TK2 versus Movie file saving.

Richard-Curtis wrote on 7/24/2019, 8:23 AM

In order to edit a large number of avi videos and ex-cine mp4 files I have elected to chop the lot up into takes and save these for future reassembly in various short documentary movies. Question is: Do the wise men (and women - oops!) on this forum recommend I should save the takes as .tk2 files using 'save objects as takes', or as video files using the batch conversion facility? The former is quick, but the .tk2 files seem fragile and vulnerable to accidental deletion, while the latter takes up a lot of time and disk space. Advice on this issue would be appreciated, as I have a lot of movie hours to edit and I don't want to start off in the wrong direction.

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 7/24/2019, 2:44 PM

@Richard-Curtis

Personally I do not use Takes, saving sections as true video files, if I need to, usually in Magix MXV format.

From the manual:

. . . . A take file (*.tk2) contains a reference to a multimedia file or to a special object
(videos, sound, visuals, etc.) including all additional properties that an object may
possess (start and end time, fades, and effects including effects curves . . .

AFAICS this means a Take is not a video file, and loading a Take still requires the original video file(s) to be able to load it and apply the various effects etc that were added to the objects on the timeline before being saved as a Take.

HTH

John EB

Richard-Curtis wrote on 7/27/2019, 12:05 PM

Hi John, Well, after agonising over this some more I've decided to persevere with takes - at least for now or until something goes wrong. The tk2 files are embedded in the corresponding mxv file, so I'm hoping they will be secure so long as I don't do anything careless. Just wanted to know what others are doing...

Thank you for your take(!) on this issue.

Richard

browj2 wrote on 7/27/2019, 12:55 PM

@Richard-Curtis

Hi,

Once I have a long imported video broken (split) into scenes and or themes, I create a movie (under the movie tabs) for each theme and then cut related clips and paste them into their own movie. Then I export each movie to be used as a separate project.

Another method, depending on whether or not I want to keep the original project split into scenes, I copy and paste the material for each theme into its own movie. Then, or before which may be easier, I give the clips for each them in the main timeline their own colour. Anything without a colour is either to be done or not used.

Either way, I get a head start on the various themed projects.

Since I use Video Pro X, I have also created folders in the Project Temp Folder (PTF) per theme, and then inserted the corresponding clips to its folder. This insertion or entry in the PTF is just a virtual link to the part of the video to be used. Then I export the PTF and import it into a pertinent project, delete the unneeded theme folders, and work from there. This allows me to preview and pre-trim clips before inserting them onto the timeline. I can also change the name of the entry to something more descriptive. This does not affect the original video file that still has to remain intact.

John CB

Richard-Curtis wrote on 7/29/2019, 12:45 PM

Hi John

Thank you for the detailed description of the procedure you employ while editing clips. I gather that, like John EB above, you also save takes as real files. I should have mentioned from the start that the whole idea of my saving takes is so I can employ them multiple times - in different movies, of course. I think I'm probably agonising over this issue unnecessarily - now that I'm beginning to understand how MEP organises its internal files it probably doesn't make any substantial difference whether I save events in clips as tk2 files (thus embedded in mxv files), or as stand-alone movie files. One thing I'm going to have to sort out, though, is where these various file types are stored on my PC. At the moment, thanks to my haste in making some progress with basic editing, they're all over the place.

Thanks again for those insights

Richard