add clips to time line

[vidiac1212]

Hi Guys. I just love and appreciate your site. I was wondering. When setting in and out points in the viewer, then choosing insert to time line, is there a way to insert on track 2 or 3 etc., instead of always going to track one?

Thanks so much.

not a pro, I just like to play!

[Dave McElderry]

After setting the in and out points you can just click in the viewer window and drag to the position you want on the timeline.

[RJ Johnston]

If you hold down the shift key as you drag and drop from the little clip viewer to the preview monitor, you'll get a popup menu with some options, one of which is to "place on top." That means if you have a clip on track 1 at the cursor, the clip you drop will go on track 2 at the cursor, or if you have a clip on track 1 and a clip on track 2 at the cursor, the clip you drop will go on track 3 at the cursor, etc.

[Steve Grisetti]

I think that drag-onto-the-Monitor feature was just added in version 8, Robert. But I do love that feature!

[Bob]

One more tip:

Many people don't know that you can set the in and out points in the clip preview window and drag the trimmed clip from the preview window to the timeline multiple times with each placed clip having its own in and out points. Each clip you place on the timeline is independent and will have the in and out points that were present when the clip was placed.

[Steve Grisetti]

How's that, Vidiac?! Several great solutions in the matter of a few hours!

[George Tyndall]

One more tip:

Many people don't know that you can set the in and out points in the clip preview window and drag the trimmed clip from the preview window to the timeline multiple times with each placed clip having its own in and out points. Each clip you place on the timeline is independent and will have the in and out points that were present when the clip was placed.

There was a time when I also did all my trimming with the clip monitor, but then I discovered that it's much simpler, and faster, to perform the trimming directly on the timeline. Does the clip monitor offer some advantage of which I may be unaware?

And while we're on this topic, why is it that, when I right-click Overlay rather than Insert on a clip in the Media panel, it nevertheless inserts instead of overlaying on a separate track, thereby forcing me to use the Ctrl-drag method of putting it in the correct place?

[RJ Johnston]

There was a time when I also did all my trimming with the clip monitor, but then I discovered that it's much simpler, and faster, to perform the trimming directly on the timeline. Does the clip monitor offer some advantage of which I may be unaware?

You can drag from the clip monitor back to the project panel to create a subclip, if you wanted. You can't do that by dragging from the timeline to the project panel.

At one time there was an option to "take" just the video or the audio from the clip monitor, but Adobe has eliminated that pro feature.

Steve, that feature of dragging to the monitor has been in earlier versions, since 4 I think. A couple more options may have been added in version 8.

[roadsideron]

When I have a raw clip that I have to rough cut edit I now use the preview panel and place in-out points in each rough cut. As I do each one, I drag and drop them into a folder for future use on the time line where I fine tune them. I've gotten so fast at it that I can cut up a long clip into rough cuts and have them placed into a folder in a short period of time. I do three characters in my educational videos and now that I cut up my clips in this manner it's much faster and eaiser to keep track of everything. Now using this method limits the expansion of each clip to it's original in-out points. That's the only downfall of this method.

[RJ Johnston]

There are also clip markers you can attach to clips in the clip monitor, so when you move a clip on the timeline, the clip markers stay with the clip. Useful for marking important spots on a clip. Other objects can snap to the clip markers.

[Bob]

why is it that, when I right-click Overlay rather than Insert on a clip in the Media panel, it nevertheless inserts instead of overlaying on a separate track

Maybe it would help if you thought of "Overlay" as "Overwrite". When you overlay one clip on another, the overlaying clip replaces the corresponding frames of the overlaid clip. Insert, on the other hand, splits the clip on the timeline at the CTI and inserts the other clip into it. No frames are replaced.

[George Tyndall]

Maybe it would help if you thought of "Overlay" as "Overwrite". ....

Still another crystal-clear and succinct explanation from the master.

Thank you, sir.

[vidiac1212]

Thanks everyone for all the great answers. I really appreciate it.