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Now let's talk about the next tool. Resampling means changing the rate of something
without changing the length. In this case, resampling means changing the number of
frames per second without changing the overall length of the video.
LiVES does this by either duplicating or removing frames.
For example, I might have a clip with a frame rate of 25 frames per second - if I want to encode
this clip to put it on a website, I may want to reduce the number of frames per second
in order to make the eventual file size smaller, and thus easier to download or stream.
To resample the current clip, click on Tools -> Resample Video to New Frame Rate.
Enter the desired new frame rate and click OK.
During processing you can Cancel if you change your mind.
Resampling can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Resample.
Changing the playback speed allows for a clip to be sped up or slowed down, and there is a tool
to enable you to do this. As opposed to resampling, this will change the duration of the clip.
To change the playback speed of the current clip, click on Tools -> Change Playback/Save Speed.
Enter the desired new frame rate and click OK. If you prefer you can enter the duration
of the clip in seconds instead - the frame rate will be calculated automatically from this.
In addition you can choose whether the audio rate will be changed or not.
During processing you can Cancel if you change your mind.
The speed change can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Change Playback/Save Speed
The Reverse clipboard tool will reverse the order of video frames in the clipboard.
Please notice that only video is reversed, audio will remain unchanged.
And talking about audio, let's take a look now at some of the functions for dealing
with audio in the Clip Editor.
The audio can be deleted from an entire clip or just from the selected part of the current clip.
These options are only available for clips with audio.
To delete all audio from the current clip, use the menu option Audio / Delete Audio / Delete All Audio.
To delete part of the audio from the current clip, select the video frames corresponding to the audio
to be removed, then use the menu option Audio -> Delete Audio -> Delete Selected Audio.
The audio deletion can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Delete Audio.
You can use the menu option Audio -> Load New Audio for Clip,
to add audio to a clip which has no audio track, or to replace the audio of the current clip.
Supported audio types are ogg vorbis, mp3, .it, mod, .xm and wav.
Make sure you have the correct programs/libraries installed.
Browse your computer and once you have selected the audio file to be loaded, click OK.
The audio will replace the current audio for the clip.
The new audio can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Load New Audio.
If you have the tool cdda2wav installed on your machine, you can load a track directly from CD.
First of all you will need to set your CD device in Preferences, (Tools -> Preferences -> Misc);
usually this is a device like /dev/cdrom. You can use the browse button next
to the entry to look for the device.
You can then use the menu option Audio -> Load CD Track.
Clicking on this will allow you to select the CD track number.
The audio from the CD track will then replace the current audio for the clip.
The Clip Editor has a tool for appending audio to the end of an existing audio track.
Select the menu option Audio -> Append Audio, and choose the audio file
which you would like to append.
This option is only available for clips with existing audio.
Appending audio can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Append Audio.
You can trim or pad audio to fit a given selection of frames. If the audio track is longer than
the video selection, the end is chopped off to fit the selection. If shorter, the audio is padded
to the end of the selection with silence. The part of the audio before the selection is filled
or replaced with silence.
Generally you would select all frames before using this, in order to trim or pad the audio
to be of equal length to the video.
You can activate this tool with Audio -> Trim/Pad Audio -> Trim/Pad Audio to Selection.
You can also trim or pad audio up to the position of play start. After positioning the play pointer,
select the menu option Audio -> Trim/Pad Audio -> Trim/Pad Audio to Play Start.
This allows you to use this tool even in clips which do not have video frames and have audio only frames.
These options are only available for clips with audio.
The operation can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Trim/Pad Audio.
Yet another audio tool in the Clip Editor will allow you to insert silence in the selected area.
If the existing audio is shorter than the selection start, it will be padded with silence up to
the selection start frame. The area in the selection will then either be filled or replaced with silence.
You can activate this audio tool with the menu option Audio -> Insert Silence in Selection.
If the clip has no existing audio, you will be prompted to enter audio details:
rate, number of channels, sample size, signedness and endianness.
Usually you can simply accept the default suggestion.
The operation can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Insert Silence.
The Clip Editor has a tool which will let you fade audio in or out,
either over the selected frames, or by time.
To fade audio in, click on the menu option Audio -> Fade Audio In
Either enter the desired time in seconds, or you can choose to fade in over the selection.
Click OK, and the audio volume will be smoothly adjusted from zero up to normal volume
over the chosen time period.
The operation can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Fade Audio In.
To fade audio out, click on the menu option Audio -> Fade Audio Out
Either enter the desired time in seconds, or you can choose to fade out over the selection.
Click OK, and the audio volume will be smoothly adjusted from normal volume down to zero
over the chosen time period.
The operation can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Fade Audio Out.
These options are only available for clips with audio.
If you are using the Jack audio plugin, you can record audio with an external microphone.
You can record new audio for selected video frames, or you can record audio to a new clip.
In the current version of LiVES this also works with the Pause Audio.
To record new audio for a selection, first select the video frames for which you wish to record audio.
Activate the menu option Audio -> Record External Audio -> to Selection.
If the clip has no existing audio you can enter the audio details – rate, channels, sample size,
signedness, endianness. You can select the duration of recording – by default this will be the length
of the selection. You can adjust this or set it to unlimited. Click OK to record, or Cancel to cancel.
Record your audio, and either wait for the countdown to expire, or click Enough.
To record audio to a new clip, activate the menu option
Audio -> Record External Audio -> to New Clip and then follow the same procedure.
In the Clip Editor there is a tool to resample audio. You may wish to use this for example to reduce
the file size before encoding for a website, for example reducing the Hz, converting from stereo
to mono, and reducing from 16 bit samples to 8 bit samples.
To resample the audio, use the menu option Audio -> Resample Audio.
Here you can adjust any of the following: the audio rate, the number of channels,
the sample size in bits, signed/unsigned, endianness.
The operation can be undone using the menu option Edit -> Undo Resample Audio.
This option is only available for clips with audio.
You can save all or part of the audio track(s) from the current clip as a .wav file.
To save all of the audio, use the menu option Audio -> Export Audio -> Export All Audio.
To save part of the audio, first select the part which you would like to export.
Then click on the menu option Audio -> Export Audio -> Export Selected Audio.
Select the file you would like to save the audio to and click OK.
These options are only available for clips with audio.
As mentioned before, LiVES has two types of effects - the rendered effects and the realtime effects.
Here we'll discuss the realtime effects. These are effects which can be applied during playback,
recording, and in the multitrack window.
To use a realtime effect during playback in LiVES, the effect must be mapped to a key and a mode.
To assist with this, LiVES has a key mapping tool, which can be activated using the menu option
VJ -> Real Time Effect Mapping, or by pressing the key combination ctrl-v.
This causes the realtime effects window to open. From now on we will refer to this window as
the RTE window. The first thing to note is that the keys and modes are arranged in columns.
Each column represents an effect key. The effect keys begin with the combination ctrl-1 on the left,
then ctrl-2 next to this, ctrl-3 and so on, normally up to ctrl-9.
The second thing to note is that each effect key has 8 modes. These modes are like a bank of effects
for each key - only one mode is active at any one time for each key, this is known as
the current mode for that key. The current mode for each key starts at 1, and can be increased
if effects are mapped to higher modes of that key. We will discuss soon modes in more detail.
To map an effect to a key/mode simply click on the drop down list and select the new effect
to be mapped. You can even do this while the effect key/mode is active. However, you can only
map to a mode higher than 1 if the mode below that also has an effect mapped to it.
You can map any type of effect to any valid key/mode - with one restriction, you may not map
generators and non-generators to the same key. It is also recommended that you map transitions
to their own specific key(s), as this makes mode switching easier, as we will see shortly.
When an effect is mapped to a key/mode, you can press the Set Parameters button.
If the effect has parameters then you will see them in the window which opens.
You can set the parameters and click "Set as Default". In that way you can map the same effect
to different key/modes and set different defaults for each key/mode. Afterwards you can click
on "Save as default keymap", and these per-key defaults will be reloaded the next time.
To un-map an effect, there are two options - either you can click on the button marked
Clear All Effects - as its name suggests, this will un-map all effect key/mode combinations,
or you can click on the Clear button next to the drop down list. This will clear just the single
key/mode, and will cause any higher mode mappings to shift and close the gap.
Each key/mode combination also has an Info button. Clicking on this will show some
basic information about the mapped effect.
To activate an effect, press the associated effect key (e.g. ctrl-1, ctrl-2, ctrl-3, etc),
or in the RTE window, click on the check box labelled "Key active" next to the effect key.
To deactivate an effect, when the effect is activate press the associated effect key
(e.g. ctrl-1, ctrl-2, ctrl-3, etc), or in the RTE window, click on the check box labelled
"Key active" next to the effect key to uncheck it.
Tthe key combination ctrl-0 will deactivate all effects. This is very useful to remember.
You can close the RTE window by clicking on the Close window button, or by pressing ctrl-v again.