NewTek SpeedEDIT Quick Start Guide
Essential information to get started editing
NewTek SpeedEDIT QuickStart Guide

INTRODUCTION...4

System Specifications....4 Minimum:....4 Recommended:....5 Installation....5

QUICK START GUIDE....8

Launch SpeedEDIT....8 Set Project settings....8 Output Monitor....9 Window layouts....9 Clip Capture.....10 Add Media.....12 Concepts: Timeline vs. Storyboard....12 Building a project....13 Storyboard Trimming....14 Timeline Trimming....15 Trimming in Clip Properties....15 Flying Picture-in-Picture....16 Clip Inherit....19 Unlimited Undo / Redo...19 Real-time Chroma Keying...20 Color Correction.....21 Selective Color Correction....Wheel Color Correction...22 Tool Shed....22 Tool Shed Presets.....22 Image Stabilization....23 Cut to Music....23 Additional Resources....25 NewTek Online Community....25 NewTek FAQ....25 Online Technical Support...25 NewTek Technical Support....25

Introduction

SpeedEDIT is the Worlds Fastest Video Editor, and were delighted you have chosen it as
your non-linear editor! SpeedEDIT represents the culmination of many years of development by NewTek, the recognized creators of Desktop Video. If you have previously used NewTeks VTEdit you will feel right at home; those who honed their editing skills on other systems will quickly appreciate SpeedEDITs streamlined workflow.
SpeedEDIT is able and eager to handle web, DV, HDV format and High Definition video editing all in a single project! By design, the emphasis is placed right where it belongs on making it easy for you to tell your story. The friendly interface may seem very simple at first glance, but dont let the clean design deceive you. As you dig into SpeedEDIT, the depth and power of the tools it provides will make a lasting impression. This guide is intended to familiarize you with the key features and tools, and is not an exhaustive user manual. The user manual is installed as online documentation, accessed through the F1 Help key, and is also available in the SpeedEDIT Documentation folder.
NOTE SpeedEDIT supports diverse editing styles, providing a variety of ways to perform almost every editing task. (As one example, In and Out Points for a video clip can be adjusted in many different ways, one of which will surely suit your preference.) As you become familiar with the program, you will likely discover your own favorite techniques and workflow. Rather than get bogged down discussing the many possibilities then, lets jump right in and start using the program. Well explore the numerous alternatives it offers along the way.

System Specifications

Installation of SpeedEDIT can be achieved with most computers running the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. NewTek offers the following hardware guidelines:

Minimum:

Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon processor that supports SSE2 IEEE1394 FireWire card required for DV or HDV format capture DirectX 9-capable graphics card with 64MB RAM and minimum 1280x1024 screen resolution (ATI or NVIDIA chipset recommended) DirectX 9.0 support 1 Gigabyte of system RAM
IDE or SATA system drive with 6 Gigabytes of free disk space DVD Drive Windows XP (Service Pack 2) Operating System DirectX 9.0c or higher

Recommended:

(For Hi Definition or HDV format editing, dual CPUs or dual dual-core CPUs are suggested for the smoothest, fastest operation.) IEEE1394 FireWire card required for DV or HDV format capture PCI Express-based graphics card with 256MB RAM and minimum 1280x1024 screen resolution. (NVIDIA or ATI graphics chipset recommended) DirectX 9.0 support 2 Gigabytes of system RAM IDE or SATA system drive with 6 Gigabytes of free disk space Separate SATA or SCSI drives for video playback DVD Drive Windows XP (Service Pack 2) or x64 Edition Operating System DirectX 9.0c or higher NewTek recommends the optimal system configuration. Systems with slower processor and drive speed will work with SpeedEDIT, but some of the more complex functions may not perform in real-time. To review the minimum specifications suitable to your production requirements visit www.newtek.com. Oh, our attorneys wanted us to pass along that specifications are subject to change without notice. Your license agreement allows the installation of SpeedEDIT on one computer. After a successful install and acquiring the NewTek registration key to operate SpeedEDIT, the software can not be registered to run on any additional computers.

Installation

To install SpeedEDIT software on your workstation or laptop computer: 1. Insert the SpeedEDIT program install disk in your DVD drive 2. Allow autorun to begin the installation. (If you have disabled autorun, you can navigate to that drive and double-click on setup.exe) 3. Read the License agreement. Afterward, indicate acceptance by clicking I accept at the bottom of the window, then click Next 4. Read the SpeedEDIT Release notes in the information panel, as these supply important information that may not be reflected in this manual, then click next. 5. Determine the hard drive and folder where SpeedEDIT will be installed. The default location is the system drive, C: but SpeedEDIT can be installed to any drive in the computer by selecting the Browse button to the right. (If you choose a root location of a drive (such as E:\ ) the installer will create a SpeedEDIT folder for that location) 6. On the component selection window, choose Full installation (this will install the Windows Pre-Requisites and NewTeks SpeedHQ video codec.) Click Next
7. The Start menu panel determines the link that will be created in your Start > Programs listing. Leave this at the default setting so NewTek SpeedEDIT will be available from the Start menus for all users logged into the machine. Click Next 8. On the additional tasks panel, you may create a SpeedEDIT icon on your desktop (recommended for more convenient launching) and also create a Quick Launch icon, which will be placed on the task tray. Decide which you would like and click Next 9. The Ready to Install panel summarizes your choices before you begin. To modify any option, click the Back button, otherwise click Next 10. Click Install to perform the SpeedEDIT installation according to your choices 11. After a few moments, Setup will report the installation has been completed. 12. Click on the Finish button to launch SpeedEDIT. (Were almost done!) 13. Install the DVEs and Content from the second disc. [ 14. Before SpeedEDIT can launch, it asks you to enter a registration code. This will be based on the unique Product ID at the top of the Registration panel and serial number on the software CD. If your computer is online, the registration code can be obtained automatically at any time, by clicking option 1: Click here to visit REGISTER.NEWTEK.COM in the middle of the registration panel. This launches a web browser and connects you with the NewTek Registration system. NOTE: SpeedEDIT will lock itself to the computer hardware, and can only be installed on ONE computer. If you need to uninstall it for use on another system, contact NewTek Customer Service to update the registration information. If your computer is not online, jot down the Product ID and perform the following steps on a computer that is online, or call NewTek customer Service at 1-800-8627837. Telephone service can only be fulfilled between 9:30am to 5:30pm Central Time Monday through Friday. Connecting with the registration server online, enter the requested information to set up a NewTek customer profile. This is where all your product registration IDs, updates, downloads and more are accessible at any time. 15. If you are already a NewTek customer, you likely have access to your customer profile. Provide your User Name and Password in the Registered Users fields and Login.

16. If this is the first NewTek product youve registered, thank you! You will need to follow the instructions under the New Registration field. 17. After your account is set up (or you have logged in) you will see the Product Registration screen. 18. Enter the 15-digit SpeedEDIT serial number found on the Program CD. 19. If you are performing online registration from your SpeedEDIT machine, your Product ID will be entered for you automatically. Otherwise, enter the product ID exactly as it appears on the SpeedEDIT registration panel. 20. Select the processor manufacturer of the computer to be used, whether Intel, AMD or unknown. 21. In the next window, list the company that sold you SpeedEDIT 22. Below that, enter the purchase date 23. Lastly, you have the option of providing NewTek with additional e-mail addresses to send your key to. 24. Click Submit and your 6-digit registration code will be e-mailed to you. Paste or type this into the registration panel, and click Continue, and Speed Edit will launch. Lastly, insert the Content DVD and install the contents to your fastest video drive. This will provide you with clips to experiment with and follow along in the subsequent Quick Start. So, lets get started!

Quick Start Guide

Now that you have registered, launch SpeedEDIT by double-clicking the desktop icon. The following section is designed to orient you to some of SpeedEDITs unique features. Veteran NewTek editors are likely familiar with many of the following concepts and can review the detailed user manual online in the SpeedEDIT Documentation folder. If this is your first venture into a NewTek video editor, it would help to go through the following steps so you can quickly benefit from the streamlined workflow. In this chapter, we will take a short sample project from acquisition to editing, and then on to rendering and final output, covering the following topics: Scene-based capture from DV or HDV camera or deck Rapid arrangement of clips in Storyboard Adding and adjusting audio clips Inserting and modifying transitions Utilizing the linked Timeline/Storyboard dual view Real-time visual clip positioning Using Tool Shed to recall motions Inheriting clip settings Keying video clips Color selection and replacement Use of Tool Shed markers for quick cuts

Launch SpeedEDIT

If you havent already, launch SpeedEDIT by selecting Start > NewTek > SpeedEDIT or double-clicking on the SpeedEDIT icon on your desktop. If theres not a desktop icon, its probably because you declined that setting during setup, but you can right-click and drag the SpeedEDIT icon to your desktop for easier access for the next session.

Set Project settings

Upon opening SpeedEDIT, you are greeted with a list of recent projects and a short list of popular project settings. The most common project settings are divided by NTSC (The Americas) and PAL (Europe & Asia) standards. each standard offers both standard-definition (DV, DV 16:9) and high-definition (HDV 720p, HDV 1080i) resolutions for editing. This starting point is important, as it determines how inserted video is treated in both aspect and resolution.

Click on the New Project > HDV 720p setting, as well work on some HDV clips.

Output Monitor

We need to monitor our video, so open a preview monitor from SpeedEDITs Menu Window > Video Output. Drag it to the side and size it as youd like. Note how the Output window indicates both project size and the pixel size of the current monitor.
[OutputMonitor.bmp] The monitor also provides Brightness and Contrast controls, but this is only to compensate for differences between computer monitor, and does not affect video output.

Window layouts

Now that SpeedEDIT is open, lets discuss suggested window arrangements on screen. One idea is to have SpeedEDIT occupy the majority of your monitor, with one side open for the Monitor, the Add Media window and Tool Shed window and Clip Properties:

[WindowLayout1.bmp]

Clip Capture
While NewTek has provided you with both standard definition and high definition sample clips on the SpeedEDIT Content DVD, the logical workflow for new projects would be to ingest footage from the camera, so lets explore that. Keep in mind that SpeedEDIT is format independent, and can work with most clips straight from the camera, whether they are AVI, QuickTime or MPEG-2. Access this from the menu File > Capture. All clips must be captured via IEEE 1394 FireWire cable, so connect your camera to the computer with a FireWire cable and then power on the camera. The Capture panel has a file bin view at the top. In this window, navigate to the folder into which you wish to copy your clips. (For example, to navigate to the V:\Tutorial folder, click at the top on My Computer to make sure you are seeing all logical drives in the system
Double-clicking on V: will reveal all folders on that drive. Either create a destination with the New Folder button or choose an existing folder, such as V:\Tutorial. With your camera or deck in playback mode,
Press the Refresh button above the preview window to see your device listed.
Now, the play button lights up and lets you know that SpeedEDIT recognizes the device and is ready to copy clips to the chosen folder. Under the Record section, type in a file base-name (where it says Untitled) and also select the Auto Chop checkbox. This simplifies video captures by separating clips at every point that the Start/Stop button was pressed during recording. Each file will be appended numerically (QuickStart001, QuickStart002, etc) during capture. Now, press Record then the Play button and SpeedEDIT captures each clip separately to the folder. An entire tape can be captured and cut in this one simple step.
NOTE: If acquiring 16:9 DV or HDV footage, the capture monitor window is fixed at a 4:3 aspect and will look stretched. That is normal, and theyll display properly on the timeline. If Auto Chop is not chosen, use the deck controls at the bottom of the window to play the tape, and then the Record and Stop buttons to manually capture. Pressing Chop will razor the clip at that location without having to pause or rewind the tape. Pressing Reset will purge the entire current clip and restart capture from that moment. That can be handy to purge a bad take that you dont wish to digitize.

Add Media

Now that youve acquired content (or just want to use NewTeks sample clips), from the SpeedEDIT menu, you can launch the Add Media window, which allows a constant location to locate your assets. The Ctrl-I shortcut also opens this window. This is similar to the Filebin, but with several key benefits: You can click on one clip or ctrl-click a group of clips and press the Add button at the Bottom of the Add Media Window to insert those assets in your project at the position of the Edit Line. Like the Filebin, this also adds media in the order it was selected. You can open as many Add Media windows as you like! You now can devote your two main tabbed views to any combination of Storyboard and/or Timeline, without having to use one view for Filebin.
Holding the cursor over a clip you lets you enjoy clip playback right in the thumbnail. While it plays, hold the Shift key to play at 10x speed, or hold the Alt key to play it in reverse.
Concepts: Timeline vs. Storyboard
Traditional timeline editors continue to improve, but the timeline paradigm and the storyboard are fundamentally different for a very important singular reason: one is Literal, the other is Conceptual. Everyone can work, think, and convey faster when we only have to deal with concepts rather than literal details. Here's what I'm talking about. The time-line is far too literal for something claiming to be non-linear, and this is its biggest weakness (and its fatal flaw). Every clip has a space in time, taking up space in the time-line proportional to its length, and requires manual placement and manipulation within and surrounded by other clips that may also require additional tweaking to make up for changes. Storyboard, on the other hand, is conceptual and fully non-linear, which is its biggest strength. Changing one edit point means changing one edit point, with no need to worry about neighboring clips, or destination in / out points. As an editor, all you typically want is for one clip to play, and then the next, and then the one after that; usually it doesn't matter when it happens, it just needs to happen in sequence. With Storyboards, a shot doesnt have to take up an amount of screen real estate proportional to its run time. Storyboard can reach limitations or be difficult to use with complex situations that call for A/B edits, split audio, or compositing. And under these circumstances, SpeedEDITs traditional timeline interface helps you quickly progress. For much of what is typically edited, Storyboard is far faster.

Building a project

Lets get to the fun stuff and start building a project, shall we? Set your SpeedEDIT windows to Storyboard at the top and Timeline on the bottom. With a project setting of HDV 720p, navigate to the QuickStart Folder that was installed from the Content DVD in the Add Media panel. Start by adding the opening music and narration in the \Footage\Audio folder. Since we are going to be returning to this folder, lets make a QuickTab for faster navigation by clicking on the + key in the Add Media lower left corner.

Now we have clip 1 followed by clip 2. So the next clip to add to Storyboard is indeed Clip-03. Right after this, is Clip-04. If you scrub though clip 4, however, youll see we need to adjust clip 4, as shes standing still for too long.

Storyboard Trimming

We have a clip properties panel that well examine in a moment, but for now, lets look at perhaps the most efficient means of clip adjustment: modifying clips already on the Storyboard. Before you reach for a magnifying glass to view your storyboard icons, see how NewTek has already given you one! On the lower-right corner of the Storyboard is a magnifying glass. Left click it and drag it down to enlarge your icons to a comfortable viewing size.
If you are working on a photo-montage or long-form documentary, you can also get a maximized view of Storyboard by double-clicking on the Storyboard tab at the top of the window. Double click again to return to its default dual-pane view.
To adjust the clip in and out points, hold down the Alt key and move the cursor over the Clip-04 storyboard icon. Notice that with the Alt key pressed, the cursor changes. Mousing over the left side of any icon shows the first frame of the clip, and the cursor says IN
If you mouse over the right side of the icon, the icon displays the last frame in the clip and the icon changes to OUT. Continuing to hold the Alt key, left-click on the left side of the icon and drag it to the right. As you do, the blue bar at the top shortens to show the relative portion of the clip that is in use. The timecode value of this clip also refreshes across the bottom of the icon. Keep dragging to where she begins to lift the can to her mouth (at about 00:06:30). Again, notice that the linked Storyboard view instantly refreshes the timeline view with this change.

Timeline Trimming

Now, lets adjust the outpoint of clip-04. but instead use timeline view above. Click on Clip-04 in the Timeline pane so it is selected. Then, scrub the Edit Line to the point where the narrator begins to say over other leading brands (at about 00:25:00). With this clip selected, we can now tap the o key (for outpoint). This becomes our last frame. To adjust a clips inpoint, you use the I key. Now, add clip-05 in the Timeline view at the end of clip-04. Notice how clips snap to each other when theyre close. Two clips butting together will be a simple cut. If you overlap one clip onto another, region becomes a cross-fade.

Now, lets use Control Tree to implement SpeedEDITs real-time positioning feature and fly it on. In the lower pane, click the Control Tree tab In the bottom pane, click from Storyboard to Control Tree. The initial view reveals the spline window, where you can numerically control any edit parameter. Its much faster to visually position, so along the bottom of Control Tree window click on the Positioning tab.
The Positioning tab reveals the selected clip in the window, where you can very quickly position, size and move clips around. To start, click and drag the clip so the girl is centered in the right half of the frame. (You can hold down the Shift key if you wish to constrain any movement to horizontal or vertical only).
The mouse tool-tip will help you understand what can be done, based on where you position. As you clicked inside the clip itself, the tools-tip said move. Now, we need to crop the edge of her clip so shes centered frame left. Positioning the mouse over the right edge of the clip, the tool-tip changes to say Crop.
Left-clicking will now crop in all four sides of the clip. Go ahead and try it, Ill wait. Ok, now hit Ctrl-z to undo that. We just want to crop the right edge, so this time, when the tooltop changes to crop use the right mouse button and align the right edge with center frame. This right-mouse action can be used for all the quick moves you can easily perform in this window: size, crop, rotate, and smooth.

[PositionTab3.bmp]

Now that shes framed, lets fly her in to this position before the starts speaking. Scrub the edit line to about 05:05, just before she says What do you mean?. Positioner offers an automated keyframer that only needs be activated once, and any subsequent repositioning is automatically noted. Since we want her to be here by the time she beings speaking, activate Auto Keyframer at the top of the Positioning panel
Press the q key to jump the clips inpoint. Since Auto Keyframing is now active, we can just hold down shift and drag the clip upward until its out of view. Press the space bar to play and see our clip slide into place, and she begins speaking. Set the Edit Line to 7:00 seconds (just after she stops speaking) and click Keyframe again. This will hold her in position throughout her dialogue. Click on Ease Out next to Keyframe. Press w to jump to the clip outpoint and Shift-drag her downward out of view. SpeedEDIT even gives you the ability to back up a few seconds (pre-roll) into a clip to check its timing! For this, Shift + Spacebar will back up about 3 seconds prior to the selected clip.
Shes only using half the frame, so lets pair her up with a complimentary move from bottom-totop. Directly underneath her clip, bring in Over 1-Right.m2t. And turn on Overlay ( the y key). In the same manner as before, move him frame right and crop the left edge to center frame. Since her keyframes are already set, we can re-select her clip above and jump right the keyframes with the Previous / Next arrows on either side of the keyframe button. Again, the first keyframe we want to set for him would be at 05:05, so click the right arrow next to Keyframe to set the Edit Line there, then select his clip on the timeline and click Keyframe in Positioning panel. In the same manner, set the keyframe at about 07:00. Then, for his first frame, move

him down out of frame, and for the end, move him up out of frame. When youre finished, you should have both these clips mirror each other with them speaking in synch. If the two actors are not speaking in unison, then you can Offset or nudge by holding the Alt key and using the right and left arrows on the keyboard.

Clip Inherit

NewTek realizes much of your daily editing work can involve re-using or modifying what you already have in the project with different source clips. The Inherit feature makes this a snap! In our project, we have a couple of additional overlays of the man and woman nodding in agreement. But, lets maximize the time weve already spent creating the motion and keyframes by simply inheriting. Start by ctrl-clicking both Over 1-Left and Over 1-Right to highlight them. Ctrl-g to jump our Edit Line to 00:11:10. In the Add Media Window, hold down the Alt key and Drag in Over2-Left.m2t on top of Over-1 Left. Notice that with the Alt key depressed, a new tooltip appears on the timeline inside the clip: Inherit.
This helps you work faster by inheriting all the settings in the original clip, but using the new asset you dragged in. Repeat this by inheriting Over2-Right on top of the new placement of Over1Right. Play this section, and see that our clips still move in and out, but with completely new information! This is extremely useful when you have commercials in regular rotation but just need to exchange one clip for another, without modifying project length or clip dynamics.

Unlimited Undo / Redo

In SpeedEDIT, Ctrl-z is your friend. This undo keyboard shortcut is further enhanced by saving all your project actions with the project itself. When you save a project in a given folder, it will create a sub-folder by that same name. When you save a project and close it, those steps are saved and can be invoked when you resume editing days or months later! The default setting in Window > Preferences is the last 100 actions, but can be set to infinite if you wish to remember every action taken along the way. If you wish to redo something, press Ctrl-y.

Real-time Chroma Keying

SpeedEDIT allows you to key out selected clip colors in real-time. This means you can see the results without the need to render first. To illustrate, go to File > Open and open \QuickStart\Projects\Proj-08-Keying.vtp. Lets Goto 01:33:04 in the project where we have a NewTek logo as our base image. In the Timeline view underneath NewTek BG-B.jpg, lets add the clip \QuickStart\Footage\Overlays\HandShake.m2t. With Control Tree in the lower pane, Notice that in the left window, each category has a plus sign next to it. Clicking that plus sign will expand to reveal its options. Expand the Chroma / Luma Keying options at the bottom. (You can drag the Control Tree vertical bar to the right a little to show all text)
With the Edit line inside the selected HandShake clip, right click on the key color so the cursor changes into an eye dropper. This allows us to sample a specific color inside the clip. Continuing to depress the right mouse button, drag the eyedropper to the Output monitor and place it over the green and release. In doing so, youll notice the green in the video clip is noticeably darker than the default value.
Next, Click on the checkbox to enable Chroma keying. In doing this, the master checkbox also indicates Enabled. This is so you can see even in collapsed view that a particular category is active. Now, scrub the Edit Line to the middle of the clip where the hands are joining, and youll see a pretty bad looking key, with just portions of the hands visible, and the rest in black. Dont worry it just needs adjusting.
Start by turning the dial next to Key Tolerance down to about 25.0 or just type in that value and press Enter. Now we see the hands and arms, but they are still over black instead of the NewTek logo. To finish this, click on Overlay (the y key) and now we are almost there.
You may notice a small green edge along the arms. Eliminate this with the Key Choke control By dialing in (or typing) a negative value of about -3.00. There! Play the clip to see your results.

Color Correction

Selective Color Correction
In addition to keying out color (chroma keys) or brightness (luma keys) SpeedEDIT allows a very sophisticated means of changing up to four color regions within any clip. To examine this powerful feature, expand the control for Color Correction (Selective). Expanding this control reveals adjustments for masking, notably the Luma mask. Beneath that, Aux 1, Aux 2 and Aux 3 offer the same controls, with the ability to apply each to its own color. That gives you tremendous control over the look of your project, by (for example) deepening the blue in the sky, accentuating skin tones, or more.
Load up Project09-ColorFX.vtp. At about 1:14:00 into the project, youll see a doctor holding up a bottle of SpeedEDIT syrup. Lets quickly change the color of the syrup without affecting anything else in the clip using selective color correction.

As we did to Chroma key, we need to let SpeedEDIT know which color in the clip to modify. Again, right click in the Key color window under color correction
To obtain the most accurate data, we want to hold down the right mouse button and pick the brightest orange spot in the bottle, along the left edge
At this point, check Enable Chroma Mask by checking the box, and then expand the Color Correction controls. Lets turn an unappealing green syrup into a delicious orange color by picking our Key color from the brightest region of the bottle.
Once the color is selected, check the Chroma Mask box under Main to activate, and now adjust the Hue control to something orange, say a value around 580.0. If this just changes the color within the bottles highlight, this can be adjusted by raising key tolerance to a value of about 75.0 Keep in mind that this can now be repeated on differing color regions in the clip by performing the same steps in Aux 1 through 3.

3 Wheel Color Correction

All high-end video editing software provides color correction that can be adjusted in the low, mid and high tones, but SpeedEDIT is all about flexibility. NewTek realizes that many editors are more comfortable with video tools than graphics tools, so in addition to the expected color wheel for adjusting values, NewTek again broke the mold. SpeedEDIT color correction allows you to modify in a wheel, in a waveform OR in a vectorscope view. This feature is found by selecting the 3-Band Color tab in the bottom of Control Trees main window

Tool Shed

Tool Shed Presets
Since weve replaced the green color with orange, we have a problem of continuity, since the previous wide shot also shows the bottle. One of the greatest time-savers in SpeedEDIT is Tool Shed, and its ability to save specific clip settings for rapid recall at any time. Access Tool Shed from Window > Tool Shed (keyboard shortcut F9). Tool Shed offers several menus based on function, but at the very top is the most flexible: Presets. These Presets offer some templates for immediate application, including color filters, sizing, positioning, and flying clips on and off screen. To apply any of these presets, click once on the effect in the list, make sure the target clip is highlighted in the project, and click Perform.

Tool Shed presets can be applied globally across any number of selected clips. The greatest flexibility, however, comes in the option of User Splines. (You can read more about splines on page 144 of the User manual). The User Splines window is empty, since we have not created any, so lets begin by clicking on the User Splines selection in the left column. We can now highlight a clip in our project, and remember its attributes for re-use. To continue our example, highlight the color-corrected clip we just modified (Clip-15.m2t) in the timeline and in User splines, click the New button at the bottom. In the name requestor that appears, type in a descriptive name, such as Color- Green to Orange. The preset is now ready for application to Clip-14.m2t. Highlight the wide shot of the doctor in the project, and with our new preset selected in the window, click Perform.
If you have a nice clip motion you have created, or perhaps set up a colored border for a picturein-picture, all of this can be stored for one-click recall through Tool Shed.

Image Stabilization

Ok, so not every shoot goes as planned, and sometimes we have to fix it in post. One of SpeedEDITs fast tools involves steadying jittery camera shots. Lets see just how easy this can be. Go to File > New and choose the first preset for NTSC DV and click OK and Discard changes weve made to our color-correction project. This opens a fresh project view in Standard Definition. Load in \QuickStart\Footage\Clips\PlaneFlying.avi and in the Tool Shed window, expand the Video category, selecting Stabilize Video. While there are options that are explained in the User Manual, lets simply click Perform.
In seconds, you are presented with an auto-zoomed, quite smooth video that, if adjusted manually in the Positioning window would take hours!

Cut to Music

As you know, when it comes to project construction, audio typically drives the video. For documentary work, narration goes in first, with the video clips timed to match the spoken punctuation. For music videos, clips are set by tempo and vocal track changes.
Tool Shed makes the process of fast-paced highlights, cutting to narration and more quite easy with the use of clip markers. Begin with a new project and load in a fast-paced music clip. If you dont have one on the drive, you can use \QuickStart\Footage\Audio\30_HeyOh.wav. Double-click the file in the timeline, and as the music plays, tap the m key to the beat of the music. Every time you tap m, a clip marker is placed on the file. Drag in the video clips you wish to use for your highlights. In Tool Shed, Select the Wizards > Cuts to Music option, make sure the audio clip is highlighted on the timeline and press Perform.

This rapid macro sets the output of the first clip at the initial marker, ripples all clips in and repeats until all clips are adjusted to the music or the last marker is encountered.
To easily fine tune any clip to the segment you want displayed, you can slip-and-slide the clip in the Storyboard pane. With the cursor placed over the clip in Storyboard, hold down Shift + Control + Alt, and the cursor tool-tip changes to S/S to indicate slip-andslide. This means you can select a different portion of the video clip, without changing its length. This moves both the in and out points together.
If you have followed along all the way to here, congratulations! You are now ready to work on your own exciting productions, and be able to complete it far faster now that you are familiar with some of the basic workings of SpeedEDIT.

Additional Resources

NewTek Online Community
Again, to learn more about any feature within SpeedEDIT, consult the online User Manual in the SpeedEDIT Documentation folder. If you have questions, or wish to discuss techniques you can join NewTeks vibrant video production community on the online forums at http://www.newtek.com/forums/

NewTek FAQ

NewTek also offers an online FAQ to quickly find answers of frequently asked questions, which is available at http://www.newtek.com/faq/ This site is available by product category and is searchable by keyword.

Online Technical Support

If you encounter a problem with the software, we are eager to know more about it, and NewTek now has a technical assistance link on your Start Menu: Start > Programs > NewTek > SpeedEDIT > Support (web) From here, you can provide details of the problem, and then track that problem and be notified by engineering the moment we resolve it. Submit reports by e-mailing all pertinent details to SpeedEDIT-support@newtek.com

NewTek Technical Support

You may also call our Technical Support Line in the United States at 210-341-8444. Speak with your tech support specialists weekdays from 9:30AM to 5:30PM Central Time. You may also FAX your questions to 210-370-8030. Technical Support for SpeedEDIT is free.
Thank you again for purchasing SpeedEDIT and happy editing!

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Figure 3.52 To render a still image from just a single clip, you could scrub the Edit Line to your desired frame. Right click on the clip itself to open the drop-down menu, and select Render Selected to open the Render panel. Using the left and right arrow keys on the keyboard to advance a frame at a time through the clip will help you find just the right frame.
Enter a File Name for the still, and use the standard Filebin tools above to set a location for it to be saved on your system. As we only wish to render one frame, not the entire selected clip, click both of the Mark buttons, setting the In and Out points (for the render) to the current frame. Next, click on the down arrow button to the right of the Format field, and select Still Image Sequence (*.bmp, *.jpg ) from the menu. Choose a file format Preset just below that, and click the Render button (at lower right in the Render panel.) In a moment youll have your still frame file, which you can load into your project and stretch to any length. Figure 3.53
3.10 Transitions & DVEs
SpeedEDIT supplies over 500 DVEs (Digital Video Effects) to you, though we hope you never use them all at least not all in a single production! Some NLE systems differentiate between transitions and DVEs. Traditionally, transitions were simple dissolves or wipes that did not move the pixels of video pictures affected. Digital effects that manipulated or warped the video picture were termed DVEs. In SpeedEDIT, all transitions are digital, and so the terms transition and DVE are used interchangeably. Locating the DVEs When you install the SpeedEDIT DVEs, DVEs are located in the directory C:\Program Files\NewTek\SpeedEDIT\DVEs. Within that folder are sub-folders for a number of different categories of DVEs, ranging from Curls to Borders. The quickest way to access your DVEs, then, is by clicking the DVE QuickTab at the bottom of a Filebin HINT (If you have a favorite group of DVEs, you could also add that folder to your QuickTabs. Information on customizing QuickTabs is in Section 3.4.4, Quicktabs.)
3.10.1 Inserting a Cross Fade
The most common DVE is the dissolve or Cross Fade. You can easily add a Cross-Fade to your program by selecting a clip (or range of clips) and pressing Alt + f. If you picked just one clip, the Cross-Fade automatically connects the end of the selected clip with the beginning of the next (assuming they are contiguous). If you selected a range of clips, Cross Fades are inserted between each of them (this works in both the Storyboard and the Timeline.) NOTE If you are very observant, you will notice in the first clips audio waveform that the track fades down over the duration of the Cross-Fade, and the second clip fades up. (You can change this Auto Fade behavior for individual clips in the Selected Clip Properties panel discussed later.) Insertion Mode When you use Alt + f, look closely at the Out Point of the first clip and the In Point of the second. By default, SpeedEDIT will extend the first clip forward by 15 frames past the original Out Point and the second clip back by 15 frames from its In Point. You can change this option

Figure 4.4

Figure 4.5
We note that the resolution of the NTSC DV format then, is 720X480. A little further down on the panel, we note a field labeled Aspect Ratio. The value for the NTSC DV format is shown as 4:3. What does this mean? Its simple really the familiar cathode ray tube television screen of from the 1950s until the new millenium had a width to height ratio of 4:3, an image slightly fatter than it is tall.
Now take a look at the Aspect Ratio of the less common NTSC DV 16:9 format. As you might expect, the dramatic rise in the relative width indicates a much wider image, hence the common sobriquet widescreen. This 16:9 ratio is by far the most common widescreen format, and is far and away the most common standard for the variety of formats lumped together under the heading High Definition (or HD.) Pixel Aspect But heres a curious thing -- looking back at the so-called 4:3 standard, we note an anomaly. If we convert that aspect to decimal form, it becomes 1.33. The image is defined as 480 pixels high. All else being equal, for the image aspect to really be 4:3, the width value should then be 480 X 1.33, or 638 pixels not 720! Whats going on? The trick here is that all else is not equal specifically, one pixel can differ from another, and that is the case here. The pixels of the NTSC 4:3 format are not square they are actually slightly taller than they are wide, introducing another variable the Pixel Aspect Ratio. Pixel Aspect Ratio is handled automatically in SpeedEDITs Project Settings panel, so the value is not displayed -- but it will help you to know whats going on under the hood. When the pixel aspect is considered, a matrix comprised of 720 x 480 tall pixels do form the familiar 4x3 rectangular image. NOTE To go into this just a little further, the pixel aspect for NTSC is.9. Multiplying 720 X.9 results in an apparent image width of 648. When divided by the height, this in turn results in an image aspect of 1.35 when expressed as a decimal. A true 4:3 Image aspect would be 1.33, which is in fact the exact result when 648 is divided by 486. No co-incidence, then that 486 is the precise height of the NTSC D1 format specification. (The engineers who designed the DV specification permitted a little fudging of the figures.)
Figure 4.6 Lets take a more extreme example the (so-called anamorphic) widescreen of the NTSC DV 16:9 format. The first thing to notice is that the resolution of this much wider display remains unchanged from the NSTC DV standard of 720x480! By now, though, you know why dont you? This image for this format is composed of very fat pixels the pixel aspect is actually 1.2. In most other respects, the file format settings duplicate those of its 4:3 sibling. (Similar 4:3 formats exist in the PAL video standard widely used in Europe and elsewhere, but with different resolutions and framerates.)

4.3 Clip Properties Panel
An important module in the SpeedEDIT suite is the Selected Clip Properties panel. To open it, select a clip or DVE, and choose Selected Clip Properties from SpeedEDITs Windows menu (or use the keyboard shortcut, F8).
Figure 4.9 This panel contains a wide variety of tools you can use to tweak and refine your clips. Some of them have already been touched on earlier, and others will be described later (may duplicate options found in the Control Tree, so well just discuss them in that context.) For now, the features unique to Selected Clip Properties will be covered. If you have selected a clip with both audio and video, then on the top left of the Selected Clip Properties panels three tabs will be visible: Video, Audio and All (the Video tab will not appear for audio-only clips.) Clicking on any tab reveals a sub-panel with corresponding tools and options.

4.3.1 The Video Tab

Figure 4.10 Alias Names To the right of the main tabs is the Alias Name field. An Alias can be considered sort of a nickname for a clip, a short convenient nametag for use within SpeedEDIT. If you have previously assigned an Alias to a file using the File Properties panel (opened from the context menu that appears when you right-click on a file in the Filebin or New Media windows), it will appear here. Otherwise, the name that pops up in the Alias field is the original file name. Now and this is the tricky bit even if the clip already has a (File Properties) Alias, you can give the clip a second Alias! To assign a local Alias, double-click in the Alias Name field and type in a new moniker. This new Alias name does not replace an Alias created in the File Properties panel. The local Alias applies only within your current project.
HINT Why use so many different Aliases? Suppose you are editing the Garner wedding. You name a clip Kissing the Bride. Later, when you are producing your wedding demo tape, you decide to use six clips all with the name, Kissing the Bride? The local Alias feature allows you to assign a project-specific Alias, like Garner Kiss, etc. Ripple Modes At the very top of the panel, on the right, you will see the current Ripple status for Clip properties displayed in parentheses. Right click on this text to reveal a special drop-down Ripple menu illustrated here. Most controls in Edit Properties affect the selected clip' own s properties. For example, reducing the Audio level immediately changes the attributes of the clip. The Ripple menu in Edit Properties is different. (It may help to think of this as a convenient local preferences' setting.)

Figure 4.29

In Storyboard view, your Sub-Project appears as a separate icon with a + in the corner. To show (and edit) the contents of a Sub-Project, click on the + and you the icons inside are revealed in the storyboard, nestled between two sub project icon that serves as book-ends. The Sub-Project icons now display a sign in the corner. To collapse the Sub-Project again, click on the - sign.
Figure 4.30 When you reveal the Sub-Project in the Storyboard in this manner, you can still see the icons for the rest of your project -- however, the icons representing Sub-Projects scenes are smaller. Your project view can become rather cluttered, so SpeedEDIT provides the option of Drilling into the Sub-Project, instead of expanding it. When you Drill, you limit the Storyboard view to show only the scenes contained in the Sub-Project.
Figure 4.31 When you Drill into a Sub Project, the Path display beside the SpeedEDIT tabs shows your location in the project tree. Drilling is the same as moving around a file directory: think of each Sub-Project as a folder within a folder. HINT Another way to drill into a Sub-Project is to Shift + double-click on the icon. To back out of the Sub Project only view, click on the name of the Sub Project in the Path display. SpeedEDIT will collapse the Sub Project and display the icons for the entire project (or the next level up in the case of nested sub projects.) Sub-Projects in the Timeline In Timeline view, Sub Projects appear as a solid bar. You can move this bar around, and even trim or slo-mo it just like a normal clip. To work on the component scenes individually however, you must drill into the Sub-Project. The process to drill into a Sub-Project on the Timeline is the same as for the Storyboard. NOTE For both Storyboard and Timeline views, and unlike Drill, the context menu item Expand Sub-Project actually demolishes the Sub Project, restoring the component clips back to
normal status in the main project (or in another sub-project, if they were nested within it at the time of expansion.) Global Changes to a Sub-Project One of the big advantages to working with Sub-Projects is that you can apply Color Correction or Audio tweaks to the entire Sub-Project as a discreet unit. When you select a Sub-Project and open up the Control Tree or the Selected Clip Properties panel, you can see the Color Correction (and Audio tools) available. You even can scrub through a Sub-Project setting keyframes along the way, then use the Spline Editor to adjust the splines. Inserting Clips Into a Sub-Project This is not complicated just drill into the clip, then copy or drag the new material into it as you normally would. Folders and Sub-Projects If you drag and drop a whole folder onto the Storyboard or Timeline, SpeedEDIT automatically creates a project of all of the files in alphabetical order. This can be a great way to quickly structure a project using a pre-designed structure of nested sub-folders. The folder will load onto the Storyboard as one Sub Project icon. To see the individual clips, right-click on the Sub Project icon and select Expand Sub-Project. Or you can just double-click on the sub-project icon to play it. HINT If the files comprise sequentially numbered single frames from an animation, open the Preferences panel and change the Default Still Length (under FILES) to one frame.

Figure 4.43 The lower left corner of the Output window shows the actual project resolution and framerate. It also lists the actual Output window Display size (taking into account the settings discussed next.) The monitor refresh rate, listed in the Display section, may be taken as a recommendation. It is suggested that (where possible) you adjust the vertical refresh rate for your computer monitor (as set in your graphics card driver settings) to the suggested setting. This can reduce display issues (such as tearing) that may occur when the project framerate and interlace options do not correspond well with your current settings. (For example, 60hz is best for most NTSC projects.) In High Quality mode, the Output Window context menu lists preset size ratios for the display surface, from 25-200%. Best Fit scales the output image to fit the current Window size, while retaining image aspect. The Low Quality option does not have size options; rather it is always in Best Fit mode.) 4.9.4.4 Simulate Device Aspect Ratio When Simulate Device Aspect Ratio is disabled, every pixel is displayed on the computer monitor as-is; that is, without respect to the project pixel aspect settings that result in correct image proportions on the final target display. For example: suppose your project is ultimately intended to be displayed on a traditional (4:3 image aspect) standard definition TV set. If you have a circular object in your video clip, with
Simulate Device Aspect ratio off, each pixel of the clip will be show up in Output, but the circle appears to be an oval, because pixel aspect was not accounted for. On the other hand, if this option is enabled, the display will be scaled horizontally to produce a properly proportioned image. NOTE: Simulate Device Aspect has no effect whatever on the actual output from the project. 4.9.4.5 Overlay* Typical television display devices crop the displayed image somewhat. The Action Safe Area and Title Safe Area options, when enabled, result in rectangular overlays that help you visualize where important features of your production will appear onscreen taking into account this factor The Center Cross setting subdivides your image into quadrants to further assist with composition. 4.9.4.6 Output Volume Control
Figure 4.44 The volume control on the Output window has no effect whatsoever on the actual project levels (appropriately then, it likewise has no impact on the VU meter readings.) Rather, it allows you to adjust the sound level sent to your speaker system for comfortable, undistorted audio monitoring during playback and editing operations. NOTE: The maximum Output Volume control set does not permit gain to exceed Project levels; it can only throttle volume downward. So an improper setting of this control cannot be responsible for induced distortion. That said, you can still boost your sound card settings or speaker amplification up sufficiently to cause distortion (Remember, only you can prevent hearing loss.) 4.9.4.7 Brightness and Contrast*

5.1 Overview

Its tempting to think of the long list of settings that appears in the left-hand column as the Control Tree. Fight that temptation off. A deep list of adjustable settings is a nice start, but theres a lot more to it, especially when you recognize that in addition to establishing useful settings, you need to be able to modify them thoughtfully over time. Thus, to the right of the Control Trees list column we find a large pane that (by default) is dedicated to SpeedEDITs Graph Editor. Take a look around the Control Tree pane. On the left are the individual setting and options. To the right is the large Work Area. This larger section has a row of tabs of its own running along the
bottom left of the window. Each tab opens a specific control module, each of which will be discussed in turn shortly. For the moment, click the Positioning tab. You may be tempted to dive right into the Positioning panel features. For now though, lets start our exploration of the Control Tree in an orderly progression, starting at the top of the Control Tree settings list at left, and working our way down. NOTE A boxed + icon next to a category means that there are more items nested inside. Click on the icon to expand the category.

5.2 Video Controls

5.2.1 Layer Settings
At the top of the list, click the + at left to expand Layer Settings.
Figure 5.2 Aspect Ratio The Aspect Ratio menu provides a large array of Image Aspect presets. By default, it is set to Auto. The Auto mode essentially instructs SpeedEDIT to examine the current clip, and conform it to the project Image Aspect, without sacrificing its own proportions. For example, in Auto mode SpeedEDIT (usually) recognizes that the Standard Definition 4:3 video clip you loaded into your High Definition 16:9 project has to be scaled up, but that you do not intend the image to be distorted. So in this case, Aspect and Size are automatically balanced, with the result that the clip is correctly displayed with so-called pillar boxing. HINT If you wish to override this default Auto decision, you could simply raise the automatically chosen Size value until the clip fills the frame horizontally, up-scaling even further to produce a cropped, full frame 16:9 view on the Output. In certain cases, the file format of the clip may lack sufficient information for SpeedEDIT to correctly discern its Image Aspect. In such cases, you can manually select something suitable from the long list of presets provided. Quality When you are positioning and/or scaling an image asset, this setting permits you to raise the quality of the algorithm applied when you see a need to do so. In High Quality, full interpolation and sub pixel correction is performed (taking about 30% more CPU power than low quality.)

Click and drag left on the circle in the square icon to reduce the width of the image. Click and drag right on the circle in the square icon to increase the width of the image.
Y Size This tool reduces or enlarges the height of the clip. The values are in pixels. By default the value is the original height of the clip or image when it was loaded into SpeedEDIT. Click and drag left on the circle in the square icon to reduce the height of the image. Click and drag right on the circle in the square icon to increase the height of the image.

5.2.6 Cropping

When you crop a clip, you are cutting off portions of the image. Crop % This tool takes an equal percentage from each side of the clip, which can be useful if you want to trim off unwanted borders. Negative values have no effect. A 10% crop will take 5% of the clips width off the left edge and 5% off the right. It will take 5% of the height off the top and 5% off the bottom.
Figure 5.6 Crop Left This tool trims off the left edge of the clip. The measurement is in pixels. Negative values have an effect when the clip has been cropped already with the Crop % tool. For example, if a 720 x 480 clip has been trimmed 20%, then a Crop Left of -72 pixels will return the left edge to its original state (a negative value beyond -72 will have no additional effect.) Crop Right This tool trims off the right edge of the clip. Crop Top This tool trims off the top edge of the clip. Crop Bottom This tool trims off the bottom edge of the clip. HINT
Shaving about 3% with the Crop % tool removes unwanted black edges sometimes found in DV footage.

5.2.7 Colored Border

This tool will make a border around your clip. Think of it as framing a picture. You can pick the width and the inside and outside colors of the border. The tools countless refinements make for an inexhaustible number of variations. Truly, it almost defies description how varied the possibilities are!
Figure 5.7 Inside & Outside These tools work in tandem to define the Border width combinations. They can shift positions with certain settings, so dont worry if the Inside becomes the outside part of the border. These settings have no connection in determining the Inside and Outside Border Colors. If you want the border to begin at the edge of the clip, then one of the two needs to be set to 0. Negative values will extend the border outside the edge of the clip. Positive numbers move the border inside the edge of the clip. Number of sides Want to play around? Try these next few controls. With these advanced border controls you can change the number of sides for your border, creating stars, ovals, circles and pentagons. Rotation This will swing your border around your image, rotating away to any angle. This can be a cool effect to animate. Radius Multipliers This provides separate controls to distort the Even and Odd numbered sides. Experiment with this to see what you like. Smoothness Here are two more inside and outside controls, to smooth the edges beautifully.

Inside & Outside Color You can pick two colors and a gradient will be made between them that will color the border. The colors are specific. No matter which way you adjust Inside and Outside width settings, Inside Color will always be the inside color of the border. Of course, if you make the Inside Color and Outside Color the same, you will create a solid border. Both tools have their drop down Red, Blue, Green and Alpha Components. HINT If the inside of the border is inside the edge of the clip, the clip edge will be visible through the gradient when it is partially transparent. Brightness Top Left, Top Right, Bottom Left & Bottom Right You can apply a radial brightness gradient to any of the four corners of the border. The gradient emanates from the corner, and values over 1 make the border brighter; numbers between 1 and 0 make it darker. The effective range is from 0 to 2.

5.2.8 Edges

You can apply a transparency gradient to the edges of your clip or image. This basically replicates the Alpha Advanced settings discussed earlier, but operates on the four margins on the clip, rather than being applied radially from its corners.
Figure 5.8 Smooth (%) To create a consistent gradient around all the edges, drag Smooth (%) to the right. The larger the number, (up to 100), the more of the clip is used to make the gradient. Advanced Smooth Left, Smooth Right, Smooth Top & Smooth Bottom You can adjust the extent of the gradient on each edge of the border separately. These four tools use pixels as the unit of measurement. If you have set Smooth (%), then these controls adjust from that point. Negative numbers push the Smoothness out to the edge; positive ones move it into the middle.

5.2.9 Shadows

In the Control Tree, a Shadow is basically a background that is locked to the clip. A Shadow will inherit the clips Size, Position, Rotation, Cropping and Edges; but you can make the Shadow any color or transparency you wish. NOTE If Shadows are enabled, then Borders also will cast a shadow, but you cannot control its softness with the Shadows tools. The only way to soften the outside shadow edge of a Border is to make the Borders Outside Color transparent.
Figure 5.9 X Offset Usually you offset the shadow to one corner of the clip or image. Rotate the knob left to move the shadow to the left of the clip. (Moving left produces negative numbers.) Rotate the knob right to move the shadow to the right of the clip. Y Offset Rotate the knob left to move the shadow above the clip, (resulting in negative numbers). Rotate the knob right to move the shadow below the clip. Shear X and Y Shear values here behave just like their counterparts in the 3D Rotation Control Tree group. Smoothness This contains 3 more controls for smoothing the edges: Edge Smoothness (%), Blur X, Blur Y Even though a shadow reflects the clips Smooth settings, you can adjust the shadows Edge separately. Dragging to the right will increase Smoothness. If the clip has Smooth Edges and you want to give the shadow hard edges, then set its Edge Smoothness to the negative value of the

Figure 5.30 The Luma option is switched on at upper left, and the Waveform monitor is displayed (if Chroma was switched on instead of Luma, the left hand display would be a VectorScope.) To the right are the controls and setting for the color correction that will be applied. The default display is a
color wheel, but as before, you can use the menu to choose between several alternatives. Below this are Brightness and Gamma sliders. The broad green diagonal stripe on the Waveform monitor graphs the consistent grayscale values of the unmodified clip. Two adjustable horizontal white lines on this graph control the upper and lower limits of the Masks Tolerance, initially spanning the entire luminance range. Lets see how adjusting them affects the mask tolerance.
Figure 5.31 The white lines are accentuated in the second to show how a tightly restricted range constrains the color correction applied (for this example, simply a dramatic boost to Brightness) to a narrow luminance range a brightness notch filter, if you will. This results in greatly increased brightness across a narrow zone in the diagonal gradient if the test clip, and a corresponding spike shown in the graph above. Sliding the narrow tolerance band up and down interactively in the Waveform quickly gives you a sense of just where (in the Output) your mask is having effect. Of course, you can refine the mask using the numeric input fields in the Control Tee as well. You will see also that adjusting the Smoothness value up and down will either diffuse or tighten up the effect produced. 5.3.4.6 Practical Color Correction How might you use these tools? Lets review one brief example. The first image below was unfortunately shot on a rather gloomy overcast day. In the second, a simple RGB Color Correction has gone a long way toward turning on the sunshine, but has also had the effect of blowing out the highlights, leaving us with a white sky. The sky, however, is distinguished from the majority of scene by its high luminance values, making it a good candidate for Selective Color Correction. Setting up a corresponding Mask
permits us to tweak blue, brightness and gamma values until we have a nice, cheerful sunny day for our shot.

Figure 5.32

Figure 5.33

Figure 5.34

The other primary mask option is Chroma. Choosing this option really only changes the process described above slightly. Rather than using luminance to build our mask, we substitute color values from the image as the criteria. Lets consider another example, this time using Chroma to define the mask:
Figure 5.35 We have a profusion of colorful balloons in this shot. Sadly, our art director hates blue and loves green. A Luma Mask isnt going to help us much here, as blue, green and red ballo0ns are fairly close in brightness value. On the other hand, the blue is sufficiently distinct in the shot to make it easy to define a Chroma Mask. Right beneath the Chroma switch in the tabbed panel is a color swatch. Just like other color swatches in SpeedEDIT, we can right click on this one to engage the eyedropper too, then pick a base color for our mask directly from the screen.
Figure 5.36 Having selected a color, the VectorScope updates to display the color Tolerance circle in its new location. HINT The chroma circle in the VectorScope is an interactive tool, by the way. Just as we did when experimenting with the Luma mask, it is often useful to apply some completely overdone effect, (like pushing all pixels in the mask to bright red or white), then drag the circle around on the VectorScope to see how it affects the mask. Likewise, dragging on the circumference of the circle increases or decreases the Tolerance. These interactive methods permit you to easily observe precisely what will be affected when you apply your more subtle corrections. With some gentle nudging of the color correction using the color wheel, Brightness and Smoothing, it was pretty easy to replace those nasty blue balloons with grape green ones. NOTE Dont forget that the Color Wheel is not your only option. The drop down menu provides the standard array of Waveform and VectorScopes. 5.3.4.7 AUX Selective Color The AUX 1. AUX 2 and AUX 3 section in the Control Tree expand to reveal full clones of the Main Selective Color just discussed. This permits you to apply spot control to as many as four separate zones, using Luma or Chroma masking as you see fit.
Figure 5.37 To access the interactive controls for these sections, choose the AUX Selective Color tab in the right hand Control Tree pane, then enable the Aux 1, 2 or 3 tab at the upper left corner of that panel.

To the right are sliders for the master graphic equalizer. Above that are tabs to take control of each of your audio channels individually. Click on the top right speaker and drag its icon into the virtual room. You would be placing that sound. Drop that and grab the left speaker icon. Above and to the left is a checkbox, Turn on Lock Front Pan. Now move either channel icon and both channels will move together. Over in the far right is the reset button to restore the original positions. Reset is your friend. Soon you will have mastered Keyframing with your SpeedEDIT Spline Editor. Then you can keyframe your sound to fly around the room from one position and on to another. Wont that be fun!

Figure 5.43

5.6 Keyframe Basics
The real power of the Control Tree lies in the possibility of setting keyframes for any of its tools. If you are not familiar with keyframes, read on (if you know about keyframes, then you can skip forward a bit.) To explain how keyframes work, lets start with a basic operation resizing a video layer from full frame to quarter screen in two seconds: Load a video clip one of your own or something from the Newtek Content folder. Drag it onto the Timeline, and select it (by clicking it.) In the Trim Bay, turn on Overlay. Open up the Control Tree, and scrub to the first frame of the clip. This is where you want the clip to be full frame. You will be changing the size of the clip over time. Specify that, at the beginning of the clip it should be full size by creating am initial keyframe for Size. To make a keyframe, go to Size (%). (If you have questions about basic Control Tree operations, please see the previous discussion.) Since Size (%) defaults to 100, (which is what you want at this frame), click on the black circle and it will turn white. You just created a keyframe.
Figure 5.44 Now that you have locked Size at that frame, scrub two seconds forward and then set Size (%) to 25. Notice that as soon as you entered the new value, the black circle turned white because a keyframe was automatically made for you. Play the clip and you will see it shrink from 100% to 25% over two seconds. SpeedEDIT calculates the size at every field along the way. If you let the clip play longer, youll see that the size now remains constant because you have set no other keyframes. HINT If you want Size to be 25% at the beginning and never change throughout the clip, then you can set it to 25% and never have to create a keyframe. Those are the fundamentals. Go to a location on a clip, make an adjustment to any of the Control Tree tools, create a keyframe, move to the next spot on the clip where you want that tool to be at a certain value, set it to create a keyframe, and move on. Of course, the process can be much more detailed as you work with multiple tools, but the foundation is the same. HINT When you first start using keyframes, the tendency is to create more of them than you really need. Heres a good technique to follow. Lets say you are moving a video layer across the screen in three seconds. Go to the beginning and place the layer where you want it to start. Set a keyframe at the spot. Then scrub three seconds forward to the end of the sequence and reposition the layer; this will create a keyframe. Now, play the clip; if the movement looks good, youre finished. If its not quite right, scrub on the time bar to a new time in-between the first two, and adjust your video layer to create a keyframe. Often you will find that you need to create fewer keyframes with this first, last and then in-between method, rather than creating keyframes as you move through the clip.