"Takes" functionality

Pete-Lowland wrote on 8/13/2025, 8:02 AM

Hi,

I am a new user of VDL26 and I am trying to get through the learning curb, coming from pinnacle26.

My two questions:

I extracted 10 pieces of video from different much longer tapes using “save objects as takes”, so far so good, I found them all in a “Takes” folder.

Now I wanted to trim the takes one by one using  [  ]  and then transport them to the timeline. Making the desired selection works OK, but….

1.       Moving that trimmed part to the timeline does not work, not with the “automatic” button and not with click and drag….what do I do wrong?

Of course I can move (all) the Takes to the timeline using the arrow and then trim on the timeline, but when working with large numbers of takes that method becomes rather messy.

2.       I noticed that when moving a Take to the timeline there is then not a red dot in the upper-left corner, indicating that the object is already on the timeline. Is there a switch somewhere I did not notice?

I tried the 360 pages of the manual, but did not find the solutions, but I might have overlooked some sentences....

Can anybody advise me?

Thanks & kind regards,

Peter.

Comments

Can-Dive wrote on 8/13/2025, 5:26 PM

Hi @Pete-Lowland,

I'm an ex-Pinnacle Studio user as well. Using MMS2024 (before they changed the name back to "VDL") I confirm your findings. It doesn't look like you can trim a Take. I also have VPX16. VPX is a lot more like Pinnacle in that it has a Project folder/bin where you can store all your media. With VPX I am able to trim a longer video and store this "Rough cut/Take" in the Project folder. I am then able to select this Take and further trim it before moving it to the timeline. This is my standard workflow. I suspect this is a limitation to the VDL but there a workaround using VDL's ability to have multiple movies in one project which is a very unique feature which I have not found in any other video editor. Add a movie to your project and use it as a "temporary project bin." Move your take to this second movie and trim it there before cutting and pasting it into the main movie.

Other forum members more familiar with MMS/VDL may provide other suggestions.

Cheers, and enjoy using VDL. 🙂

Can-Dive wrote on 8/13/2025, 6:52 PM

@Pete-Lowland

I noticed that when moving a Take to the timeline there is then not a red dot in the upper-left corner, indicating that the object is already on the timeline. Is there a switch somewhere I did not notice?

The little red dot/square appears on the source video and not the Take. Using the Project Folder in VPX, the red dot appears on the Take within the folder.