I was hoping someone might have an idea for this...

I've got a huge bin full of still images and quite a few of them are a series of shots of the same thing.  What I'd like to do is select a group of them from the bin and then drop them into the sequence as one frame sequential edits.

The each exist as 5 or 10 second still frames in the bins so if I just drag them to the time line, they come in in there full size.

I suppose I could go to each pic in the bin and set a one frame in/out mark and then drag them... But I want to do this for more than a few hundred pics...

Can anyone think of the most streamlined way to do this?

Thanks!

-Mike

Select all your clips.  Go to script view.  Hit I then O.  This will mark an In and Out on one frame.  Drag clips to timeline.  Take a break.

 

Mike.

Even better.....
Are they picts? if they are then if they are numbered sequentially then by checking the box in the import options window then Avid will bring all in as one master clip.

Best of all!

Read Sep's Posts

Apparently there's a console command that will let you import 1 frame at a time, so if your files aren't sequential you don't have to rename them.  I haven't tried it but it looks pretty slick. 

Mike.

 

Butcher:

Select all your clips.  Go to script view.  Hit I then O.  This will mark an In and Out on one frame.  Drag clips to timeline.  Take a break.

Mike.

Ok.. I took a break for the holidays... and am finally back to this...

Somehow, i can't get this to work.  :(

I select the clips I want, go to the script tab in the bin... Hit I then O and the durations all remain 5 seconds...

This is the PERFECT solution for me to do this, but why can't i get it to work?

Thanks.

Try frame view. Sort the window. Command A to select all clips, hit the T key to mark in and out, drag to timeline.

I use Script View + Select All to clear marks and add inpoints to multiple clips at the same time. This is a major timesaver and one of the all-time great tips I've learned on this Forum.

But I have had problems in the in the past when I've added both inpoints AND outpoints. I remember it being quite buggy with the outpoints in conjunction with drag 'n drop.

If all of your clips are 5:00, you might try advancing all those clips (simutaneously) by 4:29 (in NTSC) and then select an inpoint only. In other words, mark in on the second to last frame of the clip. If your clips are both 5 and 10 seconds--break them up into two bins.

*Mental note for future reference.

The fastest way to do this (I think) is to:

1. Take images in at uniform length (always)
2. Select and drag to new sequence
3. Create video mixdown of range (at appropriate speed up for your uniform image length.. e.g. 900%)

Clip created.
--

Unfortunately neither frame view or script view would reflect the I - O when I'd drag or insert into the sequence.




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no sig, but it could be the exact same as Butchers.  [:-)]

"Unfortunately neither frame view or script view would reflect the I - O when I'd drag or insert into the sequence"

I usually try to avoid bringing a video mixdown into the workflow if I can--too much complication if I have to uprez.

But clearing and adding inpoints to multiple clips in Script View is now an indispensible part of my workflow: stills, subclips, selects, master clips, sequences, you name it. I would suggest getting really serious about figuring out why that trick is not working for you--try your settings. I'll be happy to step you through it if your interested--don't miss out on it.

paul b.

Thanks paul... and I am finding some difficulties as far as up-rezing some of my sequences...  I didn't use this mix-down method, but many of my un-rendered motion effects and my group clips are not finding their way to re-link with the newly captured master quality footage. (see this topic)

My steps for the script view multiple clip i - o's that didn't work:

1. Select multiple clips in script view bin (by the way, how do I select a range like a typical shift hold from first and then click last clip?  I have to click individually or draw a lasso which isn't great for longer ranges)
2. Once clips are highlighted hit MARK IN then MARK OUT - System appears to accept the commands
3. Drag selection from bin to the active sequence
   

This always results in the clips being of various lenths and not the 1 frame length I expect.  Thanks for any thoughts on what settings might affect this... I can't think of any.

I'm on AXP 5.6.3 ... I was just figuring that this was one of the little details that didn't make it from Composer to Xpress Pro...

MJC, Try this. What you and I are doing is not that much different, so there may be some small nuance that's causing it to not work for you.

1. Go to Text View and check to see if everything you need is in your bin. That's easier in Text View. Also in this step, you can sort the clips according to Name or Creation Date or Start Timecode, etc. This is the order they will appear in your sequence. If I want my own order based on content, there's another step for that later.

2. Go to Script View. Select 'Cmd' + 'A'. Now all your clips in should be highlighted.

3. Select "Clear Marks" before you select any new In Point.
Note: On my custom keyboard setting, that is 'Shift' + "G". I mapped it to Shift + G because it used to live on Normal + G in the default Media Composer config back in the day. Not sure what it is on your keyboard or if you still have it, but you should map it to somewhere with "Button to Button Re-Assignment" in you Command Palette. I've never tried this using "Clear Marks" with a button on the interface--so just copy me for now and then you can improvise later.

4. Select "Mark In". For now, don't select "Mark Out". If you select "Mark In" with no outpoint, your Out Point will default to the last frame of the clip. Earlier in this thread, Hbrock said to select both and he's usually spot on about most everything, but I have had trouble with that function in the past. So just select "Mark In" for now.

5. Go back to Text View.

6. Make sure all of your clips are still selected. If not, use Command + A to highlight them. You can try Command + Shift + Click to select only the ones you want--but do that later on--once you've gotten this to work.

7. Create a New Sequence (for now). Hold the Option key and drag your selected clips from Text View into your Sequence. It does not matter if the clips are of varying lengths. Keep the Option key held down until all the clips "assemble themselves" into the sequence. If you have many clips in the bin, you might see the blue cursor replicating itself for each clip, and it will take several seconds. Keep holding down the Option key until it stops doing its thing.

8. Here's how you can check that you didn't miss anything: In the bin, Select All and then Command + "i". The total running time of all those clips will appear in the CONSOLE. Now you can compare that against your Sequence Time.

9. If you want to make a custom order for clips in your sequence from thumbnails, you can do that. Go to Frame View and arrange them. You may already know that when you drag clips from Frame View into your Sequence, the Avid respects a Left To Right--Top to Bottom order. In other words, in Frame View, it puts the clip in the upper left corner of the bin first in your sequence, and the clip in the lower right corner of the bin last in your sequence.

10. One last little trick for you. In Script View (and also Frame View) you can change the Poster Frame of a clip by using the "Advance 10 Frames" and "Advance 1 Frame" keys. But here's the trick: you can modify poster frames for multiple clips simultaneously. If you do this with stills, you won't see the change--so try it with some footage. And best of all: once you've simultaneously modified the poster frames in Script View, you can use Mark In to select those new poster frames as your new In Point, simultaneously. This means: if you have 200 still images in your bin that are 150 frames long, you can Select All in Script View, use the Advance 10 Frames and the Advance 1 Frame buttons to advance your poster frames a certain number of frames--let's say 143 frames. Then when you Mark In (with all those clips selected in Script View) it will mark new inpoints simultaneosly (globally) for all those clips. When you go back to Text View to drag those clips into your Sequence, the feature will see that new In Point and all of the clips in your drag 'n drop Sequence will be 7 frames long (for example) instead of 150 frames. You can modfity poster frames globally in Frame View, but I don't think you can globally select In Points in Frame View--that has to be Script View.

Got it? Lemme know. Good luck.

paul b.

Mike,

AFAIK I'm the guy who originally posted the script view trick to the forums & the L as an "undocumented feature" a couple of years ago, so i feel a continuing sense of responsibility to all who try to use it.

The solution to your 1 frame problem is blindingly simple. The only misstep in the procedure you've been using is to mark the in & out on the SAME frame. Solution: Mark in on all clips JOG FORWARD ONE FRAME then mark out.

A quirk of script view is that it doesn't calculate the In mark into the I/O duration as do other Avid marking methods. F'rinstance, if you mark In on a clip in the source window, jog forward one frame & mark Out, I/O in the tracking info will (counterintuitively) read 0;02. Not so when you mark the clip in a bin in script view.

If you set your bin to Statistics in Text view so that you can see the Mark In, Mark Out & IN-OUT columns when you change to script view, you'll see what I mean.
Mark In, jog forward 1 frame & mark Out, IN-OUT reads 0:01.
If you mark In & Out on the same frame, the MARKS register in their respective columns but NOTHING appears in the IN-OUT column. That's the source of your problem.

BTW. the frame you marked as the IN is the one that shows up in the timeline when you drag the clip(s) from the bin.

I hope that clears it up once & for all.

Mark

It's been a while here, and I'm in the situation again where this trick would be helpful. 

I couldn't respond to the last couple of replies because I ended up doing everything manually to get the project out of the door... But here I am again. 

 

OK... So is it possible that this is an XP limitation and MC works better?  Let me explain based on paul b.'s last reply above:

1. No problems here
2. Check!
3. No sweat "D" and "F" clear everything I need to clear
4. I can set an IN point and it is always on the first frame of the still.  (I can't seem to advance the group selection at the same time.  The << < > >> advance keys just give me a "bloop"... Error beep.  If I use JKL to play, only the first clip in the selection advances)
5.  All is well here.
6. No problems (but I don't have the in out points I want because of step #4)
7. Since the only out mark I can select is identical to the IN mark, the clips all come into the sequence at their full import length (10 seconds in this case).    So, in essence, steps 1-6 served to do nothing.  (Biggest hitch being #4)
8. Yup, comes out correct... the full lenght of all originally imported stills
9. No problems with ordering clips
10. This (like #4) doesn't seem to work.  I have no way of advancing where I can put the IN or Out marks on a group of clips.  (ie.  I cannot modify poster frames globally)

So maybe this is a Media Composer only thing?  I don't know... back to doing this stuff manually, I guess. 

mjc:

(I can't seem to advance the group selection at the same time.  The << < > >> advance keys just give me a "bloop"... Error beep.

 

The << < > >> keys are trim mode adjustments, not frame advance. I'm not in front of my Avid right now, but I believe the 1 and 2 keys are the advance 1 frame and reverse 1 frame commands.

We have a winner! 

Thanks so much Larry!  That does it. 

I really only use JKL and those trim keys in my normal editing... Keys 1-5 seemed like just redundant JKL actions really... But you solved my issue.

I'm running Media Composer now too... All is well.  Thanks for solving that issue for me.  I can get stuff done MUCH quicker now... Thanks!