Space between segments

[Mike Kujbida]

If you have Vegas Pro, Excalibur has a Gap/Overlap tool that will do this with the click of a button.
Otherwise you’ll have to enable Auto Ripple and start dragging tracks to the left to eliminate the gaps.

[Jim Lillis]

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, I have pro 9. Is Excalibur an ad-on or plug-in tool? I find it hard to believe that there isn’t a simple move in Pro to accomplish this. But, that said, I’m glad I’m not showing up as that stooooopid to not be able to find the topic in the help file.

I don’t have Excalibur, and with all the dissolves and fx in each segment I’m in NO WAY looking forward to moving all elements to the left in the timeline as a move to accomplish this.

Do any of the upgrade versions offer this?

Ripple seems to be an archaic methodology to accomplish something very basic in the edit process. I suppose if I’m limited to this process, I’ll have to click and associate all elements in the segment and move them to the left to close the gaps.

That said, what about using the “grouping” option? I tried highlighting a segment, then looking to make a “group” of the highlighted area, and moving “all” within the group. That didn’t work either. I could not make the highlighted area an actual group, so that thought wouldn’t work either.

Any thoughts on this would be helpful, as I have about 350 – 500 edit points to click on the entire 2hr 40 minute show.

If Vegas doesn’t offer this kind of basic editing option, I’m going to rethink my edit software money. Heck, even the option to simply highlight the blank spot between segments and ‘delete’ would be a treat.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

If it moves . . . Shoot it!

[Mike Kujbida]

“Is Excalibur an ad-on or plug-in tool?”

It’s an add-on with several very useful tools.
Download the trial version and see for yourself.
https://www.jetdv.com/excalibur/home.php

“Heck, even the option to simply highlight the blank spot between segments and ‘delete’ would be a treat.”

There is and it’s called Post Edit Ripple.
Make sure that that the drop down option for the AutoRipple tool (a toolbar icon) is set to “All Tracks, Markers and Regions”, double-click in the empty space between segments to highlight it, press the “Delete” key and then “Ctrl+Shift+F”.

[Aleksey Tarasov]

Vegas doesn’t allow you to delete multiple gaps in one step out-of-the-box. Several scripting plug-ins are available that can do it. Take a look at Vegasaur. It contains Close Gaps commands that can delete all gaps on the selected track. In addition, Project Auditor can find and delete all empty time slots across multiple tracks.

[Jim Lillis]

Thanks for your input, and yes, I did find and was able to use the ripple (post) effect. While not a speed demon in any manner for larger projects with many edited segments, it got the job done w/o a lot of hassle.

I’ll look into the plug-ins that were mentioned, and see if they’re worth the added money.

That said, since I’m using Pro 9, and Sony is now up to 11, are there big advantages (key word BIG) to moving up to an 11 upgrade? Most of my projects are multi-cam or large film style type documentaries. Either made for TV or SIG scale distribution.

I like the multi-cam feature in Sony and is a nice feature, IF you can find qualified cam op’s that follow directions while on their own w/o intercoms. I’m working on finding people living in rural America that can fill that need.

Again, thanks for your input and help. I’m sure I’ll be back with more q/a searches on the forum.

If it moves . . . Shoot it!