I have have successfully imported an (mpeg2 shot with camcorder) video of a friend reading poetry into Magix Edit Pro. Now I'm trying to create very simple video (to post on my website and on YouTube) consisting of:
Text intro/titles
Poetry reading (one view, no effects)
End text/credits
I'm a total video editing software beginner. I have carefully looked at the PDF manual and it wasn't very helpful or clear to me. I don't have the CD video Tutorial becuase I bought the download version (trying to get the CD from Magix on Monday). I also looked at the YouTube videos and the videos on Magixician #2's website, but they were about more advanced effects (they were cool - maybe I'll need those someday! :-).
I'd like to learn to use "Timeline" for editing - it seems the most intuitive to me. Here are some of my beginner's questions:
1. What are the two red arrows do? Sometimes they seemed to mark the beginning and end of the video, and sometimes they just seemed randomly placed. Sometimes they seemed (my imagination?) to interfere with my attempts at cutting a section of the video out. How do I use the red arrows for simple editing functions?
2. What are the little white squares in the frames in the video timeline and how are they used? Something tells me they're important!
3. How do I select only certain sections of the video/audio to work on - in Timeline mode? I know this important!!!
4. What is that little clawed hand cursor? sometimes if I clicked using it, it undid stuff! :-(
5. How can I cut out sections of the video/audio? Note: I tried the method recommended in the manual of using the "t" on the keyboard (pause video where you want the cut, press "t", then delete) but it never cut at exactly where I paused the video - always a little before or after! :-( I want a precise cut!
6. and... the "t" method wouldn't let me cut out the a section at the very beginning of the video (wouldn't let me mark the start of the video as the first part of the cut)! :-( How to do that?
7. Once I have the cut, I see how to drag the two pieces to join each other, but how to I make them softly transition at the cut, instead of "jerk" from one image to the next?
8. How do put just plain text (with a simple still image background, or even just black) at the beginning of the video? I want a title and then an introductory text before the main part of the video.
9. How do I fade in only the audio track (while the intro text is showing, for example) without also fading in the video?
THANK YOU!!!!
Beginner's Video Editing questions, Magix Pro 14, your help appreciated.
davidronen
wrote on 11/8/2008, 9:14 AM