Blender's Video Sequence Editor

Here are some main differences of Blender VSE to other non-linear video editors for Linux..


• Blender video clips are called strips, tracks are called channels, the normal "clip timeline" is called the sequencer, and rendering is called animation!
• there is no clip library or clip preview, movie files are opened straight onto the sequencer
• video-audio is immediately split into "strips" when added, therefore moving a strip means that you must select both video + audio together , also for cutting at the same frame
• there's no overlapping mode - when strips are overlapped the overlapping one highlights red, then on placing it it jumps to the end of the underlying strip - handy for placing strips exactly at end of others.

- means that your vid/audio strips should be cut at their last/first frame, then the gap between other strips closed up

- the idea is that each strip's first/last frames should to be decided by itself, not by another strip overlapping it.


• selection is done by RMB, seek position is by LMB on the sequence editor.
• the render does not assume that the total length of strips is the total length of the project to be made - rendering uses the frame range for length of output movie.
• projects open up instantly and editing work is highly stable - no crashes!
• multiple Blender windows can be opened and render processes can be run background while other video is edited

Main Keys

my keys are in blue

Mouse scroll	travel up/down sequencer	RMB/Ctrl-RMB /Shift-Ctrl-RMB	Select strips
Ctrl-scroll	zoom	B	Selection box
MMB-drag	Pan sequencer	Ctrl-A	Select all (def. A)
Ctrl-MMB-drag	Pan-zoom sequencer	1	Select left handle
Shift-Z	Draw box to zoom to (def. Shift-B)	2	Select right handle
A/Z	Zoom in/Zoom out	X	Soft cut (def. K)
Q	Zoom to all strips (= Home)	K	Hard cut (def. Shift-K)
V	View selected strip (def. Numpad .)	S	Snap strips (def. Shift-S)
F	Jump to frame (def. Numpad 0)	R	Remove gaps (or Backspace)
W	Jump to strip start	=	Insert gap (def. Shift=)
E	Jump to next strip start	G	Grab strips
Spacebar	Play/pause (def. Alt-A)	T	Extend strips (def. E)
Left/Right	move to next frame	Ctrl-G	Create Meta strip
Up/Down	Next/Prev keyframe	Shift-D	Duplicate strip
Shift-Up/Down	Fwd/Bkwd 1/10 sec	Alt-Left/ Alt-Right	Swap strip with adjacent strip
M	Add marker	N	Strip properties
Ctrl-M	Rename marker	C	Call menu for strip
P	Preview range	Shift-L	Lock strips from frame adjustments
Alt-P	Close preview range	Shift-Alt-L	Unlock strips
Ctrl-Up/Ctrl-Down	Toggle maximise area

many shortcut keys can be modified/added by a right click on the menu item > Change shortcut/Add shortcut, or else in Preferences > Input tab

Set Spacebar to play/pause animation..

• open User Preferences in one window (select from type icon)
• go to Input tab and expand Sequencer and Frame
• click on Add New then expand it and paste "screen.animation_play" to the first box (which reads "none")
• click on the second box twice and press Spacebar
• make one for both Sequencer and Frame for the shortcut to be active when the mouse hovers these windows (including the preview window) its set to play!
  (this will however stop Space from bringing up shortcut search)
• Click Save User Settings too.

Set zoom controls

• To change the zoom controls look in Preferences > Input > expand View2D
• uncheck the controls for
  1. Scroll Right/Scroll Left (which are set to Ctrl-scroll) and
  2. Scroll Down/Scroll Up (set to scroll)
  
• then change the keybinds for
  1. Zoom in/Zoom Out to be Ctrl-Wheel-Up and Ctrl-Wheel-Down
  2. Scroll Right/Scroll Left to be Wheel-Down and Wheel-Up
  
• you might need to add shortcuts in Sequencer for
  1. Zoom in/Zoom Out (view2d.zoom_in / view2d.zoom_out),
  2. Scroll Right/Scroll Left (view2d.scroll_right / view2d.scroll_left)
  
• save user settings and export your Key Configuration to a file, in case it is reset later.

Set strip select

I find Ctrl-RMB (for selecting time-linked video/audio clips) very awkward on my brain, so I changed it to the mouse Button 4

It's probably too tricky to change it to LMB

• in Input > Sequencer, find the shortcut "Activete/Select" that uses Ctrl Right Mouse
  
• click on the action and press the side button on the mouse
  
• then uncheck Extend (which adds to the selected strips)
  

You could add shortcuts for selecting a strip together with adjoining strips (check Linked Handle), or for selecting all strips to the left or right of the seek point or the mouse (set "Left/Rig None" to Left, Right or Mouse) - I use Ctrl-Left/Ctrl-Right (but need to uncheck two shortcuts in Screen)

If you create a new shortcut and paste "sequencer.select" you will get the options for Extend, Linked Time, Linked Handle.

The controls I'd really like would be shortcuts to snap the strip ends of the strip under the seek point to the seek point (without selecting the strip ends first), and a key to select the strip under the seek point which would be faster than using the mouse on every strip.

My Tips

Window arrangement

• Open Blender and select Video Editing layout from the first drop-down list at top.
• drag the preview from the right over to the left and make the new far right window that just appeared a Properties, via lower selection button.
• make the left window Graph if you like.
• under File, Save Startup File - so that when reopening Blender it will be ready for video editing.

Theme

• open User Preferences in the left window via lower button
• go to Themes tab
• choose a preset - I selected Ubuntu and adjusted the graph and sequencer backgrounds a little lighter

Adding video strips

• click on Add > Movie (or set a shortcut like Alt-V)
• select files (hold Shift for multiple select, or press A for Select all)
• once the strips are on the sequencer, check that the no. of frames for audio = no. frames for video - if audio shows more, go to the project properties and adjust the Frame rate to the correct value, e.g. 24, 25, 29.97 etc - so that the audio and video match up for frames.
• in the properties window you can specify the video size clicking on Dimensions, in case the size of your default project is different to the current movie and the video looks squashed or stretched, (RMB on the video strip, press N and look at Original Dimensions to check)
• or you can RMB on the video strip and go to Strip (below) > Render size to set the strip's dimensions to the properties window - as your saved properties may be set to 1080p resolution and the video you're working with is different.
• if it still looks skewiff after that, go to the properties and adjust the Aspect Ratio to correct value (sometimes needs 1:1)
• if playing the video lags, you can change "No Sync" at the bottom to AV-sync or Frame-dropping.

Zooming in on the Sequencer

• mouse scroll zooms in/out laterally (by default, but I change it to Ctrl-scroll),
• Ctrl-MMB +drag zooms in/out vertically-laterally, to show more or less channels
• Press Shift-Z (def. Shift-B) and drag a box with LMB to select an area to zoom in on
• press Home to zoom out to see the whole length of strips
• Ctrl-scroll up/down moves the sequencer along (I change it to scroll-up/scroll down)
• MMB (middle mouse button) + drag allows you to travel about along the Sequencer or up/down channels

Setting the frame range

• pressing the play button or Spacebar will preview through the sequencer, but only until the end of the frame range, and then it will return to the start of frame range
• set the start/end of frame range by placing the seek point and then going to Frame (Timeline) > Set Start Frame/Set End Frame
• or you can hover on the Timeline and press S , or E

Using the Timeline

• clicking in the Timeline will move the seek point to other places on the Sequencer (within the set frame range)
• pressing Home while hovering the Timeline will zoom to the Frame range you have set, mouse scroll to zoom out/in
• the Timeline shows the frame range, from 0 to n min/sec, it doesn't show where strips start/end, but it does show markers, so adding markers along the way would be useful

Markers

• place a marker with M, RMB select one and X to remove it.
• set hotkeys for Jump to previous/ Jump to next marker - RC on the menu item and select Add Shortcut, then type your shortcut, e.g Shift-, and Shift-. (in effect < and >)

Preview Range

• Press P and drag an area to set the preview range - play will run through this area over and over. That means you can keep playing a particular edit/effect, while you make adjustments to the effects to see the changes live.
• Alt-P to clear the range.

Selecting strips to move them about

• RMB on the middle of a strip to select it, Button 4 (def. Ctrl-RMB) to select both video/audio strips with one click, Ctrl-RMB (def. Shift-RMB) to select others, or press B and drag a box with LMB to select all in the box
• note that multi-selecting strips will add strips to previously selected ones by default, so you should RMB on empty space first, so as not add to the previous selected strips) - you could change the default adding to selection by unchecking "Extend" in the shortcut properties.
• Ctrl-A (def. A) to toggle select all
• press G to grab the selected strips
• they will follow the mouse about - then do LMB click to place them, or RMB again to cancel the grab.
• if you press the Shift key while moving the strip it will move much more minutely, in order to be more accurate.
• Note: try setting RMB for Box select

you can't overlap strips, they will jump out to find space on the end.

Cutting strips

• seek to the cut point (Left/Right keys seek one frame)
• RMB select the strip to be cut and press X (def. K) for a soft cut (ends of strip can be extended again)
• K (def. Shift-K) to make a hard cut (the ends will be gone)
• select both video and audio strips to cut them together with X/K, or select them one by one and hit X for each one
• simply LMB in the gaps and press R or Backspace to close them up

Delete strips

• RMB select strips and hit D (changed from X) or Delete, then confirm
• Ctrl-Z will also undo the action

Snapping strips

S (def. Shift-S) snaps a selected strip to the seek point, or extends/shortens the end of a strip to the seek point
(I change it to S and make Trim Strips Shift-S)

moving the start/end frame to the seek point is the same as making a soft cut on the strip while removing the cut off part from the sequencer..

• seek to the cut point
• RMB on the end of the strip you want to shrink down - or select the strip and press 1 or 2 (add these shortcuts to Select > Right handle/Left handle)
• S to snap the strip end to the seek point (to shrink or extend the strip)
• if you select the strip (not the end of it) and press S, the strip's start frame will jump to the seek point, changing channel if necessary

- if its the first strip in the sequence, and you remove some of the start frames, you will need to adjust the frame range start - move to the new start of the strip with PgUp (or my W) and use Timeline Frame > Set Start Frame (or hover Timeline below and press S)

if its a strip somewhere along the sequence the cut will make a gap - click LMB in the gap and use Backspace (or my R) to close the gap.

If you press Shift-S (Slip Strip, by default S) you can then drag the content of the strip that you cut within its new frame length, in case you wanted to adjust where the cut was made.

If you select the ends of a strip and press G to grab them you can extend them out, but if the strip then overlaps another strip and you place it with LMB, then the strip you extended will jump out to the end of the sequence to find enough space forewith that it might sit. It will not overlap or push out the strips it overlapped.

To get round that you need to insert gaps at the strip end with =, as much as you think you need to extend the strip ends - gaps will be inserted after the selected strip.

Fast work-flow

Cutting the ends of strips Play the movie up to a cut point Ctrl-RMB on the video clip press 1 or 2 to select strip ends (start/end) press S to snap strip ends to the cut point press R to close the gap between the strip to the right press W and R to close the gap between the strip to the left

Cutting strips midway Play the movie up to a cut point Ctrl-RMB on the video clip press X to make a cut play again until the next cut point press X to make another cut Ctrl-RMB on the cut part (if it doesn't stay selected) press D to remove press W and R to close the gap to the next strip (or leave the gaps until last)

Extend strips

• press T (def. E) to get the Transform tool - which has two different effects:
  
  1. select strips on the same channel, press E and the strips will move with mouse, only left or right, not crossing channels
  2. select strips on the same channel, press E and the strips will expand/shrink from their end frame

Fade out/ fade in

• Select the point to start the fade out to black.
• in the properties to the right (press N) make sure Opacity is 1.0, RC and Insert Keyframe
• move seek point to the end of the clip, click on the Opacity and set to 0, then RC and Insert Keyframe
• Blender will make a smooth transition from one setting to the other between the keyframes, which you can see in the Graph (press Home to show full).
• 0 opacity will be showing the base colour which should be black, unless other strips are under the strip on another channel.
• on the graph window you can adjust the curve of the fade by dragging the line (with presets to choose from too)
• for fading out/in audio, select the audio strip and set keyframes for 100% volume and 0% volume

You don't need to make a black colour strip and gamma cross effect (as the tutorials say).

Transitions

You can use the above fade-out method pretty well to fade one strip and emerge another strip (the emerging strip should be placed under the fading strip) and this is more professional looking.

you can use an effect strip too..

• set the strips you want to transition in an overlapping position on different channels
• select both strips (video only or both video/audio)
• go to Add > Effect strip > Gamma Cross
• or you can use Wipe, which is more comical - and look in the properties to the right, scroll down to Transition and select which one you want

Colour correction

• select a strips and go to properties on the right, scroll down to Add Modifier, select what you need and use the colour swabs below
• to apply colour enhancements to multiple strips, without adding modifiers to each one, go to Add > Effect Strip >Adjustment Layer
• then select the end of the strip, G to grab, drag to extend - or select and S to snap to the seek point
• then you go to Add Modifier again in properties and adjust how you like