Archive:Kdenlive/Manual/Projects and Files/Clips

Information

* How to add clips from the file system

• Clips properties (right-click): What do they mean, what effects do changes have there?
• Additional clip types: Colour clips, Title clips, Slideshow clips, Stop Motion. How to add them?
• What does transcoding clips do, when is it used? (Damaged .ogv files e.g.)

* Project Tree widget: How to structure clips (folders) Done on a Project Tree page

Clips (Video, Audio and Images)

The button (Add Clip) brings up the Add Clip Dialog where you can choose video, audio or still image clips to add to the project tree.

The button labeled 1 toggles File Preview on and off. The slider labeled 2 adjusts the size of the preview icons. The Import image sequence checkbox labeled 3 enables the import of a series of images that can be used to make a stop motion animation. The Transparent background for images checkbox labeled 4 - is for ???

You can add other types of clips by choosing a clip type from the menu brought up from the drop down button next to the button.

Color clips

Color clips are images of a single color that can be added to the project tree. They can be useful to provide a background on which to place titles.

Add color clips by choosing Add Color Clip from the Add Clip Drop down button.

This brings up the Color clip dialog from which you can choose a color and a duration.

Clicking OK adds the clip to the project tree. The clip can then be dragged to the time line. The duration of the color clip can be adjusted on the timeline.

Title clips

See Titles

Slideshow clips

Slideshow clips are clips created from a series of still images. The feature can be used to make an animation from a collection of still images or to create a slideshow of still images. To create the former - use a short frame duration and to create the latter use a long frame duration.

To create a slide show clip choose Add Slide Show Clip from the Add Clip drop down list.

From the Slideshow clip dialog choose Filename pattern as Image selection method.

Browse to the location of the images that go to make up your slideshow and select the first image that will make up the slideshow. The subsequent images that are to be used in the slide show will be selected based on some sort of filename algorithm that predicts what the next image file name should be.

For example if the first image is 100_1697.jpg then the next will be 100_1698.jpg, etc.

Select an appropriate frame duration - this defines how long each image will appear for.

Then hit OK. A video file made up of all the images in the folder from where you selected the first frame file from will be added to the project tree.

You can then drag this video to the timeline.

Stop Motion

See Stop Motion Capture

Proxy clips

Activating proxy clips

Proxy clips are one of the most useful inventions for editing if you are not working on a ultra high-end machine. The trick is that the original clips are replaced by clips with lower resolution clips, with a less complex codec. Video decoding, e.g. of H.264 clips, requires a lot of computing power, but computing power is required for rendering effects in real-time. If insufficient is available, replay will stutter. Proxy clips will require hardly any computing power at all, which allows fluent replay.

Proxy clips can be enabled / disabled for the current project in the Project Settings (Project -> Project Settings).

To enable proxy clips by default for new projects, go to Settings -> Configure Kdenlive -> Project Defaults -> Enable Proxy Clips. See also Project Settings page

As soon as proxy clips are enabled, they can be generated for specific project clips in the Project Tree widget via the context menu Proxy Clip. After you select Proxy Clip for a clip a job will start to create a proxy clip. You can tell the progress of this job by looking at the little gray progress bar that appears at the bottom of the clip in the Project Tree - see picture. Clicking Proxy Clip again disables the proxy for this clip.

Once the proxy clip creation has completed the proxy clip will appear with a P icon in the Project Tree.
When rendering to the output file, you can choose whether to use the proxy clips as well. It is by default disabled, but for a quick rendering preview it is useful.

Clip Properties

You can display and edit clip properties by selecting a clip in the project tree and choosing Clip Properties from the Project menu or from the right-click menu.

Video Properties

Advanced Properties

The advanced properties tab displays... well ... the advanced properties of the clip. You can edit the advanced properties here. For example you can use Force aspect ratio to tell a clip that seems to have forgotten it was 16:9 ratio that it really is 16:9 ratio.

Markers

You can use the Markers tab to add markers for certain points in the source file that are important.

Once markers are put in your clip you can access them in the clip monitor under right click -> Go To Marker (see picture.) Also note how the markers appear as red vertical lines in the clip monitor (see yellow highlighted regions in the picture.)

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