Anatomy of the Viewer
The Final Cut Express Viewer has a wide variety of tools for navigating and marking your clips: transport controls, clip-marking controls, pop-up selectors, view selectors, and timecode navigation displays (Figure 8.1 ).
Figure 8.1. The Video tab. Note the location of the other tabs in the Viewer.
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All the Viewer controls listed here, except the pop-up selectors, appear in the Canvas window as well. The controls operate in the same way in the Canvas window that they do in the Viewer. The next few sections discuss the onscreen controls you'll encounter in the Viewer.
Transport controls
Figure 8.2 shows the transport controls, which are located in the middle of the bottom section of the Viewer: Previous Edit button: Click to jump the playhead back to the previous edit (if the open clip is a sequence clip).
Figure 8.2. The Viewer's transport control buttons.
Play In to Out button: Click to play the clip from the In point to the Out point. Play button: Click to play the clip from the current position of the playhead. Click again to stop playback. Play Around Current Frame button: Click to play the part of the clip immediately before and after the current position of the playhead. The pre-roll and post-roll settings (in the Preferences window) determine the duration of the playback. Next Edit button: Click to move the playhead to the next edit in a sequence clip. Shuttle control: Drag the control tab away from the center to fast forward or rewind (Figure 8.3 ). Speeds vary depending on the control tab's distance from the center. A green control tab indicates normal playback speed.
Figure 8.3. The Shuttle control.
Jog control: Drag to the left or right (Figure 8.4 ) to step through your clip one frame at a time.
Figure 8.4. The Jog control.
Scrubber and playhead: The Scrubber is the strip that stretches horizontally below the image window. Move through a clip by dragging the playhead, or click the Scrubber to jump the playhead to a new location (Figure 8.5 ).
Figure 8.5. The Scrubber and playhead.
Tip
Clip-marking controls
All the onscreen controls you use to mark clips are grouped in the lower-left corner of the Viewer (Figure 8.6 ): Match Frame: Click to match the frame currently showing in the Viewer with the same frame as it appears in your sequence. The sequence frame appears in the Canvas window. Match Frame is useful for synchronizing action.
Figure 8.6. The Viewer's clip-marking controls.
Mark Clip: Click to set In and Out points in the sequence. Edit points will be set at the outer boundaries of the clip at the position of the playhead in the target track. Add Keyframe: Click to add a keyframe to the clip at the current playhead position. Add Marker: Click to add a marker to the clip at the current playhead position. Mark In (left) and Mark Out (right): Click to set the In point or the Out point for the clip at the current playhead position.
Pop-up selectors
Two buttons at the lower right of the Viewer window provide convenient access to source materials (Figure 8.7 ): Recent Clips: Select recently used clips directly from this pop-up menu.
Figure 8.7. Pop-up selectors.
Generators: Select a generator effect from this pop-up menu. (To read about generators, see Chapter 17, "Titles and Generators.")
View selectors
The selectors directly above the Viewer's image area allow you to adjust the window's view. Zoom: Adjust the Viewer's image display size (Figure 8.8 ). This pop-up selector does not affect the actual frame size of the image.
Figure 8.8. The Zoom selector.
View: Select a viewing format (Viewing Overlays" later in this chapter.)
Figure 8.9. The View selector.
Timecode navigation and display
Two timecode displays appear in the upper corners of the Viewer window. They are useful for precisely navigating to specific timecode locations. Timecode Duration: This field displays the elapsed time between the In and Out points of a clip. If no edit points are set, the beginning and end of the clip serve as the In and Out points (Figure 8.10 ). Control-click the Timecode Duration display to switch the elapsed time view among Drop Frame, Non-drop Frame, and Frames views.
Figure 8.10. The Timecode Duration display.
Current Timecode: This field displays the timecode at the current position of the playhead. You can enter a time in the display to jump the playhead to that point in the clip. Current Timecode display shortcut menu: Control-click the display to switch the elapsed-time view between Source Time (which matches the timecode rate of the clip's source media file) or Clip Time (which starts with the timecode value of the first frame in the clip, then calculates and displays timecode based on the current frame rate assigned to the clip) (Figure 8.11 ).
Figure 8.11. The Current Timecode display and shortcut menu. The shortcut menu offers a choice between Source Time or Clip Time.
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