Adding New Visual Events
Introduction
Unlike with our ADR cueing and recording solution ADR Master where visual events can also be created from a DAW, it is only possible to manually create Visual Events in Video Sync in standalone mode.
Navigating & Adding New Visual Events In Standalone Mode
To quickly scroll through the entire video timeline to roughly find the area of a cue, click anywhere in the timeline, & move the timeline’s playhead (the blue arrow above the edit cursor in timecode ruler display), by clicking and dragging it left or right, which will scroll through the timeline.
A similar effect can be achieved by dragging a selection in the timeline by hovering the cursor above halfway in the waveform, clicking and dragging left or right.
Once you are roughly in the area, to scrub the audio to find the exact start of the line, place the cursor above halfway in the waveform of the audio track associated with the video, & hold control while moving the cursor left and right.
At this stage it may help to use the zoom control above the visual event timeline to zoom into the area. Drag the zoom slider to the right for more detail or use the shortcut keys R and T respectively.
To fine tune the cursor point, move the edit cursor left or right in one frame increments using the , and . keys.
Add the Option key to move the cursor in increments of 1 second and the Control key to move the cursor in increments of 5 seconds.
To quickly create a new Visual Event with the default new event duration set in the preferences, press the relevant New Event hotkey (M, S or F).
Alternatively, you can also drag a selection in the timeline before pressing the hotkey to get a new Visual event with both the start and end timecode set to the selection boundaries.
This is only relevant to Marker Visual Events- which support both in and out points.
New Visual Events can be added quickly to the timeline at any time while playing back or stopped through the following ways:
Using the relevant keyboard shortcut. Press the shortcut relevant to the name of the visual event type. For a Marker, press M. For a Streamer, press S, For a Flutter, press F.
Using the relevant New Event command for the Event menu.
If the new Visual Event type supports text, The Text field will automatically be selected in the Properties tab, to start entering text into.
Editing Visual Events in the Visual Events Track Timeline
Any visual event can be moved in the Timeline by moving the pointer below half way in the visual event so that the hand symbol displays, and then clicking and dragging it along the timeline.
The in and out points can be adjusted by moving the pointer to the relevant edge so that the trim icon appears - and clicking and dragging to a new point.
Another way of adjusting the in and out points, with a Visual Event selected and showing in the Properties window - is locating the playhead to the correct start frame & selecting Set Playhead As Current Event’s In Point from the Event menu (or Shift+i); & then locating the end point & selecting Set Playhead As Current Event’s Out Point (or Shift+O).
Scrubbing the guide audio track can be a good way of identifying the correct points.
Any event can be duplicated by selecting it in the Timeline & selecting Duplicate Current Event or by using the global Apple duplicate shortcut Command+D.
Two or more events can be selected in the Timeline and merged by choosing Merge Selected Events from the Event menu, or by using the shortcut Option+Command+M.
The text fields from all selected Visual Events are automatically joined together in the order they appear - in the one resultant Visual Event.
A selected visual event can be split in half by placing the playhead at the desired point in the timeline & choosing Split Current Event At Playhead from the Event menu, or by using the hotkey Option+Command+S.
One or more selected visual events can be deleted by selecting Remove Selected Events from the Event menu, or by using the delete key.
To move multiple selected visual Events simultaneously by a desired amount, select Modify Selected Events from the Event menu, click the lock icon, & enter an offset amount in either or both of the In Point or the Out Point fields.
The lock icon locks the duration of the cues.
Editing Visual Events in the Properties Window
Any visual event’s timeline position can be fine-tuned numerically, or have additional info like text added to it (where relevant to that particular visual event type)- by double-clicking it in the Timeline or Event List. This will bring the Properties tab in the top left section to the forefront- with all the relevant details for that visual event.
When creating new events from the main window, the Properties tab is shown automatically - such that the visual event’s properties can be edited immediately. For Markers, the cursor jumps straight to the text box, allowing for quick text input without having to double-click the text field.
To ‘scrub’ adjust the value of either In or Out timecode field, click and hold the arrow button to the right of the timecode, & drag left or right to increase or decrease the value. Drag slowly for finer changes, or drag further for larger changes.
To retype the whole timecode value manually, click the field once so that the whole timecode is selected and type the full hours, minutes, seconds and frames timecode (excluding the colons).
The period and comma keys can be used as a shortcut to enter double zeroes into the timecode fields
To confirm after any new value is entered in any boxes, either hit Enter, or just click off that box.
To adjust just one timecode field, e.g. frames - double click just that field in the timecode- so that just that field is selected, & retype the value.
It is possible to edit one field this way, without the following fields changing or defaulting to zero.
To trim the start timecode of a visual event numerically while keeping the Out Point in place, the link button should be un-linked.
Likewise, to trim the end timecode of a visual event numerically while keeping the In Point in place, the link button should be un-linked.
To move the event, such that the duration of the Visual Event stays the same, click the lock icon shown between the lines that link the In Point & Out Point fields together - so that the link icon has no break between the two parts. When fields are edited in this mode, the other field will also be relatively changed to maintain the duration.
For Streamer events, the in point is the point where the streamer ends whereas the start point is the first frame of the wipe or countdown.
For Marker and Flutter events, the start point and in point are identical.
While is not possible to change the Visual Event type from the Properties window, this is possible from the Event list.
Editing Visual Events in the Event List
The Event list shows the same information shown in the Properties tab in the Main window, and the same result can be achieved if event properties are modified in one or the other. The only difference is that the event list shows information for several events at a time, while the properties tab only shows information for the currently selected event (or for the first if more than one event is selected).
This means it is possible to select multiple items and edit them simultaneously - for example changing the streamer duration to the same value.
Event boundaries can be modified by dragging the timecode modifiers in the event list next to the In and Out points.
Event Selection Playhead behaviour
There are a couple of general options which dictate how the playhead behaves when any visual event is selected. These can be found under the General tab of the Overlays Preferences.
When an event is selected - Go to Start or Go to In Point or Don’t move Playhead - dictates whether the playhead moves to the Start of a visual event that is selected, the In Point, or does not move the current postion of the Playhead.
Go to Start does not work when Locate DAW on Event Selection is turned on.
If Events are Selected - Show Only Selected or Show All - Selects whether only the selected events are shown (if at least one event is selected); or whether all events are always shown- independent of those selected.
Duplicating Visual Events
Hold down the Option key while dragging one or more highlighted Visual Events to duplicate them.
