Trimmer vs Timeline

[Burt Alcantara]

On YouTube, most tutorials suggest using the trimmer. I get the feeling from most of the posts on this forum that the trimmer is a nuisance. As most of you are pros or very experienced amateurs, I'd like to hear your side before I get too involved one way or the other.


Thanks,
Burt

[Don Bloom]

I have tried using the trimmer and found it awkward, it just didn't work for me. For me it's easier to find my cut points in the clip on the TL, cut, move the clip and move on to the next one but that's just me.

[Mike Kujbida]

It's all a matter of personal preference.
Most of the time I work like Don does as I just find it easier.
A job I had last week though had me using the trimmer for the first time in a long time.
The producer wanted me to extract clips that met a specific criteria from a 3 hour training session.
I found it easier to watch the material in the trimmer, drop markers at the appropriate spots and then send them to the timeline one after the other.
This way, I didn't have to delete the unwanted segments from the timeline - and there were a lot of them!!

[Seth Bloombaum]

Quite a bit of my work is event-oriented, cutting 1 or more cameras, timeline editing, and sometimes multicamera, works fine.

If I'm cutting dramatic scenes where we've shot cine-style, running the action several times for different shots with one camera, the trimmer seems much more efficient.

I think that as the initial cut becomes more complicated, the trimmer becomes of greater use.

At least, that's how it seems to work for me. I do recommend that you spend a little time with the trimmer to get its basic functionality down...

[Mike Kujbida]

Some Trimmer tips directly from Sony:

Discovering the Sony Vegas Pro Trimmer window

Trimmer window enhancements for Vegas Pro 8.0c provide familiar source/results view

[Edward Troxel]

Typically for a standard project, I'll just drop the clips on the timeline, cut out what I don't want, and then rearrange as needed from there.

Sometimes I end up with a "hole" to fill and often I know what I want in that hole even if I don't know exactly where in which clip it resides. So I'll scan through clips in the trimmer until I find what I need, select that section, and drag it from the trimmer to the timeline to fill that hole. That's almost the only time I use the trimmer - when I have a specific hole to fill.

[Bill Binder]

Originally Posted by Edward Troxel

That's almost the only time I use the trimmer - when I have a specific hole to fill.

Even then, sometimes I find just dropping the clip into the hole, then "slipping" the clip within the hole (I think it's ALT-Drag or somesuch), to be easiest.

[David Jasany]

I've used a few times just to try it. I found it interesting, but not necesary for my work. I felt I was just adding another step to the edit process when it's not necessary. I can see where it makes sense if you're cutting sections of a long video, but that hasn't been my case.

[Jim Merchant]

Originally Posted by Bill Binder

Even then, sometimes I find just dropping the clip into the hole, then "slipping" the clip within the hole (I think it's ALT-Drag or somesuch), to be easiest.

Bill, thank you. I never realized that option existed. I've only been using Vegas for about 6 years, maybe I should read the manual one of these days.

As far as the trimmer, I never used it much until I started shooting live events. When I have a long bit of footage of something (like dancing at a reception), I run through it in the trimmer using the I/O keyboard shortcuts to mark the good parts, and saving the sub-clips to a new folder. Then I never have to go through the junk again, leaving it on the cutting room floor so to speak.

[Graham Bernard]

Over the years I have come to this conclusion: Use the Tool for the Job. (Actually this works for Life in general too!!)

Sometimes I want to assemble on the T/L (Edward) Sometimes I want to Assemble VIA the Trimmer. But I don't use the Ins/Outs options - I just Scrub over the Clip in Trimmer and Drag to T/L - done. I find this both efficient and keeps with that all important viewer experience in keeping the video rolling . . Anything that keeps the narrative seamlessly rolling along from one scene to another is all I ask - that's why I am with VEgas and generally see that SCS are always - ALWAYS - trying out new ways to keep this most, or THE, most important part of editing improving, and that they are willing to engineer-up new ways of doing this.

A] Tool for the Job

and

B] Experiment with different ways with different Projects.

What can I say?

Grazie

[Richard Jones]

Sorry to be late in contributing but I've only just come back from holiday --- which means more editing!

Although it is a "horses for courses" thing it's also a matter of personal preference (i.e. what you are used to). I tend to work from the Trimmer which I use as a form of Edit Decision List (EDL - a hangover from editing with film ---remember the smell of the glue and trying to keep the curly clips of cut film in order? How times have changed!)

I Batch Capture from the camera so that I have a number of shots relating to a particular place, scene or activity in one selection. I then play a single batch on the Trimmer and make frame accurate selections for transfer to the Timeline. It's easy (press A), especially as I sometimes find myself losing my place or, worse, getting the sequence wrong when editing on the Timeline. A big advantage of using this method is that you can use the Tab button to transfer either the video or the audio on its own, so avoiding the need to separately select and edit/delete on the audio track of the Timeline or allowing the audio from one shot to be placed elsewhere in the project.

Hope this helps rather than confuses.

Richard

[Robin Davies-Rollinson]

I agree with you Richard: Trimmer every time (although coming from other NLEs, "trimmer" isn't a term that comes easily...)
- and yes, I do remember film splicers and having to scrape off the emulsion before applying the cement - and hoping the joins would last as they went through telecine...

[Edward Troxel]

I agree that everyone should use the method that works for THEM. I did NOT come from a film background so that extra window is generally extraneous to me. For others, it is a vitally important thing to have. Fortunately Vegas let's everyone work with their favorite method.

BTW, many people used to complain that Vegas didn't have the preview/trimmer window but there's always been a trimmer. It's just that from 8.0c forward the trimmer is now in a separate window instead of being docked with the other windows on the left and they've added a few new features to that window.

So, I suggest everyone try both methods, see which one they like best, and have fun editing!

[Seth Bloombaum]

Originally Posted by Edward Troxel

...So, I suggest everyone try both methods, see which one they like best, and have fun editing!

Quite right, Edward! Some of us who've contributed to this thread use either or both timeline and trimmer editing, depending on which method works better/faster for a particular project.

One thing that hasn't come up in this thread is the theory of 3-point editing, a classic workflow that almost always necessitates the use of the trimmer, but yields big rewards.

In this technique, 3 points fully define any edit decision. Most often, the points are an In on the timeline (cursor location), an In on the (trimmer) source, and an Out on the source. If you visualize this, you'll realize that once you've defined these 3 points, the edit is done, and you're ready to move on to the next.

However, it doesn't need to be In/timeline and In/Out source. It can be In/Out timeline, and In/ or out from the source.

Editors cutting interaction that was shot in film-style (multiple runs of the action shot by a single camera) use this workflow, and for good reason. Like working on a flat-bed film editor, or with multiple VTR sources, it supports concepts of Bins and Reels. In particular, a Reel for us is a Clip. If our Clip is several minutes long, and we want a series of short timeline Events from it, checkerboarded with Events from other Clips, the trimmer will allow us to easily grab a short piece, move to a different clip, grab a short piece of it, then back to the first. Repeat to end...

Hmm... this is harder to write about than to demonstrate. If productivity matters, then workflow is king, and the trimmer supports a very robust workflow for some types of projects.

PS. We're all doing 3 point editing, even when dragging clips to the timeline or double-clicking to load to timeline at cursor. The cursor position is In/timeline, the clip start is the In/source, and the clip end is Out/source. From there, as we drag and trim on the timeline, we're adjusting those same points...

[Adam Stanislav]

Originally Posted by Seth Bloombaum

Hmm... this is harder to write about than to demonstrate.

Perhaps you could make a video illustrating it?