apr 14 at 12:45

<TF> Time (forwards) Displays time in the format 0h 00m 00s 000. This format can be
changed by adding modifiers in the tag. Zero time is taken from the
start of the text item.
Adding or removing time is done by adding the time difference in square

4
DV format only

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 brackets. For example:
<TF[+0h12m00s000]>
will add 12 minutes to the time. Currently, all parts of the time
difference must be given (eg. "+12m" won't work).
Formatting information can be added in the tag with the use of "%h",
"%m", "%s" and "%t" formatting strings for hours, minutes, seconds
and thousandths of a seconds. Use capitalised versions of the strings to
display the values with leading zeros.
Example:
The time is <TF%h> hours and <TF%h%m> minutes
could display the time as:
The time is 2 hours and 14 minutes

<TR> Time (reverse) As <TF>, but the time counts down to zero at the end of the item. All
the <TF> formatting and time offsets are supported by <TR>

<CF25> Project timecode, 25 frames per second timecode in the format 0:00:00:00 for hours,
PAL frame rate minutes, seconds and frames

<CF2997> Project timecode, 29.97 frames per second timecode in the format 0:00:00:00 for hours,
NTSC frame rate minutes, seconds and frames

<CF2997DF> Project timecode, 29.97 frames per second timecode in the format 0:00:00:00 for hours,
NTSC frame rate, minutes, seconds and frames. This timecode is in drop-frame frame to
drop frame ensure that the timecode time matches real time as closely as possible

<CF30> Project timecode, 30 frames per second timecode in the format 0:00:00:00 for hours,
30 frames per minutes, seconds and frames
second

<CR25> Project timecode, As <CF25>, but the timecode counts down to zero at the end of the
PAL frame rate, item
reverse

<CR2997> Project timecode, As <CF2997>, but the timecode counts down to zero at the end of the
NTSC frame rate, item
reverse

<CR2997DF> Project timecode, As <CF2997DF>, but the timecode counts down to zero at the end of
NTSC frame rate, the item
drop frame,
reverse

<CR30> Project timecode, As <CF30>, but the timecode counts down to zero at the end of the
30 frames per item
second, reverse

<FF25> Frame count, PAL 25 frames per second simple frame count
frame rate

<FF2997> Frame count, 29.97 frames per second simple frame count
NTSC frame rate

<FF30> Frame count, 30 30 frames per second simple frame count

frames per second

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<FR25> Frame count, PAL As <FF25>, but the frame counts down to zero at the end of the item
frame rate,
reverse

<FR2997> Frame count, As <FF2997>, but the frame counts down to zero at the end of the item
NTSC frame rate,
reverse

<FR30> Frame count, 30 As <FF30>, but the frame counts down to zero at the end of the item
frames per
second, reverse

The Title Safe Area

In EditStudio's Monitor window, you will see the whole video frame. Not all TV sets will show the entire frame
however, and some information is lost at the edges of the frame. This is perfectly normal, and explained in
the Action Safe area section Action Safe Area [page 93].
As with the Action Safe area, it is good practise not to place text too close to the edge of the frame. Not only
might the text not be shown fully, but the edges of the display may also be less sharp and maybe even
slightly curved. Anything that makes the text more difficult to read is to be discouraged. As a result, it is
good practise to place a further border between the Action Safe area and the text - this area is called the
Title Safe area.

To turn on the Title Safe area in the Monitor window, select Play > Show Title Safe Area from the menu. This
area is only displayed in the Monitor and is not exported in the movie.

Adding Subtitles
Text that is added by using Insert > Insert Titles will always be added to the underlying frames of the movie.
DVD has the ability to turn subtitles on or off during playback and EditStudio also supports this. Alternatively,
subtitles can be added direct to the movie frames for movie formats that don't support the facility to be
turned on and off (eg. Video CD).
To add subtitles to a project, select Insert > Markers > Subtitle Marker and a set of subtitle markers will be
added at the current time cursor position.

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A dialog box will also open, allowing you to enter the text for the subtitles.

Subtitles are moved and changed just like any other type of marker - see Using Markers [page 150] for
information on using markers.

Changing The Style Of DVD Subtitles

The overall style of the subtitles is set by selecting File > Subtitle Settings from the menu. Here, the subtitle
font, size and background can be selected.

Note: If you are exporting the subtitles for use in DVD-lab, make sure that you choose the same style in
DVD-lab to match EditStudio.

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AUDIO
Audio Items Explained
Audio files are added to a project in the same way as other media files, see Adding Items To The Timeline
[page 58]. If you have imported video files that also contain audio, EditStudio will automatically include the
audio into the project as well.

Initially, the audio item will not show a waveform for the audio. In some cases it can help to see the actual
audio waveform for the item. To view the waveform, select View > Show Audio Waveform from the menu.
This process may take a short while as the audio file is scanned and a waveform is generated; once
generated, this does not need to be done again.

Audio Mixing
All audio in a project is mixed together, no matter which layer the audio item is on. You can change the
volume of each of the items to change the mix levels and you can also fade up or down the audio as
required; both topics are covered below.

Changing The Volume

The volume level of each of the audio items can be set independently, by selecting the item and choosing
Item > Change Item Volume from the menu. The default level is set to 100%, but you can increase or
decrease this as desired.

You can also adjust the audio level for all items on the same layer using Edit > Layer > Change Layer
Volume from the menu, or the volume slider in the layer bar.

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Fading Up And Down
It's common to need audio items to fade up or down at the start or end of the item and EditStudio provides
an easy way of doing this. Select the audio item and then choose Item > Create Audio Fade from the menu.
You can choose to fade either or both the start and end, as well as the duration of the fades.

Adjusting The Volume

More control over the fading is performed with keyframes. Each audio item displays a red line which
represents the volume level for the item; select Item > Keyframes Edit Audio Volume to display the red line.
When the red line is in the centre of the item, this represents 100% volume. The bottom of the item
represents 0% (no audio) and the top is 200%.
Keyframes can be added to the red line by selecting the item, moving the time cursor to the location when
you want to add a keyframe and then selecting Item > Keyframes > Add Keyframe from the menu.
Alternatively, simply click on an empty part of the red line to add a keyframe once the audio item is selected.

You can then drag the keyframe up or down to adjust the audio volume.

You can add many keyframes to the adjust the audio level over time, so that the audio items fades up and
down as desired.
To delete a keyframe, click on it to move the time cursor to it and then select Item > Keyframes > Delete
Keyframe from the menu.
To read more about advanced keyframe topics, see Keyframes [page 125].

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Adjusting The Balance
EditStudio allows you to adjust the volume level of the left and right audio channels independently - this is
the audio balance. This can be useful if you want to equalise the audio levels for both stereo channels.
To change the audio balance for an item, select the audio item and choose Item > Keyframes > Edit Audio
Balance from the menu. You will now see a green line in the item which represents the audio balance. When
the line is in the centre of the item, this shows that the audio from both left and right channels are being
used equally.

To shift the audio balance towards the left speaker we need to move the line up. To shift the audio balance
towards the right speaker, we need to move the line down. You can move the green line by first selecting the
audio item and then holding down the Ctrl key on the keyboard while dragging the line.

More keyframes can be added to the green line by selecting the item, moving the time cursor to the location
when you want to add a keyframe and then selecting Item > Keyframes > Add Keyframe from the menu.
Alternatively, simply click on an empty part of the green line to add a keyframe once the audio item is
selected.

You can then drag the keyframe up or down to adjust the audio balance.

You can add many keyframes to the adjust the audio balance over time.
To delete a keyframe, click on it to move the time cursor to it and then select Item > Keyframes > Delete
Keyframe from the menu, or simply drag the node off the edge of the item.
To read more about advanced keyframe topics, see Keyframes [page 125].
The table below shows the relative mixes of various balance settings:

Percent balance to left Left channel contents Right channel contents

0% (centre position) 100% left 100% right

25% 100% left 75% right

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 50% 100% left 50% right

75% 100% left 25% right

100% 100% left 0% right

Panning Audio
Where balance only changes the levels of the left and right audio channels, an audio pan will mix the left and
right channels together. The greater the amount of pan towards either the left or the right, the more of the
other channel is added to the mix. For example, with a maximum pan towards the left channel with result in
a mix of left and right channel in the left channel, with no audio in the right channel.
The table below shows the relative mixes of various pans:

Percent pan to left Left channel contents Right channel contents

0% (centre position) 100% left 100% right

25% 87.5% left + 12.5% right 75% right

50% 75% left + 25% right 50% right

75% 62.5% left + 37.5% right 25% right

100% 50% left + 50% right 0% right

Panning audio is useful if you want to give sound "motion" from left to right (or right to left).
To adjust the audio pan, select Item > Keyframes > Edit Audio Pan from the menu and use the same method
as adjusting the audio balance, see Adjusting The Balance [page 106].

Adding Audio Effects

Audio effects can be added to an item to change the way the audio item sounds. Common audio effects can
be bass or treble boost, echo or wind noise removal. Simple effects like stereo-to-mono are also included.
To add an audio effect to an item, select the item on the timeline and select the effect to add in the Media
Explorer's Audio Effects tab. Now choose Insert > Insert From Media Explorer to add the effect to the
selected item. The item is drawn showing the effect on top of the item.

You can also drag the audio effect on to the item.

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Removing Audio Effects
An audio effect is removed from an item in the same way as a video effect, see Deleting An Effect [page 78].

Changing The Properties Of An Audio Effect

Changing the properties of an audio effect is done in the same way as with a video effect, see Changing An
Effect Or Transition Properties [page 78]. The audio effect's settings are shown in the Properties window.

Tutorial: Bass And Treble Boost

You may wish to improve the audio quality of a clip by boosting the treble and/or bass. EditStudio includes
two simple separate audio effects to do this: Bass and Treble. Both of these effects are to be found in the
Bass and Treble folder in the Media Explorer.

Simple drag either of these audio effects to the audio item on the timeline that you wish to change.

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The Properties window has controls to adjust the bass / treble.
For more control over the bass and treble, including being able to adjust both bass and treble at the same
time, add the Equaliser audio effect from the Equaliser folder of the Media Explorer. The Equaliser provides 5
separate controls for bass (50Hz), mid-bass (200Hz), mid (2kHz), mid-treble (5kHz) and treble (10kHz).

Crossfades Between Two Items

When two items are placed sequentially and overlap, it's common to fade between the end of the first item
and the start of the next. This is called a crossfade.

The default operation of EditStudio is to automatically apply a crossfade whenever two items are overlapped.
You can turn this feature on or off by selecting Tools > Automatic Audio Crossfades from the menu.
If you have turned off automatic audio crossfades, you can apply them manually. To do this, make sure that
both audio items are selected and are overlapping, then select Item > Create Audio Crossfade from the
menu.

Adding Background Music

Background music is not treated any differently from any other form of audio in EditStudio, so adding
background music to a project is very easy.
First, make sure that you have a layer free that can accept audio. Using the default project layers in
EditStudio, the bottom layer is suitable for this.

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Click on the layer to select it, then add a music file that you wish to insert - see Adding Items To The
Timeline [page 58].

That's it! When you play your project now, the background music will be present. You can change the volume
of the music by following the instructions in Changing The Volume [page 104]. Similarly, you can fade up
and fade down the music using the techniques described in Fading Up And Down [page 105].

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Editing Video And Audio Separately
When you insert a video file that has audio, both the video and audio items will be linked. This means that
when you move one item, the linked item moves with it. When you trim one item, the other item is trimmed
as well. Linked items make it easy to edit clips without the audio and video becoming mismatched.
There are occasions when you may want to edit the audio and video separately. You may want to delete
either the video or audio entirely, or you may want to perform special edits like the L and J cut (see J and L
Audio Cuts [page 128]). To break the link between a video and audio item, select either item and then
choose Item > Break Link from the menu. You may now edit both items separately.
If you want to re-link items, select a single video item and a single audio item and then choose Edit > Link
Items from the menu.

Tutorial: How To Do A Voiceover

In order to add a voiceover to a movie, you can use EditStudio to play the movie in the Monitor window while
recording your voice with the Sound Recorder program that comes free with Windows.
Open your project in EditStudio.

Start Sound Recorder by selecting Program > Accessories > Entertainment > Sound Recorder from the
Windows Start menu.

Connect your microphone to your computer's Microphone input socket.

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Click the record button on Sound Recorder to start the recording process.

Now click the Play button in the EditStudio Monitor window.

Now the difficult part - speak into the microphone to record your voiceover! It may help to mute the Monitor
(Play > Mute from the menu) so that you can't hear the project playing in the background of your voiceover
recording.

Finally, import your voiceover recording onto a spare audio layer in your project.

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EXPORTING A MOVIE
Choosing Your Movie Format
EditStudio can make movies in many of the popular formats and each format has its strengths and
weaknesses. In order to best decide on a movie format, you should consider how this movie will be viewed.
The requirements for making a DVD are very much different than those for making a movie to put on a web
site, for example. The following sections cover the most popular requirements for a movie.

Exporting A DVD Movie

DVD has become a very popular format over the last few years, due to its high quality video and audio. Until
recently, DVD disks were only available for commercial release, however the low cost of DVD writers has
meant that many new PCs come with a drive that's capable of burning DVD disks.
EditStudio can make a movie for DVD, however it cannot actually burn the disk. In order to burn the disk,
you need a DVD authoring program. There are many suitable programs to choose from and some PCs are
supplied with a simple program as part of the package. We recommend DVD-lab by MediaChance, and
EditStudio and DVD-lab have a number of features that allow them to integrate well together.
DVD disks can only contain movies in one format - MPEG-2. The details of MPEG-2 are not important, but
this format allows high quality movies to be highly compressed and stored in relatively small files.
Additionally, quality may be improved at the cost of being able to store less video on the DVD, see the
advanced section below.
To make a DVD movie file using EditStudio project, select File > Export Movie from the menu. Select the
"DVD" preset and click Next. Choose a filename for the movie. Finally, click Finish to start building the movie.

Advanced
EditStudio's default DVD settings will make a movie that's of high quality and large enough to get around
100 minutes of movie on a 4.7GB DVD disk (around twice this for a dual layer disk). If your movie is longer
than this, you may wish to reduce the quality in order that it still fits on a single disk. If your movie is shorter
than this, you may want to increase the quality. In both cases, the setting that you should change is the
bitrate.
The bitrate tells EditStudio roughly how big the movie file is allowed to be for 1 second of movie. We say
"roughly", because the bitrate is only ever a guide value - different movies will require different bitrates
depending on the content of the movie. The default setting for the DVD preset uses a bitrate of 6000 kilobits
per second. You can increase this value to just over 9000 kilobits per second to improve the quality, but this
will reduce the length of the movie that you can put on a disk. Approximately, for every 1000 kilobits extra
you add, you will get 10 minutes less movie on a disk.
To change the bitrate, click Next in the Export Wizard until you get to the Video & Audio Settings page. Click
the Video Settings button to change the bitrate value, using the slider provided in the dialog box.

For the complete process of making a DVD, see How To Make A DVD [page 115].

Saving A Movie Back To DV Camcorder

If you have captured your video from a DV camcorder, you can export your edited masterpiece back to the
camcorder to preserve the movie at maximum quality. DV is a very high quality format and many types of
edit in EditStudio will preserve the full quality of the original video.
To export a movie back to your camcorder, first connect the camcorder to your PC - see Connecting A DV
Camcorder [page 44]. This must be done using the FireWire connector on both the camcorder and PC.
Sometimes FireWire is called "IEEE1394" or "iLink".
Turn on the camcorder and set it to tape recorder mode (this is called "VCR" or "VTR" mode, depending on
your camcorder). Windows XP will recognise the camcorder and may show a "What should I do?" dialog box;
if so, select "Take no action" to close the dialog box.

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Your camcorder will be shown in the Windows system tray.

Insert a tape that you wish copy the movie to.

Select File > Export Movie from the menu to open the Export Wizard. Select Build DV To DV Camcorder from
the options.

Click the Next button. Enter the amount of the movie that you wish to export, or click Use Full Project to
send the entire movie.

Click the Next button and choose whether you want EditStudio to automatically start the camcorder
recording (if you don't select this, you will have to start the camcorder recording manually by pressing the
Record button on the camcorder).

Click the Next button. If there are any parts of the movie that need to be rendered (calculated) before the
movie can be exported, you will be told at this stage.

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Click Finish to export the movie to your camcorder.

How To Make A DVD

Making a DVD with EditStudio is a 2 step process - first you create a DVD format movie file from EditStudio,
then you burn a DVD with this using DVD-lab.
To export a movie as a DVD movie file, select File > Export Movie from the menu and select a DVD movie
preset.

Advanced
When exporting a PAL movie, you only have one preset choice. When you export an NTSC DVD movie, you
have a choice of PCM or MPEG audio. PCM audio will create a movie that will play in all DVD players, but is
slightly larger than a DVD movie with MPEG audio. Most DVD players will play NTSC movies with MPEG audio,
however MPEG audio is not part of the DVD specification (as it is with PAL DVDs), so your DVD is not
guaranteed to play correctly on all players. We recommend creating NTSC DVD movies with PCM audio to be
sure.

Click the Next button and enter a filename for your movie file.

Click the Finish button to start exporting the movie. When the file has been created, start DVD-lab and you
will be presented with a blank project. To this project we will add the movie file that we've just created. To
do this, select File > Import Asset from the menu.
After selecting your movie file, you will be asked whether you want to demultiplex the movie file into its
elementary video and audio streams. As EditStudio creates valid DVD compliant movie files, this is not
necessary, so we can save some time by selecting "Use directly...".

In order to make this movie file part of the DVD itself, we need to add it to the DVD structure. Double-click
on the Movie entry in the Project window to display the Movie window.

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Drag the movie file from the Asset window into the Movie window.

Now we need to create an opening menu that will allow the user to actually play the movie. Double-click on
the Menu entry in the Project window to open the Menu window.

A blank menu looks pretty boring, so we'll add a nice background by dragging a bitmap from the
Backgrounds tab of the Asset window onto the menu.

We'll add some text to the menu now by selecting the text tool in the Menu window.

Add some large text at the top of the menu to show the movie title and add some text which the viewer will
be able to select on their DVD player which will start the movie playing.

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All we have to do now is tell DVD-lab that we'd like to able to click on the "Play Movie" text to play the
movie. To do this, drag the movie from the Project window onto the "Play Movie" text.

That's it! All we have to do now is burn the DVD disk by selecting Project > Compile DVD from the menu.
Ensure that you have "Automatically Start Recording when completed" selected to start the burning process
once DVD-lab has compiled the required files for the project.

DVD Subtitles And Chapters

If you have added subtitles to your project, for use with DVD, you can export these subtitles as a .sub file.
This .sub file can be imported into any DVD authoring program that supports it.
To read more about adding subtitles to your project, see Adding Subtitles [page 102]. To export the
subtitles, select File > Export > Export Subtitles from the EditStudio menu.
To export DVD chapters, select File > Export > Export Chapters from the menu.

Exporting A Frame
You can export any frame that's currently being displayed in the Monitor window by selecting File > Export >
Export Frame" from the menu. The frame is saved as a .bmp file, which can be loaded into any paint
program for further manipulation. The frame can also be added back into a EditStudio project, for example,
to be used as a freeze frame (see Tutorial: Freeze Frame [page 85]).

Approximate Times For Export A Movie

We are often asked "how long should it take to export a movie?". The answer depends mainly on the format
of movie that you are building, and on how fast your computer is. The following are estimates based on a 3.0
GHz PC:
• DVD - slower than real time -> real time
• DV to file - faster than real time
• DV to camcorder - real time
• Windows Media - varies greatly depending on settings

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By "real time" we mean that a 1 hour movie will take 1 hour to export. Faster than real time might export a
1 hour movie in only 30 minutes. Slower than real time may mean that the 1 hour movie takes 2 hours to
export.
Some effects when used in a project can significantly slow down the process of exporting a movie. Complex
text effects and panning across large pictures take a lot of processing power and can result in long export
times.

Let Me Specify My Own Settings

Advanced users may wish to manually set all the movie settings, rather than simply selecting a preset. In
order to export with your own settings:
1. Select File > Export Movie from the menu.
2. Select "Let me specify my own settings". Click Next.
3. Select the output format. Click Next.
4. Select the output movie filename. Click Next.
5. Select the amount of the movie that you wish to export. Click Next.
6. Set the output video resolution and audio sample rate. Adjust any additional settings by clicking the
Video Settings and Audio Settings buttons.
7. Click Next. Click Finish.
This gives you control over all the possible settings for all the export movie formats that EditStudio supports.

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MEDIA EXPLORER
Using The Media Explorer
The Media Explorer is located in the lower section of the EditStudio interface.

The Media Explorer is used for the following:

• Importing video, picture and audio ready for adding to a project; see Importing Files Into The Media
Explorer [page 120] for instructions on importing files into the Media Explorer.
• Contains all the available video effects.
• Contains all the available audio effects.
• Contains all the available text effects.
• Contains all the available transitions.
• Storing user effect, text and transition presets; see Presets [page 120] for instructions on creating
custom presets.
• Storing media clips.
When media files are added to the Media Explorer, the files themselves are not copied into the Media
Explorer. The Media Explorer simply uses shortcuts to the original files, making it easier to retrieve them
from the Media Explorer instead of finding them on your hard disk. If you add a media file to the Media
Explorer, you must still keep the original file on your hard disk.
To change the view of the Media Explorer between large and small icons, select Media > View from the
menu.

Suggested Workflow
We recommend that you attempt to organise your media (video, audio and pictures) using the Media
Explorer as this can make the process of making a movie very much simpler.

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Everyone has their own preferences, but we suggest the following workflow as a starting point:
1. Create a project (see Creating A New Project [page 39]) and save it to disk (see Saving A Project
[page 39])
2. Capture any video that you wish to use. This will place the captured files in the project folder on your
hard disk and add the media files to the Captured section of the Media Explorer's Media tab.
3. Import any additional media files into the Media Explorer (see Presets [page 120]). For example,
pictures or background music.
Now you can start editing your project, taking any media files that you need from the Media Explorer. The
Media Explorer will now contain all the video, audio, pictures, effects, transitions and titles that you want to
use - it's the place you go looking for everything. By working in this way, you are not distracted during the
editing process searching for files on your hard disk.

Importing Files Into The Media Explorer

Files can be added to the Media Explorer by selecting File > Import Files from the menu. Inserted files will be
added to the "My Media" folder, however they can be moved to a custom folder if desired, see Moving Items
In The Media Explorer [page 121].
All inserted media files are visible from all EditStudio projects, so this is a good way of making commonly
used media files easily available (eg. company logos or background music).

Presets
When you are editing your project, you may find that you use the same title or effect repeatedly. You can
save any item on the timeline to the Media Explorer as a preset, and this allows you to add it quickly and
easily again in the future.
To add an item from the timeline as a preset in the Media Explorer, select the item and then choose Insert >
Insert Preset In Media Explorer from the menu. Presets added in this way are called User Presets.
EditStudio comes with a number of fixed presets, which are always present in the Media Explorer. These
fixed presets are the base presets from which user presets may be created. For example, there is a
Brightness video effect preset in the Colour folder and this preset cannot be deleted. Fixed presets are
displayed with a push-pin decal in the top-left of the preset's thumbnail.

Modifying A Preset
In order to change a preset (eg. to change the properties of an effect or to trim a clip), simply add it to the
timeline (see Adding Items To The Timeline [page 58]), adjust as necessary, and then create a new preset in
the Media Explorer.

Deleting A Preset
To delete a preset, select it and then choose Edit > Delete from the menu. Fixed presets cannot be deleted.

Where Presets Are Stored

Capture file presets are stored along with the project file itself. Other media presets (video, audio and
pictures), effect, transition and title presets are stored in a user library file, stored within the user's local
space on your hard disk. Each Windows XP user has their own library file.

Importing And Exporting Presets

Presets can be saved to a file by selecting them in the Media Explorer and choosing File > Export > Export
Media Library from the menu. Only user created presets will be saved in the file.

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Presets can be imported back into the Media Explorer by selecting File > Import Media Library from the
menu.
Exporting and importing presets in this manner is a convenient way of sharing effect presets with other
EditStudio users.

Creating Folders In The Media Explorer

You can create additional folders for media presets by selecting Insert > Insert Media Folder from the menu.
You may wish to store media files by type (eg. video, audio and pictures) or by use (wedding graphics,
background pictures etc...).
You can only create folders in the Media tab of the Media Explorer - effect, title and transition presets are
automatically grouped with their fixed presets.

Moving Items In The Media Explorer

Moving presets in the Media Explorer is very similar to moving files on your hard disk. You can either use the
clipboard:
1. Select the presets that you wish to move
2. Select Edit > Cut from the menu
3. Move to the folder where you wish to move them
4. Select Edit > Paste from the menu
Or you can use drag and drop:
1. Drag the preset to the desired folder
Note: you can only move media presets in the Media Explorer. Effect, transition and title presets are always
kept in the same folder as the original fixed effect on which they are based.

Detecting Scenes
Large video presets can be broken down by scene into smaller presets; EditStudio can do this for you
automatically. Select a video media preset and then choose Media > Detect Scenes from the menu.

Scenes can be detected either by time and date information kept in the DV file, or optically, by looking for
changes in the picture in any type of file. DV time and date scene detection is very fast and accurate,
creating separate clips for each time the camcorder was started and stopped.
Optical scene detection looks for significant changes in the picture to determine scene changes and you can
set the sensitivity for the difference in scenes by adjusting the sensitivity slider. By increasing the sensitivity
of the detection, scenes are more easily detected, but you may find that scenes are created unintentionally
simply because there is a lot of change happening in the video.
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As with all editing processes in EditStudio, the original files on your hard disk are not changed - the scenes
that are created are only references to sections of the original files.
When this dialog box is closed, the created scenes are placed in the Media Explorer in a new folder, named
after the original media preset.

Changing The Poster Frame

Video presets in the Media Explorer are shown with a single preview picture - this is called the poster frame.
You can change this poster frame by selecting Media > Poster Frame from the menu.

Changing The Properties Of A Media Preset

Some media presets have additional properties that can be changed. For example, a video media preset can
have mark in/out times which represent the start and end times of the video that should be used. To display
and edit any of the media properties, select Media > Media Item Properties from the menu.

Renaming A Preset
Any user preset can be renamed by selecting the item and selecting Edit > Rename from the menu.
Alternatively, click on the preset name and hover the mouse over the name; this will also allow you to edit
the preset name (in the same way that you rename files in Windows).

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123
ADVANCED
Changing The Active Pane
You may notice that each of the sections of the EditStudio interface have a small title bar.

Each of these sections is called a "pane" only one of these panes can be active at any one time. A pane is
made active by clicking in it, and the titlebar will be shown in blue; inactive pane titlebars are shown in grey.

For almost all operations in EditStudio, it is not important to know which pane is active. Some operations
though do only operate on the active pane. For example, if you are viewing the timeline then when you
select Edit > Copy to copy the selected item into the clipboard then the selected timeline item(s) will be
copied if the timeline is the active pane. If the Media Explorer is the active pane however, the selected
item(s) will be copied from here instead. The same is true for pasting data from the clipboard - the active
pane only will receive the data.
Some keyboard shortcuts are only available to the active pane. If you wish to use the Space key to start/stop
the movie playing in the Monitor window then you should ensure that the timeline pane is active; this is to
avoid confusion when entering text into either the Monitor, Media Explorer or Properties panes. See
Reference: Keyboard Shortcuts [page 190] for a full list of keyboard shortcuts.

Importing Video From DVD

EditStudio does not support importing video direct from DVD. Importing video from a commercial DVD is
illegal in most countries because it is a breach of copyright. Additionally, most commercial DVDs are
encrypted and in the US it is illegal to decrypt the video because it is a breach of the Digital Millenium
Copyright Act (DMCA).
For DVDs where you have the copyright owner's permission to copy and edit the video, the internet has
many web sited dedicated to this process. Your favourite search engine will find relevant sites.

Archiving Projects For Later Editing

If you have created a EditStudio project in the way described in Creating A New Project [page 39], archiving
the project is simply a case of copying the project folder to an alternative location. This could be a CD or DVD
for small to medium sized projects, or another hard disk for larger projects.
If you have captured a large amount of DV format video from a camcorder, the DV files can be very large it
is desirable (or impossible, if disk space is tight) not to make copies of these files. If this is the situation, we
strongly suggest that you capture the DV files using batch capture, see DV Batch Capture [Advanced] [page

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50]. Batch capture allows you re-capture the video again at a later date, so you do not need to keep the DV
files on your hard disk; you only need the original DV tapes.
Our preferred solution though is to consider buying an external hard disk. At the time of writing, it was
possible to buy an external hard disk that can store around 20 hours of DV video for £100 ($180 US dollars).
Be aware that all common video, audio and bitmap formats are compressed, so you will not be able to
compress these further using a compression format like .zip. Compressing projects to save disk space is not
a realistic option.

Keyframes
Keyframes allow important parameters can be changed over time. For example, using audio volume
keyframes, audio can be faded up and down over time. This is covered in Adjusting The Volume [page 105]
and all versions of EditStudio support audio keyframing.
EditStudio Pro also supports keyframes for effects and frame placement. To keyframe frame placement, first
select a video or audio item and make sure that the item itself is selected (ie. don't select any effects that
have been applied to the item).

Turn keyframe editing on for the item by selecting Item > Enable Keyframe Editing from the menu. You will
now see a keyframe line and the start and end keyframes.

Move the time cursor to a location on the item where you wish to add a keyframe. Select Item > Add
Keyframe to add a keyframe here.

If you play the item now in the Monitor, nothing will happen because the item's placement has not been
changed. Change the item's frame placement at the keyframe by clicking on the keyframe, the clicking on
the Move Placement button in the Monitor.

You will now see a selection object appear around the frame, drawn in red. This selection object can be
dragged around and resized.

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Now play the item again in the monitor and you will see that the item changes from full frame, to the
keyframe position, and back again.

Notice that when the timecursor is not over a keyframe, the selection object is drawn in grey and cannot be
edited - changes can only be made a keyframe positions.

Keyframing an effect is just as simple. Select the effect that you wish to keyframe.

Not all effects can be keyframed, but most have at least some properties that can be keyframed. In this
example, we're going to keyframe the brightness of an item. Turn on keyframing for the effect by selecting
"Item > Keyframe Editing" from the menu, this will show the keyframe line as well as the start and end
keyframes.

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Move the timecursor to the position on the item where you wish to add a keyframe. Select Item > Keyframes
> Add Keyframe.

Any effect that can be keyframed is labelled with italic text. Adjust the brightness at this keyframe.

Play the item and the Monitor will show the brightness of the item change over time.

Notice that when the timecursor is not over a keyframe, the effect's keyframeable properties are disabled
and cannot be edited - changes can only be made a keyframe positions.

You can navigate between the keyframes by using Play > Go To Start Keyframe, Play > Go To End Keyframe,
Play > Next Keyframe and Play > Previous Keyframe from the menu.

Keyframe Interpolation [Advanced]

In the examples above, the keyframe changes were animated using linear changes; ie. the changes were
applied at a constant rate as the values changed. In some cases it is preferable to use a smoother form of
interpolation, for example using frame placement to smooth pan across a large picture.
To set the interpolation type for a keyframe, click on the keyframe to select it. Now select Item > Keyframes
> Linear Type, Item > Keyframes > Spline Type or Item > Keyframes > Step Type.
The interpolation type is used from the position of the selected keyframe to the next keyframe.
You can also set the keyframe interpolation type in the Keyframe Properties dialog box; select Item >
Keyframes > Keyframe Properties from the menu.

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Copying Properties Between Keyframes
EditStudio lets you copy and paste properties between keyframes. Click on a keyframe to select it, then
select Item > Keyframes > Copy Keyframe Properties from the menu to copy the contents to the clipboard.
Now select another keyframe and select Item > Keyframes > Paste Keyframe Properties. You will now have
the option of selecting all, or some, of the available properties.

Deleting A Keyframe
To delete a keyframe, click on it to select it and then choose Edit > Delete from the menu.

J and L Audio Cuts

Most audio cuts in a movie are performed with straight cuts.

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There are times where you want the audio for the next clip to start before the clip is visible; this is called an
"L-cut" (because of the shape it makes with the first video item).

To perform an L-cut you have to be able to resize the audio item separately; resizing an audio item will
normally resize the linked video item as well. To stop the audio and video items resizing together, you must
break the link between them (see Linked Items [page 68]).
A J-cut can be performed in a similar manner.

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Installing A Package
Some extra plugins that are distributed by Pure Motion or third-party developers are available as packages; a
package has the .eds_pckg filename extension. Packages are smaller than the more common .exe installers
and can be created quickly and easily by developers.
To install a package for EditStudio, select Tools > Install Package from the menu. After the package has been
installed, close and restart EditStudio to complete the installation.

Uninstalling A Package
To uninstall a package, select Tools > Uninstall Package from the menu. Select the package to uninstall.

Close and restart EditStudio to complete the uninstallation.

Customising The Toolbars

The default program toolbar for the program can be customised to your preferences. You may add buttons
for features that you commonly use, or remove buttons for features that you don't use.
Select Tools > Customise Toolbar from the menu.

Simply drag new items from the dialog box onto a toolbar to add them. Drag buttons off a toolbar to remove
them.

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Changing The Program Options
Select Tools. > Options from the menu to open the program options dialog box.
General

Backup project file before saving; we strongly suggest that you keep this option enabled. This will allow
EditStudio to create a ".eds_bckp" file in the same folder as your project. If for any reason EditStudio fails to
save the project correctly, you can always revert to this backup file by renaming it as a normal ".eds" file.
Contact Pure Motion technical support if you need help with this, see Getting Help Online [page 11].
Autosave; EditStudio will automatically save the project every few minutes, to ensure that you always have a
recent copy of the project should your computer crash.
Show splash window on startup; turn this off if you don't want to see a splash window when EditStudio
starts.
Start with general layers; force EditStudio to start with all its layers as "general" type (see Layer Types [page
71]). This option is for advanced users, or users who prefer the older EditStudio 4 way of working.
Reset window positions; resets the stored window positions, if your screensize has changed or you change
from 2 to 1 monitors.
Timecode; set the timecode view in the timeline. Choose between time (EditStudio's internal method of
working) or SMPTE timecodes which are more popular with commercial video editors.
Change default layer item view; set the default representation for layer items in the timeline

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Edit

Snapping; choose whether to snap item movement and resizing to various values. Snapping can help ensure
that projects are not created with unwanted gaps.
Draw timeline in draft when scrolling; this helps speed up navigating around the timeline. The timeline is
redrawn in full when the scrolling stops.
Default picture duration; the default duration for new picture items.
Overlaps

Automatically create transitions; EditStudio will automatically create transitions when you overlap items on
the timeline. This feature can also be turned on / off using the toolbar button or Tools > Auto Transitions
from the menu.
Snap to transition duration; when dragging items in the timeline, this duration is used to snap to so that it's
easy to create uniform transitions through the project.
Maximum transition duration; use this value to ensure that very long transitions are not created where they
are not wanted.
Automatically create audio crossfades; EditStudio will automatically create audio crossfades when you
overlap audio items on the timeline. This feature can also be turned on / off using the toolbar button or Tools
> Auto Audio Crossfades from the menu.

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Maximum crossfade duration; use this value to ensure that very long crossfades are not created where they
are not wanted.
Cache

Flush fast playback files; use this option to free up space on your hard disk. The files will be flushed when the
Options dialog box is closed.
Cache folder; the location on your hard disk for the temporary fast playback files. We suggest that you set
this to a hard disk where there is a lot of free space.

Tutorial: Route Tracer

The ability to plot a route across a map is an often requested feature here at Pure Motion, so we've created
the Route Tracer effect to do exactly this. In this article we look at plotting a basic route across a map.

Start by adding a picture of the map that you wish to use.

Drag the Route Tracer video effect onto the item by dragging it from the Route Tracer folder of the Media
Explorer.

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The default route is located toward the top-left of the map.

To move the route, click the Move Route at the top of the Monitor window.

Drag the route to the desired location.

To add more nodes to the route, click the Add Node button in the Properties window.

It may help to zoom into the Monitor to help placing the nodes accurately.

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You can adjust the style of the route to make it clearer.

There are many other settings that can be changed in the Properties window, so that the route behaves just
the way that you want it. For more details on all the available settings, see Route Tracer > Route Tracer
[page 174].

Tutorial: Advanced Panning And Placement

Panning across a bitmap is way of showing more detail in the image and also adding motion to an otherwise
still sequence in a movie. The easiest way to do this is to use a preset as described in Panning Over A Picture
[page 87]. This tutorial shows you how to add custom motion paths so that you pan across the picture
exactly as you want.

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Start by inserting a picture onto the timeline.

In the Monitor window, click the Move Placement button so that we can move the picture around.

Move the picture so that we can see the start of the sequence.

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It will probably help to make the Monitor window larger and to zoom out so that you can see more of the
picture.
There will not be any motion in the picture until we turn on keyframes for the item. We can then move the
picture's placement at each keyframe and EditStudio will automatically calculate the motion between the
keyframes. Turn on keyframes for the item by selecting Item > Enable Keyframe Editing from the menu; will
now see the start and end keyframes on the item.

Move the time cursor to the middle of the item and add another keyframe by selecting Item > Keyframes >
Add Keyframe.

With the time cursor still over the new keyframe, move the picture in the Monitor to the mid-position of the
movement.

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Now click on the end keyframe to allow us to set the position here.

Again, move the picture's position in the Monitor.

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The result of the keyframed movement is shown below.

Tutorial: Automatic Colour Correction

Often we will accidentally leave our camera’s white balance mode on the wrong setting for the lighting
conditions. If, for example, the white balance is set to indoor lighting and footage is taken outdoors, the
video looks too blue and “cold”. Conversely, if the white balance is set to outdoor lighting and footage is
taken indoors under incandescent lighting, the video is too yellow and “warm”.
When using a camera’s automatic white balance mode, the camera attempts to compensate for changes in
the lighting. Most cameras do a reasonable job but sometimes when moving between different lighting or in
extreme lighting conditions, it doesn’t quite get it right.
Use the Colour Correct effect to compensate for errors in the white balance. The left hand colour wheel
represents the colour bias of the shadows. By shadows, we mean the dark areas of the frame from pure
black up to brighter colours. The handle in the colour wheel shows the current bias. Moving the handle away
from the centre of the wheel tints the dark areas of the frame towards the colour the handle is over. The
further the handle is away from the centre, the more the dark areas are tinted. For example, moving the
handle over the red area in the wheel will cause the dark areas to become more red. Pure black areas are
affected the most with lighter areas being less and less affected such that any pure white is unaffected by
the shadows wheel.

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Similarly, the Highlights wheel affects the light areas of the frame most while having little affect on the
darker areas. Usually, adjusting either or both the shadows and highlights is enough to satisfactorily correct
your footage. Occasionally however, you may also need to use the Midtones wheel which affects the mid-
brightness colours the most while having little affect on the darkest or lightest areas.
Import the video clip that you wish to colour correct. Now in the Media Explorer, click the Video Effects tab
and select the Colour Suite folder. Drag the Colour Correct effect onto a layer above the video item. We’re
dragging the effect on as a separate item here, rather than adding it directly to the video item because it
allows us to quickly enable and disable the top layer to compare the result with the effect on or off.

Move the time cursor over a frame in the source where is a good balance of light and dark areas. Also, try
not to choose a frame which has a large area dominated by a strong colour as this can affect the automatic
algorithm. Make sure the Colour Correct item is selected in the timeline then click the Auto link in the

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Properties window. You will immediately see the monitor frame update. Move the time cursor about to see
how the whole item looks. Use the first layer’s enable/disable button to compare the original footage with the
that of the colour corrected.

The automatic routines may have done exactly what you were after, however most of the time better results
can be achieved with a little tweaking. The first thing to try is moving the time cursor over another frame
and clicking the Auto link again. The automatic algorithm uses the frame at the time cursor to determine how
to apply the colour correction so the success of the automatic feature depends very much on the frame at
the time cursor when the Auto link is clicked.
By default, the automatic feature only sets the shadows and highlights wheel, it doesn’t set the midtones
wheel. To allow the auto feature to set all three wheels, click the Settings link and check all three boxes and
try the Auto feature again.

You might be able to identify that the strength of colour correction isn’t quite right for the shadows, midtones
or highlights. In this case, you can adjust the strength of colour correction for each of the three wheels by
using the Magnitude edit controls and spin buttons. Click the spin buttons to experiment increasing or
reducing the strength of colour correction.
Due to the layout of the Colour Correct properties window, it’s often easiest to undock the properties window
if you’ve not done it already then resize the window to fit all three colour wheels in. Click the undock icon to
undock the properties window.

Tutorial: Manual Colour Correction

This tutorial builds on the tutorial above; make sure that you are familiar with automatic colour correction
before continuing.

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Firstly, identify whether the dark areas, the light areas, or both need correcting. If the dark areas need
correcting, click in the Shadows wheel and drag the handle over the colour you want to tint the dark areas
toward. Or, to put it another way, move the handle away from the tint that the footage currently has.

Instead of manually dragging the colour wheel handles, you can use the eyedroppers to let EditStudio
automatically set the handle position for you. For example, click the complimentary eyedropper button (the
one with the minus symbol) below the highlights wheel and then click on an area in the frame that should be
white in colour.

EditStudio will then adjust the highlights colour correction such that the area clicked will become neutral in
colour. Similarly, use the shadows complimentary eyedropper button then click on area in the frame that
should be black. You may need to experiment clicking on slightly different areas in the frame to get the best
results. Equally, moving the time cursor to a frame where there are good areas of black and white (or areas
that should be black and white) helps.
Matching Colour Balance Between Clips
Most of the time, you’ll want your movies to have a neutral colour balance. In which case, use the methods
above to balance out the colours to give an overall neutral tone. Sometimes however, you’ll want to match a
piece of footage to another which may not have a neutral colour balance. For these times, use the
eyedropper buttons with the plus symbol. Set up the timeline with a Colour Correct effect applied to, or
above the source you want to alter. Now move the time cursor over the item you want to match to. With the
Colour Correct item selected, click one of the eyedropper buttons then click on a dark, medium or light area

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in the frame you want to match to, for the shadows, midtones or highlights buttons respectively. Move the
time cursor back over the Colour Correct item to see the effect.
Use the Magnitude edit boxes and spin buttons to fine tune the effect.

Tutorial: Automatically Adjusting Colour Levels

The levels effect can be used to compensate for footage which is too dark, too light or lacking in contrast. It
can also be used to perform colour correction.
Apply a Levels effect to a clip, position the time cursor over the clip and click the Auto link in the Properties
window. EditStudio will then adjust the levels to give the clip good contrast as well as neutral brightness and
colour balance. If you only want the contrast and brightness to be adjusted, click the Settings link and
uncheck the Adjust colour balance checkbox.

The auto feature works by examining the frame at the time cursor and adjusting the levels based on that
frame. For this reason, you may want to repeat the auto feature with the time cursor position over different
frames.

Tutorial: Manually Adjusting Colour Levels

The histogram chart in the properties window shows the distribution of colours within the frame at the time
cursor. The horizontal axis, broadly speaking, represents the brightness of the colours with dark colours on
the left to light colours on the right. The height of the bar at any point indicates the number of pixels within
the image with that brightness profile. You can see a separate histogram for each channel (red, green and
blue) using the Channel drop down box. The RGB channel setting is effectively each of the individual colour
histograms superimposed on top of each other.
A histogram with a gap on the left hand side shows that few pixels are very dark. This can lead to the image
lacking in contrast and looking “washed out”. To correct for this, drag the shadows input level slider to the
right.

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A histogram with a gap on the right shows an image which will be lacking in contrast because few pixels are
at or are near their full brightness. To correct for this, drag the highlights input level slider to the left.

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A histogram which is bunched up at one end of the scale shows an overly dark or overly light image. To
correct for this, drag the midtones (gamma) slider towards the bunched up area.

Adjusting the input levels in the RGB channel active will not affect the colour balance. To adjust the colour
balance, select the red, green and blue channels and correct each one at a time.
Using the Eyedroppers
The eyedroppers are a semi-automatic way of setting the input levels for each of the red, green and blue
channels. This will do two things:
1. increase the contrast of the image by expanding the levels and
2. correct the colour balance by adjusting each channel individually

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Click the highlights eyedropper then click on an area in the frame that should be white. The highlights input
levels for the red, green and blue channels will now be adjusted to force the area clicked on to become white.

Click the shadows eyedropper then click on an area in the frame that should be black.
Finally, if necessary, repeat again for the Midtones eyedropper. In this case, you’ll need to click on an area
that should be mid-grey but this can be difficult because it’s not easy to find or recognise such an area. For
this reason, it’s usually best to use the shadows and highlights eyedroppers only then manually adjust the
midtones settings.
If it’s not possible to find what should be pure black or pure white within a frame, or if the affect of using the
eyedroppers is too extreme, try changing the target colours for the shadows and highlights. Click the Set
target colour link next to the shadows eyedropper and choose a new reference colour. Choosing, for
example, (16, 16, 16) will tell EditStudio to adjust the levels such that the area you click will become very
dark grey rather than pure black. This allows some detail to be kept within areas slightly darker than the
area clicked and helps avoid the shadow detail being clipped.
Similarly, choosing a reference colour for the highlights of, for example, (240, 240, 240) helps reduce areas
clipping to white.
Reducing the Contrast
In some cases, or for special effects, you might want to reduce the contrast of a clip. For this, drag the
output level sliders from the ends of the scale. The resultant colours within the frame will then all lie within
the range between the two sliders.

Tutorial: Automatically Adjusting Colour Curves

The Auto feature for the Curves effect works in exactly the same way as the Levels effect Auto feature (see
Tutorial: Automatically Adjusting Colour Levels [page 143]). It attempts to increase contrast and optionally
correct the colour balance by using different curves for each of the red, green and blue channels.

Tutorial: Manually Adjusting Colour Curves

The curves control allows you to adjust how the input brightness levels of the frame map to output
brightness levels. The horizontal axis represents the input levels from the black on the left to white on the
right. The vertical axis represents the outputs from black at the bottom to white at the top.
When you first add a Curves effect, a straight line is show from the bottom left to the top right of the curves
control. The line represents a straight mapping from input to output levels, ie. no change in brightness. The
small square represents nodes which can be dragged. Further nodes can be added by simply clicking on the
line. To remove a node, click and drag it outside the control.

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Increasing The Contrast
To boost the blacks in the image, drag the node in the bottom left to the right.

To boost the whites in the image, drag the node in the top right to the left.
To boost the contrast of the midtones without affect the black or white points, create an S-curve like the
picture below. First click the Reset link to revert back to the default, straight line. Now add a node one-third
of the way the along the horizontal and one-quarter of the way up by clicking on the line and dragging it to
this position.

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Now add another node two-thirds of the way along the horizontal and three-quarters of the way up.

Expanding The Midtones

Consumer camcorders have a tendency to produce very contrasty, punchy video. To reduce this affect and
produce a more film-like tone response, try creating the following S-curve.
First click the Reset link to revert back to the default, straight line. Now add a node one-quarter of the way
the along the horizontal and two-thirds of the way up by clicking on the line and dragging it to this position.
Now add another node three-quarters of the way along the horizontal and two-thirds of the way up.

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Fast Preview Files
When you are editing a default PAL or NTSC project (see Project Settings [page 40]), you can speed up the
previewing of effects or by building fast preview files. A fast preview file calculates all the effects, transitions
and titles that are applied to the section of the movie, so that EditStudio can quickly play back the project in
the monitor without having to perform all these complicated calculations in real time.
To build fast preview files for a single item (eg. a transition), select the item and choose Play > Fast Playback
Files > Create For Item. A dialog box will appear showing the progress of the calculation.

When the process is complete, playing this section of the movie in the Monitor window will be very much
smoother than before.
Similarly, fast preview files can be created for the entire project by selecting Play > Fast Playback Files >
Create For Project from the menu.
The fast preview files will be stored on your hard disk until that part of the project is edited again. If you
create a fast preview file for a transition for example and then change the transition's properties, the fast
preview file will have to be recreated as the one that was used previously is no longer representative of the
current transition settings.
You can see which areas of the project have fast preview files associated with them by looking at the time
ruler across the top of the timeline. Fast preview areas are shown in green. Areas that need fast preview files
to be created are shown in red.
If you are using DV source video, this is already in a format that is fast and easy to preview and these areas
are also shown in green.

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Updating The Project Source Files
When a project is opened by EditStudio, the program will make sure that all the source media files that are
needed by the project can be found on the hard disk. If any files are missing, EditStudio will search the
project folder to see if they have been moved.
You can update the media file that any audio, video or picture item uses by selecting the item and then
choosing Item > Change Source File from the menu.
If you want to change a large number of items at the same time, select File > Update Project Files from the
menu.

Here, you can change several items that use the same file, or several items that use several files in the same
folder.
You can change the source file for a single item by selecting Item > Change Source File from the menu.
If you follow our recommendations for organising your project files in Saving A Project [page 39], there
should not be any need to change the location of files. This feature is only useful if you decide to move the
source files after the project has been created.

Show Media Info

You can show important information any media item in the timeline by selecting it and then choosing View >
Show Media Info from the menu.

Using Markers
Markers are a flexible feature of EditStudio that allow you to add subtitles, DVD chapters and simple markers
allowing you to navigate your project quickly.

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Adding subtitles and DVD chapters is covered in Adding Subtitles [page 102] and Setting Chapter Markers
[page 151].
Simple markers can be added by selecting Insert > Marker > Single Marker and Insert > Marker > Double
Marker from the menu (or use the keyboard shortcuts N and M respectively. A single marker represents a
single time and double markers represent start and end times.
Single markers can be used to represent important parts of the movie, for example "Jim falls over on his
snowboard". Try tapping the N key in time to the beats of a music soundtrack to place markers at the beat
positions. Click on any marker to move the time cursor to the marker - this now makes it easy to perform
edits at marker positions.
Double markers are more useful for marking ranges of the movie, for example "Sharon's 100 metre race at
the school sports day".
Marker times can also be selected in the Export Wizard when you are exporting a movie, so you can add
double markers to a project and then easily select this range to export. This can be useful if you're
experimenting with an effect in the project and you only want to export a short section to see what it looks
like.
Navigating to the next / previous marker is done by selecting Play > Next Marker and Play > Previous
Marker, or by pressing Shift + > and Shift+ < on the keyboard.
To delete a marker, move the time cursor to the marker and select Edit > Markers > Delete Marker from the
menu.
To change the properties of any marker, select Edit > Markers > Marker Properties from the menu. This will
open the Marker Properties dialog box.

Setting Chapter Markers

DVD-lab Pro supports importing of chapter markers from EditStudio.
If your movie is longer than 10 minutes, you may wish to add chapter points in the movie to ensure that the
viewer can quickly skip to a part of the movie that they wish to watch. You can add these chapter points in
EditStudio.
With the project open, move the time cursor to the first chapter point that you wish to add.

Select Insert > Add Marker > Chapter Marker to insert a chapter point here.

Repeat the process adding chapter points where you wish.

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Now, export the chapter points to a file by selecting File > Export > Export Chapters from the menu. This
chapter file can be imported into DVD-lab Pro.

Showing The Installed Plugins

To see what plugins are currently available to EditStudio, select Tools > Show Plugins from the menu.
You would not normally need to do this, but if you contact Pure Motion technical support then we may ask
you to do this in order to confirm that various plugins are installed properly.

System Information Tool

Select Tools > System Information to show important information about EditStudio.

If you have to contact Pure Motion technical support then we may ask you to Email us a copy of your system
information to help us solve your problem. To copy this information to your Email program, click Copy
information to clipboard and then Paste this into your Email program (eg. select Edit > Paste from your Email
program's menu).
We may ask you to test the speed of your hard disks - this is a common cause of poor quality captures and
missing (dropped) frames. To test the speed of your disks, click the Test My Disks button in the system
information area.

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Select the disk that you are capturing to and click the Test button. When you close this dialog box, the
calculated read/write speeds will be included in the system information page.

Click the Close button at the top of the System Information area to close the tool and return to your project.

DV Copy Tool
As well as exporting a movie direct from EditStudio to a DV camcorder, you can also send an existing DV
format AVI file from your hard disk using the DV Copy tool. Select Tools > DV Copy from menu to show the
tool.

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Select the DV AVI file to copy back to the DV camcorder and click Next.

Make sure that your camcorder is connected and in "VTR" or "VCR" mode. Click Next. The file will now be
copied to the camcorder.

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The DV Copy tool takes less processing power than exporting a DV movie direct from a project to a DV
camcorder. When making DV movies with slower computers, it is more reliable to first make a DV file (using
"Export to DV file" from the Export Wizard) and then copy this to the DV camcorder using the DV Copy tool.
DV Copy is also useful for producing copies of DV tapes - simply capture the whole tape to a file and then us
DV Copy to copy the file back to a new tape.
You can only copy back DV AVI files using DV Copy.
Click the Close button at the top of the DV Copy area to close the tool and return to your project.

DV Type Converter Tool [Advanced]

Start the DV Type Converter tool by selecting Tools > DV Type Converter from the menu.
On the Windows operating system, DV files are forms of AVI files - they come in two different flavours
however: Type-1 and Type-2. To understand the difference, we must take a look at what a DV file contains
and how this is stored in the AVI file format.
This chapter describes the benefits and problems associated with each type. The descriptions below are
slightly simplified to make the descriptions easier to understand, however none of the important details have
been removed.
DV Streams
When you use a video capture program to copy video from a camcorder and a FireWire card to your hard
disk, you are actually doing very little with the video data (although you wouldn't believe it from the amount
of programming we had to do!). The video data is stored on a DV camcorder as a stream of digital
information which contains both the video picture and the sound.

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When you send this to a FireWire capture card, the digital information remains unchanged and the video
capture software receives this data stream unmodified. So, what happens to this DV data stream when the
capture software gets it?
AVI Files
In order to make the data stream understandable by other programs, Windows turns it into an AVI file. There
are two formats that can be used: Type-1 and Type-2.
Type-1:
This is the simplest format of DV AVI file, yet is generally the least compatible amongst applications. Type-1
DV AVI files simply add an AVI header to the data stream and then put the DV data stream into the AVI file
without modification. Easy!

Well, not quite. The only part of the file which is actually in AVI format is the header (shown in dark blue)
and this is generally the only part of the file that most programs can read. Most programs that read AVI files
generally expect the AVI file to contain both video and audio streams in AVI format, whereas in a Type-1
format DV AVI file the video and audio are combined in a DV format stream.
Type-2:
To get around the problem of having all the useful data in a DV format stream of an AVI file, Type-2 AVI files
extract the audio from the DV stream and add this as an additional AVI format stream to the AVI file.

Now, programs that understand AVI files now see the file as a standard AVI file with separate audio and
video streams. The audio stream is standard AVI and a video decoder can extract only the video from the DV
stream. While Type-2 DV AVI files are more compatible than their Type-1 counterparts, they have a couple of
disadvantages:
• As the audio data is stored twice in the file, once in the DV stream and once in the AVI stream, a
Type-2 DV AVI file is around 5% larger than the Type-1 equivalent.
• Uploading and capturing Type-2 AVI files to and from a DV camcorder takes slightly more processor
power, as the extra audio AVI stream needs to be added or removed.
Now we know the details of Type-1 and Type-2 DV AVI files, we can decide which one is best, right? Of
course, it's not that simple. In cases where you want the minimum file size or minimum amount of
processing required, Type-1 is preferable. Type-2 is the more compatible format, at the cost of a slightly
larger file. Both types are identical in both picture and sound quality.

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The Pure Motion programs generally use Type-2 DV AVI files throughout, as this maintains compatibility with
the largest number of other applications.
To convert a DV file, select Tools > DV Type Converter and choose the input and output filenames.

Click Next. Choose the output DV file type.

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Click Next to start the conversion process.

Click the Close button at the top of the System Information area to close the tool and return to your project.

Using Your DV Camcorder As A Monitor

If you are using mainly DV source video for your project, you can use a DV camcorder to monitor your movie
as you edit it. Select View > Monitor With Camcorder to enable this feature. Many DV camcorders will output
to their analogue outputs while the DV-in is in use, so they can be used to "pass through" the video to a TV
set, or analogue recorder.
The DV Monitor will only show frames that can be taken direct from DV source video, or sections of the
movie that have Fast Preview files, see Fast Preview Files [page 149].
Note: you must use a camcorder that supports DV-in to use this feature. Older camcorders and low cost DV
models that are sold in Europe may only support DV-out. Check that your camcorder has a suitable DV-in
capability before using this feature.

Changing The Monitor Properties

Select View > Monitor Properties to change the Monitor properties.
General

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Show buttons; shows the play, stop and other playback buttons.
Show speed slider; shows a slider which allows you to play your project at different speeds both forwards
and backwards.
Show VU meter; shows the audio level meter.
Mute audio while scrubbing; mutes the audio while using the speed slider.
Accelerated preview; uses DirectX to provide a smoother preview. Turn this off if you have an old or
incompatible graphics card and the project doesn't preview correctly.
Use fast preview files; uses fast preview files for smoother playback, see Fast Preview Files [page 149].
Safe Areas

Show action safe area; see Action Safe Area [page 93].
Show title safe area; see The Title Safe Area [page 102].
Safe area colour; choose a colour that is visible in the Monitor.
Snapping

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Snapping; snap objects in the preview to the edges and centre
Update frame while objects are being dragged; shows real-time preview as objects are dragged. Turn this
feature on if you have a fast computer.

Unsuitable Formats For Editing

We have had a number of users who are trying to use MPEG-2 format files as source video for EditStudio
projects and are running into problems. Similar problems also affect DivX® encoded files, which are also
based on MPEG technology. MPEG-2 files usually come from either capture cards that capture in MPEG-2
format, or "ripped" movie files from commercial DVDs. We don't recommend using MPEG-2 for source video
and the reasons are explained below.
The following article only applies to importing MPEG-2 movie files into EditStudio and does not apply to
creating MPEG-2 files from EditStudio.
What's Wrong With MPEG-2?
Nothing is actually wrong with the MPEG-2 format itself which stops it being used for editing. The main
problem lies in the decoders that are needed to decode the video and extract frames. MPEG-2 is designed for
playback and this is where it is mainly used - either for DVD movies or digital TV broadcasts. Decoding
MPEG-2 for playback is somewhat easier than extracting frames individually for editing. To explain why this
is, we have to look at how MPEG-2 compresses video.
How MPEG-2 Compresses Video
Rather than compress each frame individually (as happens in DV or MJPEG for example), MPEG (1 and 2)
gets its high levels of compression by compressing groups of frames together. Each frame may then rely on
information from surrounding frames in order to be fully decoded. For example, to decode frame number 17
in an MPEG file, we may need to decode frames 14 and 18 first. Frame 14 might need information from
frame 12 though before it can be decoded, so in this case decompressing the desired frame can be a
complex task. Frames that require information from surrounding frames are called "P" and "B" frames in
MPEG terminology and the process is fully described in the MPEG Video Explained article.
Although most of the frames in an MPEG file are "P" or "B" frames, some frames do contain enough
information to describe themselves fully - these are called "I" frames and they are important to
understanding where problems can come from.
Decoders
Windows comes with an MPEG-1 decoder as part of the standard range of video decoders and EditStudio
contains an MPEG-2 decoder itself.
Most MPEG-2 decoders are written to handle playback of MPEG-2 files only. To play an MPEG-2 file the
decoder simply waits until an "I" frame comes along in the MPEG-2 file. Now, the MPEG-2 specification says

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that all the following frames will require either this "I" frame or some other frame that has been recently
decoded. The MPEG-2 decoder can then keep a small number of frames in memory and it knows that any "P"
or "B" frame it comes across can be decoded from information it already has. The process repeats itself once
another "I" frame is encountered. Easy.
When EditStudio uses the MPEG-2 decoder however, it isn't asking for a simple sequence of frames. It might
ask for frames 17, 97 and 427 for example in order to redraw the preview in the timeline. This is where most
MPEG-2 decoders run into problems. If any of these frames are "P" or "B" frames then the decoder needs
information from surrounding frames - ones which it hasn't previously decoded. The MPEG-2 decoder now
has to decoder all the extra surrounding frames, just to get the one that it's been asked for.
Speed (Or Lack Of It)
If decoding a single frame requires surrounding frames to also be decoded first, this clearly makes MPEG-2 a
very slow format to decode. Asking for a single frame may typically require an additional 3 or 4 frames to be
decoded.
Quality Loss
MPEG (1 and 2) compresses by breaking the frames into smaller blocks and working out how the blocks
move between frames. Sometimes it's possible to see these blocks in the encoded movie file, especially if a
high level of compression is being used. Compressing as MPEG is acceptable if the quality of the source video
is high (eg. DV format) as the source video will be free from these blocky compression artefacts. If you use
MPEG as your source video format then you will already be starting with blocky compression artefacts. When
you come to compress the video again as MPEG, these blocks will be emphasized as the MPEG encoder will
not know that these blocks are undesirable. Repeated MPEG compression can lead to very rapid picture
quality loss and should be avoided.
Also Applies To DivX®
Almost everything that's been said about MPEG-2 also applies to DivX®. DivX® is also built on MPEG
technology (MPEG-4) and uses a similar method of compression. Again, MPEG-4 uses many intermediate
frames that require information from surrounding frames (in fact, MPEG-4 uses much longer sequences of
these frames so many more frames have to be decoded in order to extract a single frame). In our
experience, many MPEG-4 decoders don't extract single frames correctly and this makes these files equally
unsuitable for source video.
Why Is MPEG-2 So Popular?
After all this bad news about MPEG-2, why are people still using it? Well, MPEG-2 is very good a producing
highly compressed video for playback purposes. DVD and digital TV are ideal uses for the format. What
MPEG-2 is not very good at is a format for re-editing; partly because of the format itself which makes it slow
and prone to quality loss, but partly because of the capabilities of most MPEG-2 decoders in use today.
MPEG-2 is attractive to users because they can store large amounts of video in (relatively) small files on a
hard disk. The price you pay for this are problems when you try to edit it.
If you want to choose a format that's good for editing, choose DV. DV is quick to edit and suffers little (or
none in some cases) of the quality loss during editing. DV files are larger than MPEG-2, but that's a price you
have to pay for a good editable format. If you are looking for a highly compressed, high quality movie format
that's suitable for editing then I'm afraid that such a format does not currently exist.
Summary
MPEG-2 is an ideal format for the final movie file (ie. a file that won't be edited again). DV is a more suitable
format for files that will be edited again.

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INFORMATION FOR EDITSTUDIO USERS
This is the first version of EditStudio where we've looked beyond the purely technical abilities of the program
and tackled usability as well. EditStudio 4 was undoubtedly powerful, but some features were difficult to use
(including some editing functions), or frustratingly, were present in the program but many users couldn't find
them.
With EditStudio 5 you will notice the following changes:
- The menu structure has been completely overhauled. Features are now much more obvious, and placed
clearly as menu options rather than hidden away in dialog boxes.
For example, we lost count of the number of times we were asked "can you speed up or slow down video in
EditStudio?". You could, but you had to know that it was in the Transform dialog box. In EditStudio, Speed
now has its own menu item in the Item menu.
- More powerful editing tools. EditStudio 4 introduced "Close Gap" and "Delete Space". Both of these were
useful tools, but complex to use when all you really wanted to do was just remove the gap between 2 items
and shuffle everything along to fit. In EditStudio 5, you just click on the gap and select Delete. Much easier.
Similarly, EditStudio's "Insert Space" feature was a poor alternative to EditStudio's dropping items into a
gap, or between 2 existing items, and everything just shuffling along again to fit.
We also realised that users often want to cut out sections, rather than pre-selecting clips to keep. EditStudio
5 now has a "Cut Out Section" feature to do exactly this.
Trimming was also potentially underpowered in EditStudio with the Mark In/Out dialog box. Not only is the
name confusing for the new user, but for the experienced user this dialog box did not offer audio preview or
easy zooming around of the clip to place trim points. What users wanted was all the power of the timeline in
the Mark In/Out dialog box. EditStudio 5 no longer has Mark In/Out dialog box and all the editing happens
direct in the timeline. Now, all the tools of the timeline are available to you for selecting the Mark In/Out
times.
- Improved audio. Yes, we realised that for anything more simple audio editing, you needed an external
audio editor program to run alongside EditStudio 4. Although suitable audio editors are avaiable for little (or
no) cost, it was still a hassle adding audio effects and importing the results back into EditStudio.
EditStudio now has much more powerful editing built in. Common audio effects like echo, wind noise removal
and a graphic equaliser are all standard. Similarly, audio now has all the flexibility of video and can be sped
up, slowed down and reversed.
Audio levels can now be set for each item and each layer individually, making it easier to achieve a good mix.
- You may notice that we referred to "audio effects" in the previous paragraph, rather than EditStudio 4's
"filters". Filter wasn't really a very good name for them, as most people find the concept of effects easier to
understand than filters. EditStudio 5 now has "audio effects" and "video effects" - simple.
Other EditStudio-specific terminology has been removed as well in the name of clarity. "Toppings" have been
removed; effects are now applied direct to the item. You no longer "build" a movie, you "export" it. The
"Herb Garden" transition has been renamed to Custom Mask.
- EditStudio's layers were always a powerful feature of the program, but for new users it wasn't often clear
exactly where you put items to organise a project. EditStudio 5 now has layer types and the program will
help you by putting new items in appropriate places. You can always change this later of course, and you can
even put it back to the way EditStudio 4 worked, but we don't think you'll find any reason to do this.
- Other helper features include the automatic creating of transitions and crossfades for overlapping items. If
you're overlapping items in EditStudio in order to add a transition, it makes sense that the program should
put it there for you automatically.
- We've removed a lot of annoying stuff (we're a little embarrassed about some of these!). You are no longer
asked whether you want to delete an item when you select Delete. Of course, you do, that's why you
selected Delete. On the occasion where you did accidentally select Delete, you can always undo the
operation; that's what undo is there for.
Audio peak files. They take a while to generate and for most of the time you don't need them. And EditStudio
always asked you about them. EditStudio doesn't - you can generate them if you want, but otherwise you're
not hassled.

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Annoying error messages. Errors are now resigned to the status bar. Read them if you want, but most of the
time you aren't bothered and so you can just get on with the work in hand. We've also improved the quality
of the error messages - no more cryptic DirectX error messages now. We realise that we still a way to go
here though, so please tell us if you've found an unhelpful error message (Email: enquiries@puremotion.com
and tell us).
- Applying effects direct to items is now the preferred way of working. EditStudio wasn't very clear about
showing when items had effects applied to them, but EditStudio now draws the applied effect on the item.
It's now much clearer when items have effects, as well as selecting effects.
- Much better help. We think our intentions were good with EditStudio's help, but there were 3 sources of
help: the help file, the interactive help guide and the printed "Introductory Guide" available from our web
site. Each source of help contained different, but complementary information. Now everything is in this
manual. Getting started information is here. All the effects are described here. Advanced topics are included.
It's all in PDF format and easy to print out.
- MPEG XS is included as part of the package. DVD is so popular now that everyone should get this as part of
EditStudio. The QuickTime and Windows Media plugins are now also included by default, which should stop
the confusion over what plugins are required to import the popular video formats.
- Advanced colour management included as standard. 3 point colour correction can improve the quality of
your video greatly, in the right hands. Not only do we include the ability to do colour correction at the same
level as professional imaging programs, but we show you how to use it (see Tutorial: Automatic Colour
Correction [page 139] and Tutorial: Manual Colour Correction [page 141]).
- Re-designed Media Explorer. EditStudio had basic effects like "Brightness" in the "Global Library / Video
Effects & Transitions / Effects / Balance" folder of the Media Explorer". Now, "Brightness" is in the "Balance"
section of the "Video Effects" tab.
All of the Media Explorer is broken down into similar obvious sections and all items are only one click away.
- No storyboard. This is another source of confusion removed. The storyboard was intended as a starting
point for new users, but it was pretty simple and you had to use the timeline to perform many of the neat
features of EditStudio. The storyboard did have some useful capabilities though, allowing the user to quickly
arrange a movie because it would automatically re-arrange the items.
In EditStudio 5, the timeline now has all the ease-of-use that the storyboard had, so there's no reason to
keep the storyboard at all. From a user's perspective, no decision has to made about whether you need to
edit your movie using storyboard, timeline or both.
We hope that you find the changes made for EditStudio are to your liking, and understand why the changes
were made. With this release, we've taken onboard the greatest amount of feedback from our users. If there
things you like, please tell us. If there are things you don't like, please tell us. Our Email, as always, is
enquiries@puremotion.com

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REFERENCE: VIDEO EFFECTS
Balance > Adjust HSL
Changes the video Hue (colour), Saturation (intensity) and Lightness of the video.
Hue; Shifts the Hue of the colours in the video around the colour wheel
Saturation; Sets the intensity of the colour, from low (greyscale) to high intensity
Lightness; The brightness of the video, from dark to light
Changing the Hue can used as a special effect of the variety found in music videos. The Saturation and
Lightness settings can be used to recover lost colour in captured video, or reduce over-saturated video to
something more life-like.
Examples

Hue change Reduced saturation Increased lightness

Balance > Adjust HSV

Changes the video Hue (colour), Saturation (intensity) and Value (colour brightness) of the video.
Hue; Shifts the Hue of the colours in the video around the colour wheel

Saturation; Sets the intensity of the colour, from low (greyscale) to high intensity
Value; The brightness of the colour, from dark to bright
Changing the Hue can used as a special effect of the variety found in music videos. The Saturation and Value
settings can be used to recover lost colour in captured video, or reduce over-saturated video to something
more life-like.
Examples
See Balance > Adjust HSL [page 164].

Balance > Adjust RGB

Changes the levels of Red, Green and Blue in the video.
Red, Green, Blue; Sets the levels of the 3 component colours
This effect can be useful to remove intense red or blue from a video clip when the camcorder's white balance
has not been set correctly.

Balance > Brightness / Contrast / Gamma

Allows you to change the colour balance (brightness, contrast and gamma) of an image.
Brightness; The brightness controls make the overall image brighter or darker.
Contrast; Changes the contrast, so that dark areas become darker and light areas become lighter.

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Gamma; Gamma affects how the light and dark colours are treated in an image. An increased gamma value
(greater than 1.0) will brighten all the light colours in the image, but leave the dark colours largely
untouched. This has the effect of also increasing the contrast. Reduced gamma darkens the dark colours in
the image while leaving the light colours largely alone.
Examples

brighten brighten, multiplicative increased contrast

Colour Suite > Colour Correct

Adjust the colour balance. Drag the handle in each wheel in the direction to tint the colour of the frame
towards.
Shadows; Affects the dark areas of the frame. Has the most affect on pure black areas with no affect on pure
white areas. The Hue represents the colour to tint the colours in the frame towards and the magnitude
represents the strength of the colour change.
Click the complimentary eyedropper (the one with the minus symbol) then click on an area in the monitor
frame which is dark and should be neutral in colour. Use the positive eyedropper to add a colour to the dark
areas of the frame.
Midtones; Affects the mid-brightness areas of the frame. Click the complimentary eyedropper (the one with
the minus symbol) then click on an area in the monitor frame which is mid-brightness and should be neutral
in colour. Use the positive eyedropper to add a colour to the midtone areas of the frame.
Highlights; Affects the light areas of the frame. Has the most affect on pure white areas with no affect on
pure black areas.
Click the complimentary eyedropper (the one with the minus symbol) then click on an area in the monitor
frame which is light and should be neutral in colour. Use the positive eyedropper to add a colour to the light
areas of the frame.
Auto; Automatically set up the effect to correct the frame at the time cursor to have a neutral colour balance.
Use the Settings dialog to determine which colour wheels are adjusted when using the Auto feature.
Settings; Sets which colour wheels are adjusted when using the Auto feature.
Reset; Resets all the settings back to the default.

Colour Suite > Levels

Displays a histogram of the frame at the time cursor. Allows brightness, contrast and gamma adjustments as
well as colour adjustments. The histogram chart shows the distribution of colours within the frame at the
time cursor. The horizontal axis, broadly speaking, represents the brightness of the colours with dark colours
on the left to light colours on the right. The height of the bar at any point indicates the number of pixels
within the image with that brightness profile. You can see a separate histogram for each channel (red, green
and blue) using the Channel drop down box. The RGB channel setting is effectively each of the individual
colour histogram superimposed on top of each other.
Channel; Sets which channel is displayed in the histogram and which channel is adjusted by the input and
output level controls. The RGB setting shows the red, green and blue channels superimposed together in the
histogram. It also sets all three channels at the same time when using the input and output level controls.
Input Levels; The left-hand text control sets the black point. Increase this from 0 to deepen the shadow
areas. The black handle below the histogram is linked to the text control.

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The right-hand text control sets the white point. Decrease this from 255 to lighten the light areas. The white
handle below the histogram is linked to the text control.
The middle text control sets the gamma level. Gamma values greater than 1 increase the brightness without
affecting pure black and pure white areas of the image. Values less than 1 darken the image. The grey
handle below the histogram is linked to the text control.
Output Levels; Clips the minimum and maximum values in the frame to within the output levels range. This
reduces the contrast.
Highlights Eyedropper; Click the eyedropper then click on an area in the monitor frame to set to white. Use
the Set target colour link to adjust the reference colour.
Midtones Eyedropper; Click the eyedropper then click on an area in the monitor frame to set to mid-grey.
Use the Set target colour link to adjust the reference colour.
Shadows Eyedropper; Click the eyedropper then click on an area in the monitor frame to set to black. Use
the Set target colour link to adjust the reference colour.
Auto; Automatically set up the effect to correct the frame at the time cursor to have expanded levels and by
default, neutral colour balance. Use the Settings dialog to determine which parameters are adjusted when
using the Auto feature.
Settings; Use the Settings dialog to determine which parameters are adjusted when using the Auto feature.
Reset; Resets all the settings back to the default.

Colour Suite > Curves

Allows flexible tone and colour correction via a transfer curve for each channel.
The curves control allow you to adjust how the input brightness levels of the frame map to output brightness
levels. The horizontal axis represents the input levels from the black on the left to white on the right. The
vertical axis represents the outputs from black at the bottom to white at the top.
Channel; Sets which channel is displayed and adjusted by the curve control. The RGB setting affects all the
colour channels at the same time so doesn’t affect the colour balance.
Curves; Click and drag to move a node. Click on the line to add a new node. Drag a node outside the curves
control area to delete it.
Input and Output; Shows the coordinate of the currently selected node. Press space or shift-space to toggle
the active node.
Highlights Eyedropper; Click the eyedropper then click on an area in the monitor frame to set to white. Use
the Set target colour... link to adjust the reference colour.
Midtones Eyedropper; Click the eyedropper then click on an area in the monitor frame to set to mid-grey.
Use the Set target colour... link to adjust the reference colour.
Shadows Eyedropper; Click the eyedropper then click on an area in the monitor frame to set to black. Use
the Set target colour... link to adjust the reference colour.
Auto; Automatically set up the effect to correct the frame at the time cursor to have expanded levels and by
default, neutral colour balance. Use the Settings dialog to determine which parameters are adjusted when
using the Auto feature.
Settings; Use the Settings dialog to determine which parameters are adjusted when using the Auto feature.
Reset; Resets all the settings back to the default.

Colour > Colourscale

Similar to the greyscale effect (see Colour > Greyscale [page 167]), but sets the image to various levels of
the chosen colour.
Example

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 colourscale

Colour > Gradient Wash

Applies a gradient colour tint to the video.
Gradient; The colour(s) and gradient type used in the wash. The less transparent the colours used in the
gradient, the more intense the colour wash.
This effect can be used to create "moody" skies to video, by applying a red or purple linear wash at the top
of the video frame. Using more interesting gradients can produce vignettes that border the frame (see the
examples below).
Examples

simple gradient wash vignette effect using an

elliptical fill

Colour > Greyscale

Turns a colour video frame into a greyscale image.

Colour > Isolate RGB

Greyscales an image, including or excluding a particular colour.
Operation; include or exclude the colour
Tolerance; match other colour close to the chosen colour. Larger tolerance values will match a wider range of
colours
Feather; increase the feather value to blend the colours into the greyscale
Example

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 isolate rgb

Colour > Negative

Turns the video image into a negative. Usually only used for special effects purposes.

Colour > Posterize

Limits the number of bits available to the video colours.
Bits of accuracy; Choose the number of bits for the colour information. The less bits, the fewer levels of
colour will be used.
Example

posterize

Colour > Simple Gradient

Generates a simple gradient in the video frame.
Gradient; Choose the gradient for the video frame
Typically used for producing backgrounds for text and titles. Can be used with the region capability to
generate a background for only a part of the video frame (eg. for inset text captions).
Examples

simple gradient used as background for

captions

Colour > Solarize

Inverts colours depending on their brightness.
Level; The brightness level above which the colours should be inverted.
Example

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 solarize

Colour > Solid

Sets the video frame to a single colour.
Colour; Choose the colour for the video frame
This is effect is good for generating backgrounds for titles by using solid black. The effect can also be applied
to a region, to hide something from view. Combined with keyframing, this allows you to hide moving items in
the video frame (eg. hiding a car number plate in a video sequence).

Colour > Swap RGB

Swaps the Red, Green and Blue colours of the video.
Red, Green, Blue; Choose which colour in the source video goes to which colour in the destination video.
This effect is used for special effects, but it can be used to correct video with the wrong RGB order if
necessary.

Colour > Tint

Applies a colour tint to the video frame.
Colour; The colour and level of the colour tint. Choosing a less transparent colour will result in more of a
colour tint.
Example

tint

Fade > Fade

Fade to or from a colour.
Direction; Fade to or from the colour
Colour; The colour to fade to or from
This effect is commonly used to fade video in at the start, or fade video to black at the end of a movie.

Flare > Flare

Adds a simulated lens flare to the video frame.

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Elements
Show elements; turn the display of the lens flare elements on or off. Most applications will require this
setting to be checked, but you can turn off the display of the elements if you only wish to use the light
source or rays generation aspects of the effect
Quantity; increase or decrease the quantity of flare elements in the frame
Scale; sets the size of the elements. Each element is a different size and setting this scale value will change
the size of all the elements in the flare
Intensity; makes the elements more or less visible. Choose a low intensity for a subtle effect, or a high
intensity if you wish the viewer to be aware of the effect
Use source brightness; setting this option will vary the element brightness by looking at the brightness of the
underlying video at the position of the lens flare source. If the source of the lens flare becomes obscured
during the video sequence (for example, if something moves in front of it), then you will want to hide the
flare elements during this period (a light source cannot generate a lens flare if it is hidden). Check this option
if you want the effect to automatically handle this for you
Light Source
Show light source; generates a light source at the source of the lens flare position. If you are adding lens
flare to a scene where there isn't an obvious source of light, the effect will only look realistic if a light source
is visible
Colour; the colour of the light source
Scale; the size of the light source
Show source halo; creates a halo (ring) around the light source, of the kind that might be visible if a real
light source were present in the frame
Rays
Show rays; generates light rays emitted from the source of the lens flare
Quantity; increase or decrease the number of rays visible
Scale; sets the size of the light rays
Intensity; determines how visible the light rays are
Animate rays during motion; if the source of the lens flare moves in the frame then you may wish to animate
the rays to make them "twinkle" during the motion. This can make the rays look more lifelike in some
situations
General
Random seed; the random seed value determines the relative size, type and arrangement of the lens flare
elements. Choose a different random seed value for a different effect, or click Randomise to let the effect
generate another seed for you. If you like a particular lens flare arrangement, entering this seed value into
another lens flare effect will generate the same element arrangement
The lens flare motion can be keyframed, to give the impression of tracking a light source in the frame. In
order to keep the Lens Flare effect realistic, we recommend ensuring that the centre for any motion be kept
pivoted around the centre of the frame.
Example

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 flare

Key > Chromakey RGB

Allows you to remove a colour (or range of colours) from a foreground video frame to reveal the background
frame.
Layers; The foreground and background layers to use in the effect
Colour; Choose the keying colour. This colour will either be included or excluded, depending on the Operation
setting.
Tolerance; Sets how close colours in the foreground image must be in order to be part of the keying process.
Larger tolerance values will result in a larger range of colours being used.
Feather; Use a larger feather value to avoid sharp edges at the edge of the keying colour
Chromakeying is usually associated with news or weather reporters, who stand in front of a blank blue or
green screen and background video is projected in its place. Similar effects can be achieved by using this
effect and a similar single-coloured background.
Hint: when choosing the key colour, click on the colour button, click "more" and select the colour by using
the eye dropper tool on the preview window. This allows an accurate colour match to be achieved.
Examples

foreground background key out blue

Key > Lumakey RGB

Allows you to remove a brightness level (or levels) from a foreground video frame to reveal the background
frame.
Layers; The foreground and background layers to use in the effect
Luma; Choose the keying brightness level. Areas of the foreground frame will either be included or excluded,
depending on the Operation setting.
Tolerance; Sets how close brightness levels in the foreground image must be in order to be part of the
keying process. Larger tolerance values will result in a larger range of colours being used.
Feather; Use a larger feather value to avoid sharp edges at the edge of the keying area

foreground background key out dark areas

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Knock Out > Knock Out
Removes unwanted text or logos from the video frame.
Colour number; The Knock Out effect can deal with up to 5 colours at a time and each colour can have
various individual settings. Choose the current colour to change with this setting and select Use Colour to
enable it. By default only one colour is used
Colour; The colour to knock out. All objects in the frame area that are this colour will be removed and the
effect will attempt to recreate the original background
Tolerance; A larger tolerance will also knock out colours similar to the chosen colour. Try to keep the
tolerance value as small as possible, otherwise you may end up knocking out unwanted colours that aren't
part of the object that you wish to remove
Outline; Many objects that you are trying to remove will have a small outline of pixels where the object
meets the video frame. Choose an outline value to remove these pixels as well, even if they don't match the
chosen colour
Example

with logo knocked out

Legacy > Magnify

This is a legacy effect, kept for compatibility with older projects. Please use frame placement now to perform
frame magnification, see Zooming In To A Picture [page 88].

Legacy > Pan and zoom

This is a legacy effect, kept for compatibility with older projects. Please use frame placement now to perform
pan and zoom, see Panning Over A Picture [page 87].

Legacy > Picture in picture

This is a legacy effect, kept for compatibility with older projects. Please use frame placement now to perform
picture-in-picture, see Tutorial: Picture In Picture [page 80].

Matte > Matte

Mixes a foreground and background layer together by the amount specified in a third "matte" layer.
Layers; Choose the "background", "foreground" and "matte" layers that the effect will use
A matte layer allows two layers to be mixed together, using the brightness from the matte layer to set the
mix amount. Normally the matte layer will contain a single greyscale bitmap that provides a constant level of
mixing through time. Mattes are often used for special effects where it's possible to create a matte bitmap
which exactly removes a particular object or item in the foreground frame to reveal the background. For
example, a normal sky can be removed from a foreground image to reveal a much more stormy sky in the
layer below.

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 foreground background matte effect

Misc > Emboss Low / Emboss High

Displays the video frame with an "embossed" or "etched" look.
This is a simple pixel effect, so the level of the emboss depends on the resolution of the frame.
Examples

emboss low emboss high

Mix > Mix

Mixes the foreground layer into the background layer.
Layers; The layers to use in the mix
Transparency; The level of transparency for the foreground video
Example

foreground background mix

Mosaic > Mosaic

Turns the video frame into a low resolution mosaic.
Horizontal / vertical cell size; set the size of the mosaic cells.
Example

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 mosaic

Old Film > Old Film

Makes the video look like old film by adding scratches, hairs, blemishes and slowing the frame rate.
Frame rate; Reducing the frame rate of the source video makes movement look more 'jerky'. This can help
reduce the smooth motion look familiar with video
Colour & brightness; Use the Tint to colour button and the Tint slider to set which colour you want the video
to tend towards. Check the Greyscale source checkbox to simulate black and white film. The Brightness slider
increases the lightness of the image and helps 'wash out' the bright areas, simulating a projected film.
Choose Enable Flicker to vary the the brightness frame-by-frame
Jitter; Jitter simulates the vertical misalignment of the frame sometimes seen with projected film. The
Amplitude slider adjust how far the images moves up or down and the Probability slider adjusts how often
the frame moves from its normal position
Hair & blemishes; Hairs are simulated as thin, curly lines which appear at random positions on the frame.
The Quantity slider adjusts how many hairs appear on average and the Visibility slider adjusts how faint or
dark hey are. Blemishes are black spots that appear on random frames and are visible for only one frame.
Adjust how often they appear with the Probability slider
Scratches; Scratches are simulated as vertical lines which appear over the period of several frames. Adjust
how frequent they appear with the Quantity slider and how faint or intense they are with the Visibility slider
Grain & blur; Film grain is shown by adding noise to the image (modifying the brightness of each pixel by a
random amount). Enabling blur can help simulate the look of a badly focussed projected film
General; All the random elements above are based on a sequence generated from the Random seed number.
Click Regenerate or type a new number to force a new random sequence
Example

sepia tone film hairs and blemishes scratches

Route Tracer > Route Tracer

Produces an animated route, ideal for showing progress across a map.
Animated route style; The colour and line style used to draw the actual route path
Nodes; Add and delete nodes. Select the current node by clicking on it in the preview. The selected node can
be deleted and new nodes will be added after the selected node in the route
Current node; Change the timing associated with the node
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Current node icon; Choose the look of the node. You can choose not to display any icon at the node so that a
route section can change direction part way through
Static route; You can choose to display the entire route in the background so that the route is seen to draw
over itself as it progresses
The route tracer effect also has other uses, including showing the progress of line charts (eg. company share
price) or even animated underlines for text.
Example
See Tutorial: Route Tracer [page 133] for an example of using the Route Tracer.

Sharpen and Soften > Blur Low / Blur High

Blurs the video frame.
This is a simple pixel blur, so the amount of blur depends on the resolution of the frame. If you are looking
for a blur with more control, choose the Gaussian Blur effect - see Sharpen and Soften > Gaussian Blur
[page 175].

Sharpen and Soften > Gaussian Blur

Applies varying levels of blur to the video image.
Start blur radius; the amount of blurring, as a percentage of the image width, for the start of the blur or the
current blur level
End blur radius; the amount of blurring, as a percentage of the image width, for the end of the blur. This
value is only used if the Change value (described below) is set to "Start/End".
Direction; blur horizontally, vertically or both
Fast blur; set this if you wish to use a faster, but less smooth, blur algorithm
Change; the blur level can be keyframed, but for ease of use and backwards compatibility then you also have
the option of setting the Start/End values instead
By keyframing changes to the blur level, the impression of a change of focus can be achieved.
Example

gaussian blur

Sharpen and Soften > Sharpen Low / Sharpen High

Sharpens the video frame.
This is a simple pixel sharpen, so the degree of sharpening depends on the resolution of the frame.

Utility > Copy

Copies the video from the chosen source layer.
Copy from; the source layer
This effect can be used to create "insert edits", whereby multiple source video items are imported onto
different layers and the Copy effect is used to switch playback between them.

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176
REFERENCE: TRANSITIONS
Custom > Custom Mask
Provides the ability to have many different types of transitions, including user-defined types.
Layers; The "from" and "to" layers to be used in the transition
Source; Choose between a file or a layer. If you choose a file, you will have to specify a filename for the
bitmap ("herb") file that will be used to generate the transition. If you choose a layer, specify the source
layer in the project that will be used to generate the transition
Resizing; If the herb bitmap needs to be resized to fit the current frame size, this determines whether it
should be resized with simple or smooth resizing. For most cases, simple resizing is fine, however if you herb
with lots of smooth gradients then you may wish to choose smooth resizing instead. Smooth resizing can
have the undesirable effect of smoothing any sharp edges in the herb bitmap however; something you may
need to be aware of
Direction; If the transition operates forwards, dark areas of the herb bitmap will be used to display the
background image first. Choosing a reverse direction will ensure that light colours are used first. Selecting
"Dual Blend" will perform the transition from the dark and light colours simultaneously
Number of passes; With a single pass transition, the length of the transition item will be the entire length of
the effect. By increasing the number of passes, the effect operates several times over the duration of the
item, however each pass will only partially uncover the background image
Feather; Feathering provides a smooth edge between the foreground and background images. Use small
feather values to remove the harsh "computer look" borders between the background and foreground
images. Use large feather values to give the transition a "soft" feel
Tile; The effect is repeated multiple times horizontally and vertically in the frame
Examples

"from" source "to" source drips

mosaic star sweepwave

Capturing Your Own Custom Masks

One way of creating your own custom masks is to use objects that you find around you. Anything which has
an interesting texture can be used as a custom mask. As examples, look at our Organic masks - these were
created using things like bread, rice and a baking tray.
General Rules

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Custom masks must be greyscale images and should have a wide range of greyscale values from very dark
(ideally, pure black) to very light (ideally, pure white) in order to work well as transitions. You can convert
any image into a greyscale image by using a paint program and most paint programs allow you change the
contrast of the image to expand the range of brightness in the image.
Scanner
For small objects, you can place these on a scanner surface and scan them directly into the computer. You
may wish to place some kind of transparent protection between the object you are scanning and the scanner
surface to avoid damaging the scanner.
Camera
You can easily take still images from a conventional camera, digital camera or camcorder and use these as
custom masks. Using a macro setting can enable you to get very close to an object and really pick our detail
in its texture.
Ideas
The following items can make interesting textures, suitable for using as herb bitmaps:
• Stones and small rocks
• Wood
• Liquids (obviously, in some kind of transparent container)
• Food (beans, sugar, spaghetti strands...)
Creating Your Own Masks
There are several programs available for creating texture bitmaps, and these bitmaps can make very good
herbs.
General Rules
Custom masks must be greyscale images and should have a wide range of greyscale values from very dark
(ideally, pure black) to very light (ideally, pure white) in order to work well as herb transitions. You can
convert any image into a greyscale image by using a paint program and most paint programs allow you
change the contrast of the image to expand the range of brightness in the image.
Kai's Power Tools
Kai's Power Tools provide a range to programs which can be used to render computer generated textures.
These textures can then be converted to greyscale and saved as herb bitmaps. Many of the Alien herbs were
generated with Kai's Power Tools (version 3).

The Kai interface is a little different, but it's quite fun generating new textures!

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At the time of writing, Kai's Power Tools were owned by Corel (www.corel.com).
Corel Texture
Along with the many packages that come as part of the CorelDraw package comes a program called Corel
Texture. This program allows you to general textures which look like real-world textures (wood, marble,
clouds, etc...).

Corel Texture appears to run slower than Kai's Power Tools which makes it less responsive to "interactive"
texture creation. The created textures though can look very realistic.

Dissolve > Dissolve

A simple transition from one video item to another. Dissolves the "from" layer into the "to" layer.
Layers; The "from" and "to" layers to use in the transition
This is the most commonly used transition
Example

Dissolve > Dissolve through black / white

A simple transition from one video item to another. Dissolves the "from" layer into the "to" layer going
through black / white.
Layers; The "from" and "to" layers to use in the transition
Example

Dissolve > Dissolve with blur

Dissolves the "from" layer into the "to" layer, blurring the video as the transition progresses.
Layers; The "from" and "to" layers to use in the transition

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Dissolve length; The percentage of the transition that the dissolve will occur. If this percentage is less than
100%, the from and to layers will be blurred before and after the dissolve
Blur radius; The amount of blurring
Direction; Blur the transition vertically, horizontally or both
Fast blur; Setting this results in a faster, but less smooth blur
Example

Slide > Horizontal slide

Performs a transition by sliding the "to" video to replace the "from" video.
Transition; choose the slide type, horizontal or vertical
Direction; forward. backward or dual blend. Dual blend starts the slide from both directions at the same time
From and To; choose how the "from" and "to" video frames slide
Example

Slide > Vertical slide

Performs a transition by sliding the "to" video to replace the "from" video.
Transition; choose the slide type, horizontal or vertical
Direction; forward. backward or dual blend. Dual blend starts the slide from both directions at the same time
From and To; choose how the "from" and "to" video frames slide
Example

Wipe > Circular wipe

Performs a transition by wiping the "from" video into the "to" video.
Type; choose the basic shape of the transition
Transition; sets the centre of the transition
Direction; forward. backward or dual blend. Dual blend starts the slide from both directions at the same time
Number of passes; the wipe will be applied progressively, with each pass performing more of the wipe
Feather; smooths the edges of the transition
Tile; tile the transition to perform it multiple times in the frame
Example

180
Wipe > Clock wipe
Performs a transition by wiping the "from" video into the "to" video.
Type; choose the basic shape of the transition
Transition; sets the centre of the transition
Direction; forward. backward or dual blend. Dual blend starts the slide from both directions at the same time
Number of passes; the wipe will be applied progressively, with each pass performing more of the wipe
Feather; smooths the edges of the transition
Tile; tile the transition to perform it multiple times in the frame
Example

Wipe > Diamond wipe

Performs a transition by wiping the "from" video into the "to" video.
Type; choose the basic shape of the transition
Transition; sets the centre of the transition
Direction; forward. backward or dual blend. Dual blend starts the slide from both directions at the same time
Number of passes; the wipe will be applied progressively, with each pass performing more of the wipe
Feather; smooths the edges of the transition
Tile; tile the transition to perform it multiple times in the frame
Example

Wipe > Elliptical wipe

Performs a transition by wiping the "from" video into the "to" video.
Type; choose the basic shape of the transition
Transition; sets the centre of the transition
Direction; forward. backward or dual blend. Dual blend starts the slide from both directions at the same time
Number of passes; the wipe will be applied progressively, with each pass performing more of the wipe
Feather; smooths the edges of the transition
Tile; tile the transition to perform it multiple times in the frame
Example

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Wipe > Linear wipe
Performs a transition by wiping the "from" video into the "to" video.
Type; choose the basic shape of the transition
Transition; sets the centre of the transition
Direction; forward. backward or dual blend. Dual blend starts the slide from both directions at the same time
Number of passes; the wipe will be applied progressively, with each pass performing more of the wipe
Feather; smooths the edges of the transition
Tile; tile the transition to perform it multiple times in the frame
Example

Wipe > Rectangular wipe

Performs a transition by wiping the "from" video into the "to" video.
Type; choose the basic shape of the transition
Transition; sets the centre of the transition
Direction; forward. backward or dual blend. Dual blend starts the slide from both directions at the same time
Number of passes; the wipe will be applied progressively, with each pass performing more of the wipe
Feather; smooths the edges of the transition
Tile; tile the transition to perform it multiple times in the frame
Example

182
REFERENCE: TEXT EFFECTS
Slowly moves each text character into place.
Lazy Move settings
Selection object changes; when the text selection object is selected, this determines whether you are
changing the effect's start or end position
Animation settings
Initial delay; delay before the effect starts to work
Transform order; apply the effect on the text characters from left-to-right or right-to-left
Reverse transform and fade; play the whole effect in reverse
Letter transform delay; time between the effect starting on each text character
Letter transform time; the amount of time the effect works on each text character
Ease in / Ease out; the effect will accelerate the start and/or end if these are set. The level of acceleration is
determined by the Acceleration value, described below
Acceleration; the level of acceleration by which the effect starts and/or ends
Fade letters; fade the text characters in as the effect starts
Copy transform times; check this to use the same letter transform values for the fade
Letter fade delay; fade each letter separately, delaying the start of the fade by this value
Letter fade time; the duration of each letter's fade
Text style
Opacity; set the text transparency, from 0 for fully transparent, to 255 for fully opaque
Shadow; add a shadow to the text characters
Glow; add a glow to the text characters
Example

Text > Ripple

Overlays text characters together to build whole text. Difficult to describe, nice to watch though!
Ripple settings
Ripple scale; set the size of the text characters.
Animation settings
Initial delay; delay before the effect starts to work
Transform order; apply the effect on the text characters from left-to-right or right-to-left
Reverse transform and fade; play the whole effect in reverse
Letter transform delay; time between the effect starting on each text character
Letter transform time; the amount of time the effect works on each text character
Ease in / Ease out; the effect will accelerate the start and/or end if these are set. The level of acceleration is
determined by the Acceleration value, described below
Acceleration; the level of acceleration by which the effect starts and/or ends

183
Fade letters; fade the text characters in as the effect starts
Copy transform times; check this to use the same letter transform values for the fade
Letter fade delay; fade each letter separately, delaying the start of the fade by this value
Letter fade time; the duration of each letter's fade
Text style
Opacity; set the text transparency, from 0 for fully transparent, to 255 for fully opaque
Shadow; add a shadow to the text characters
Glow; add a glow to the text characters
Example

Text > Star titles

Titles scrolling into the distance, usually saying something pretty epic!
Text opacity; The text can be semitransparent if desired
Fade distance; Change when the text starts to fade into the distance. The larger the value, the closer to the
front that the fade starts
Example

Text > Target

"Targets" in each text character into place.
Target settings
Scale clones; apply the effect vertically, horizontally or both
Number of clones; the number of clones that are part of the effect
Centre clones about; target the clones on the whole text or each text character individually
Animation settings
Initial delay; delay before the effect starts to work
Transform order; apply the effect on the text characters from left-to-right or right-to-left
Reverse transform and fade; play the whole effect in reverse
Letter transform delay; time between the effect starting on each text character
Letter transform time; the amount of time the effect works on each text character
Ease in / Ease out; the effect will accelerate the start and/or end if these are set. The level of acceleration is
determined by the Acceleration value, described below
Acceleration; the level of acceleration by which the effect starts and/or ends
Fade letters; fade the text characters in as the effect starts
Copy transform times; check this to use the same letter transform values for the fade
Letter fade delay; fade each letter separately, delaying the start of the fade by this value

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Letter fade time; the duration of each letter's fade
Text style
Opacity; set the text transparency, from 0 for fully transparent, to 255 for fully opaque
Shadow; add a shadow to the text characters
Glow; add a glow to the text characters
Example

Text > Titles

Powerful text effect ideal for simple titles, scrolling credits or simple text movement.
Movement
Text movement; choose from a number of easy to use preset movement types, or choose "use keyframes" if
you want to move the text manually
Pause text; pause the text movement at the start, middle and end of the movement for the specified times.
Not all preset types support all types of pause
Text scale; the overall text sizing (scale). This value can be keyframed if desired
Fade
Fade; fade the text in at the start and fade out at the end, for the specified times
Shadow / glow
Shadow; add a shadow to the text. Useful for making text stand out
Glow; adding a glow can highlight text, or a black glow can be added to lightly colour text to ensure that the
text is visible on both light and dark backgrounds
Background
Type; a background can be added easily to the text. By default, no background is added and the text is
shown against the background video frame. The background colour can be made to fill the entire frame, or
just the area of a selection object. By using a selection object, backgrounds can be easily created for subtitle
use
Example

Text > Twist

Twists each text character around its axis.
Twist settings
Twist each letter by; the angle which each text character should be rotated by. Use values greater than 360
degrees if you want each letter to spin multiple times
Twist axis; rotate each text character around the vertical, horizontal or Z-axis (in/out of the frame)
Zoom level; the relative size of the effect. This value can be keyframed to make the text zoom in or out
Animation settings
Initial delay; delay before the effect starts to work

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Transform order; apply the effect on the text characters from left-to-right or right-to-left
Reverse transform and fade; play the whole effect in reverse
Letter transform delay; time between the effect starting on each text character
Letter transform time; the amount of time the effect works on each text character
Ease in / Ease out; the effect will accelerate the start and/or end if these are set. The level of acceleration is
determined by the Acceleration value, described below
Acceleration; the level of acceleration by which the effect starts and/or ends
Fade letters; fade the text characters in as the effect starts
Copy transform times; check this to use the same letter transform values for the fade
Letter fade delay; fade each letter separately, delaying the start of the fade by this value
Letter fade time; the duration of each letter's fade
Text style
Opacity; set the text transparency, from 0 for fully transparent, to 255 for fully opaque
Shadow; add a shadow to the text characters
Glow; add a glow to the text characters
Example

Text > Typewriter

Types out text as though it were being entered on a typewriter.
New letter every; the delay between each letter appearing
New line pause; the delay after each new line in the text
Include cursor; check this to display a cursor after the end text character. This can be used to give a
"computer monitor" look to the text
Blink every; the blink rate for the cursor, if displayed
Cursor style; how to display the cursor. Choose from line, block or underscore
Cursor colour; the colour used to draw the cursor
Text opacity; semitransparent text is supported
Text shadow; apply a shadow to the text
Text glow; apply a glow to the text
Example

Text > Zipper

Assembles the text from the top and bottom of the frame like a clothes zip.
Zipper settings
Fly off to the; select left or right.

186
Animation settings
Initial delay; delay before the effect starts to work
Transform order; apply the effect on the text characters from left-to-right or right-to-left
Reverse transform and fade; play the whole effect in reverse
Letter transform delay; time between the effect starting on each text character
Letter transform time; the amount of time the effect works on each text character
Ease in / Ease out; the effect will accelerate the start and/or end if these are set. The level of acceleration is
determined by the Acceleration value, described below
Acceleration; the level of acceleration by which the effect starts and/or ends
Fade letters; fade the text characters in as the effect starts
Copy transform times; check this to use the same letter transform values for the fade
Letter fade delay; fade each letter separately, delaying the start of the fade by this value
Letter fade time; the duration of each letter's fade
Text style
Opacity; set the text transparency, from 0 for fully transparent, to 255 for fully opaque
Shadow; add a shadow to the text characters
Glow; add a glow to the text characters
Example

187
REFERENCE: AUDIO EFFECTS
Balance > Mono
Turns stereo to mono audio.
Source; choose whether you want to take audio from both channels, or just the left or right.

Balance > Mute channel

Sets the left or right channel to silence.
Mute channel; choose the left or right channel to mute.

Balance > Swap channel

Swaps the left and right audio channels.

Bass and Treble > Bass

Boosts or cuts the bass (low) frequencies.
Level; set the amount of bass boost / cut.

Bass and Treble > Treble

Boosts or cuts the treble (high) frequencies.
Level; set the amount of treble boost / cut.

Echo > Echo

Adds echo to the audio.
Delay; sets the time between echos, in milliseconds.
Decay; set the level of the echo. The higher the decay value, the quicker the echo will disappear.

Equaliser > Equaliser

A 5 band equaliser with main level gain control. Provides boost and cut for a range or low to high
frequencies.
Main gain; Sets the overall gain for the equaliser. If you boost a particular frequency by a large amount (eg.
lots of bass) then you can find that the audio clips and sounds harsh. Reduce the main gain to stop this
happening.
50Hz gain; very low frequency (deep bass)
200 Hz; mid-bass
2 kHz; voice
5 kHz; mid-treble
10 kHz; very high frequency

Equaliser > Low frequency equaliser

A 5 band equaliser designed for removing unwanted low frequency components like wind noise or record
rumble.

Filter > Band pass

A band pass filter providing filtering of frequencies outside the band region.
Low; the low frequency cut-off

188
High; the high frequency cut-off

Filter > High / Low pass

A high / low frequency cut-off filter for removing unwanted low / high frequencies
Frequency; select the cut-off frequency

189
REFERENCE: KEYBOARD SHORTCUTS

Function Menu Location Keyboard shortcut

File

Open Project File Ctrl+O

Save Project File Ctrl+S

Project Settings File Alt+Enter

Capture Video File Alt+1

Export Movie File Alt+4

Exit File Alt+F4

Edit

Undo Edit Ctrl+Z

Redo Edit Ctrl+Y

Cut Edit Ctrl+X

Copy Edit Ctrl+C

Paste Edit Ctrl+V

Delete Edit Del

Select Left Edit > Selection Ctrl+W

Select Right Edit > Selection Ctrl+E

Select All Edit Ctrl+A

Lock Edit Ctrl+K

Nudge Item Left Edit Shift+Left

Nudge Item Right Edit Shift+Right

Move Position Edit Ctrl+T

Rename Edit F2

Enable Layer Edit > Layer R

Disable Other Layers Edit > Layer Shift+R

Enable All Layers Edit > Layer Shift+U

190
Insert

Insert Files Insert Ins

Insert From Media Explorer Insert Shift+Ins

Insert Layer Insert Ctrl+L

Insert Space Insert Ctrl+I

Insert Titles Insert Shift+I

Insert Preset In Media Explorer Insert Shift+C

Add Single Marker Insert > Marker N

Add Double Marker Insert > Marker M

Add Chapter Marker Insert > Marker H

Add Subtitle Marker Insert > Marker B

Item

Split Item I

Trim Start Item [

Trim End Item ]

Keep Section Item ;

Cut Out Section Item Shift+O

Link Items Item /

Break Link Item Shift+/

Enable Keyframe Editing Item Shift+F

Add Keyframe Item > Keyframes Y

Delete Keyframe Item > Keyframes Shift+Y

Create Audio Fade Item Ctrl+F

Create Audio Crossfade Item Shift+X

Change Text Effect Item Shift+T

Increase Item Audio Volume - =

Decrease Item Audio Volume - -

191
Play

Play Play L or Space

Stop Play K or Space

Play Reverse - J

Go To Time Play Ctrl+G

Toggle Active Time Cursor Play Tab

Next Frame Play Right

Previous Frame Play Left

Next Item Play Up

Previous Item Play Down

Go To Start Keyframe Play Ctrl+Down

Go To End Keyframe Play Ctrl+Up

Next Keyframe Play Ctrl+Right

Previous Keyframe Play Ctrl+Left

Next Marker Play Shift+.

Previous Marker Play Shift+,

Go To Start Of Project Play Home

Go To End Of Project Play End

Create Fast Playback File For Item Play > Fast Playback Files D

Create Fast Playback Files For Play > Fast Playback Files Shift+D
Project

Tools

Pointer Tool Tools P

Speed Tool Tools S

View

Zoom In View F6

Zoom Out View F7

Help

Help Help F1

192
INDEX
Add Keyframe ................ 105, 106, 125, 127, 137
Audio Crossfades ........................................ 109
Auto Audio Crossfades ........................... 74, 132
Auto Transitions .................................... 74, 132
Break Link .......................................29, 68, 111
Capture Video ................................... 43, 46, 51
Change Item Volume .................................. 104
Change Layer Volume ................................. 104
Change Source File ..................................... 150
Change Speed.............................................. 92
Change Text Effect ..................................... 100
Copy .......................................................... 74
Copy Keyframe Properties............................ 128
Create Audio Crossfade ............................... 109
Create Audio Fade ...................................... 105
Customise Toolbar ...................................... 130
Cut............................................................. 74
Cut Out Section............................................ 64
Default Transition ......................................... 79
Deinterlace / Remove Flicker .......................... 93
Delete......................................................... 20
cutting out a section of an item.................... 63
effects...................................................... 78
items ....................................................... 68
keyframes .............................................. 128
layer ........................................................ 72
presets................................................... 120
space on the timeline ................................. 69
Delete Keyframe ................................. 105, 106
Delete Marker ............................................ 151
Detect Scenes............................................ 121
Disable Other Layers..................................... 72
Draft Monitor Quality .................................... 67
DV Copy.................................................... 153
DV Type Converter ..................................... 155
Edit Audio Balance ...................................... 106
Edit Audio Pan ........................................... 107
Edit Audio Volume ...................................... 105
193
Edit Text ..................................................... 95
Effect region shape
Ellipse ...................................................... 91
Rectangle ................................................. 91
Enable
layer........................................................ 72
Enable All Layers .......................................... 72
Enable Keyframe Editing....................... 125, 137
Export Chapters .................................. 117, 152
Export Frame........................................ 86, 117
Export Media Library ................................... 120
Export Movie ............................... 113, 114, 118
Export Subtitles ......................................... 117
Fast playback files
Create For Item....................................... 149
Create For Project.................................... 149
Flip............................................................. 92
Full Monitor Quality....................................... 67
Go To End Keyframe ................................... 127
Go To End Of Project..................................... 58
Go To Start Keyframe ................................. 127
Go To Start Of Project ................................... 58
Go To Time.................................................. 58
Help ........................................................... 10
Import File .................................................. 54
Import Files ............................................... 120
Import Media Library .................................. 121
Insert Files ............................................. 59, 87
Insert From Media Explorer ............................ 58
adding an effect ............................31, 76, 107
adding background music ........................... 26
creating a slideshow................................... 24
Insert Layer................................................. 72
Insert Markers
Chapter Marker ....................................... 151
Double Marker......................................... 151
Single Marker.......................................... 151
Subtitle Marker........................................ 102
Insert Media Batch Clip ................................. 51
Insert Media Folder ..................................... 121
Insert Preset In Media Explorer..................... 120
Insert Space ................................................ 69
Insert Titles ................................................. 95
Install Package........................................... 130
Invert Region............................................... 91
Keep Section ............................................... 65
Keyframe interpolation
Linear Type............................................. 127
Spline Type............................................. 127
Step Type............................................... 127
Keyframe Properties ................................... 127
Layer Move
Move Down............................................... 60
Move Up................................................... 60
Layer Types................................................. 71
Audio ....................................................... 72
General .................................................... 72
Text/Effect................................................ 72
Transition ................................................. 72
Video ....................................................... 72
Link Items .......................................29, 68, 111
Lock ........................................................... 71
Marker Properties ....................................... 151
Media explorer view .................................... 119
Media Item Properties ............................ 50, 122
Mirror ......................................................... 92
Monitor Properties ...................................... 158
Monitor With Camcorder .............................. 158
Monitor Zoom In .......................................... 67
Monitor Zoom Out ........................................ 67
Monitor Zoom To Fit...................................... 67
Move Layer Down ......................................... 72
Move Layer Up ............................................. 72
Move Position............................................... 60
Mute.................................................... 66, 112
New Project ............................................ 23, 39
Next Frame ................................................. 57
Next Item.................................................... 58
194
Next Keyframe ........................................... 127
Next Marker............................................... 151
Nudge Item Left ........................................... 60
Nudge Item Right ......................................... 60
Open Project................................................ 40
Options ..................................................... 131
Order Effects .......................................... 77, 78
Paste .......................................................... 74
Paste Keyframe Properties ........................... 128
Picture Placement .................................... 87, 88
Play............................................................ 66
Pointer Tool ................................................. 61
Poster Frame ............................................. 122
Previous Frame ............................................ 57
Previous Item .............................................. 58
Previous Keyframe...................................... 127
Previous Marker ......................................... 151
Project Settings............................................ 41
Redo .......................................................... 73
Rename
item ........................................................ 71
preset .................................................... 122
Reverse Playback ......................................... 93
Rotate ........................................................ 92
Sample Projects ........................................... 13
Save Project ........................................... 39, 40
Select All..................................................... 61
Select Left ................................................... 61
Select Right ................................................. 61
Set Default Transition ................................... 34
Show Action Safe Area .................................. 93
Show All Item Frames ................................... 74
Show Audio Waveform ................................ 104
Show Item Text Only .................................... 74
Show Media Info ........................................ 150
Show Plugins ............................................. 152
Show Start And End Item Frames ................... 74
Show Title Safe Area................................... 102
Snap To Frame ............................................ 73
Snap To Item............................................... 73
Snap To Time Cursor .................................... 73
Speed Tool .................................................. 93
Split ........................................................... 62
freeze frame ............................................. 86
trimming an item....................................... 65
Stop ........................................................... 66
Subtitle Settings......................................... 103
System Information .................................... 152
Trim End ..................................................... 66
195
Trim Start ................................................... 66
Undo .......................................................... 72
Uninstall Package ....................................... 130
Unlock Program............................................ 12
Update Project Files .................................... 150
Use Dual Time Cursor ........................ 57, 58, 65
Zoom In...................................................... 58
Zoom Out.................................................... 58