Hi, I agree with Terry's approach as being the most effective.  What edtor did you use previously.  I have used pretty much everything on the market at some point and I currently own 3 of them.  It sounds to me like you are just used to a different work flow than MEP.  Most of the time the MEP work flow is more efficient and effective than some of the others out there, but there are also times where it is not.

George

Hi,

MEP is a non-destructive software, so it will not touch your original files. Your files must remain on your computer in the same location as when you bring your clips into MEP

You can open a project in MEP called "Family and Friends", which will create one movie with the project name, then create 2 additional movies in the same project by clicking on the + beside the tab that says Family and Friends. As Terry says, you will probably want a third category Family and Friends, but if not, just create the project with the name Family and create a second movie called Friends. Rename the first movie to Family and the second to Friends. You will see the movies in the tabs at the top of the image below.

Then, as you go through your DVD files (that you imported into your PC), just preview the imported file in the previewer using the range brackets. On the preview screen, place the range brackets for the clip that you want for the current movie, and drag from the preview screen onto the timeline to get only the part that you want.

Note that before you spend time setting the brackets, you should be on the correct movie, otherwise, when you change movies, the preview screen will no longer show your clip and you will have to get it and set up your brackets again. Alternatively, you can simply drag the clip into the timeline even if it is the wrong one, cut it (Ctrl x), go to the correct movie, and paste it.

Rather than keeping the movies in one project at the end, you can export them and finalize your processing in each project.

Lastly, review the manual and you will find much more information.

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John

John,

Great comments and insight.  You are clearly an experienced MEP user, so please post more answers on the forum.

George

Thanks for your replies. The version I have is actually MEP2014Plus (not 2013). I am printing out your replies and will work my way through them step by step. I could not find the 'Takes' feature in Help or the PDF, which I have printed out in full. Can you direct me to the section of the manual which deals with this. I suspect it is under a different heading somewhere. The other editor I used was Corel Video Studio where I found it quite easy to split the dvd into two separate groups as described previously. In answer to the obvious question 'why not just do it with Video Studio?' it's just that I wanted to use some of MEP's effects with the end product. Bill

Hi Bill,

I agree that the subject gets scant coverage in Help or the PDF manual. I see this after a search for  'takes' in either:

To use takes, please read the chapter "Saving objects separately" in the PDF manual.

Yet there appears to be no such chapter and nothing substantial on the subject at all.

But worry not, as its use is very simple. Here is all you really need:

1. With a video clip selected in the timeline either right click and choose 'Save objects as takes', or use the shortcut Ctrl+F.

2. Under Import > My Media > Takes you will see your clip, with its default name taken from the clip, which you can change with Rename.

3. Drag any clip of your choice to the timeline of a movie to use it.

--
Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi,

Further to what Terry said about using takes, since you seem to be new user, here is a little more detail on the method. The method that I indicated in my previous answer works if you want to build your videos as you review them. But if you want to have the clips separate and then put them together later, making takes is a good way to go, but it may be a bit more labourious because of having to rename the takes.

In my previous post, I indicated that you can use the brackets to identify the part of the video that you want to bring into the timeline. This would be good if there is a lot that you would not want to keep or see in your video. (Remember MEP is non-destructive, so your original video is not touched.) But if you want to have clips of everything, then a different method is called for. Terry's post and re-reading your question got me to thinking.

The following works for both methods with only a slight variation. Just drag in the video file onto the timeline and then split the video wherever you want to start or end a clip, Family or Friends, using the razor blade at the location of the split, or pressing the letter T. Then either create a take, or copy or move each clip to the correct video as I had suggested - Family or Friends. If you create a take, then Magix creates a file with the extension .TK2 and the file name will be the name of your imported file plus - 0001. In my example, the filename is 20110728200840 - 0001. Subsequent files will get - 0002, 0003, 0004 etc. If you did a default installation, your takes will be in the following folder: C:\Users\John\Documents\MAGIX\Movie Edit Pro 2014 Plus\Takes, and they show up in the Media pool under My Media. See the image below.

You can highlight several clips and create multiple takes in one go. You will have to rename the takes by going to Takes under My Media, and right-clicking on the take. In my example below, I only changed the first part to either Family or Friends, and I left the 000x as it was to keep them in sequence. You will have to decide how best to keep track of what you do. Subsequent takes will continue with the same sequential numbering.

You can either leave the takes in the Takes folder or create separate folders for each category, and drag them onto the timeline.

When you come to creating your video about Family or Friends, you can then select the corresponding takes (use Windows Explorer or the Media Pool to navigate to the corresponding folder if you used different ones) and drag the takes onto the timeline in the order that you want. Again, Magix is non-destructive, so the take is actually just using the original video and doing what I indicated, selecting a portion of the video to be displayed. It is not a video file. If you find that you cut the clip too soon or in the wrong place, no problem, just drag the end (front or back) to extend the video. Your original video is still there. You could drag the end of your take right to the end of your original video clip (or to the beginning).

That said, if you have a lot to do, it would probably be much simpler to just use the original video file, cut out the irrelevant parts (non-destructive) and create each video separately.See pages 28 and 41 in the pdf manual for splitting and trimming video clips.

As you can see, there are several ways to approach this. Destructive editing is not one of them. I would be horrified to think that a program cut up my original video file.

Enjoy,

John