Editing video clips the quick and free way

If you are give exact beginning and ending times for clips in long video files, you can prepare them using Microsoft's Clipchamp or the free version of DaVinci' Resolve.

In Clipchamp, you can enter a precise time where you want the clip to begin. Begin by typing in the hour, then press the right arrow key to enter a minute and a second. You can use the scissor icon to split up the video file.

If your source video file is well over several GBs the software may appear to get stuck. Press Play to get to the point at which your clip will begin, and then use the option to jump back 5 seconds to review how it sounds at the very beginning.

Enter the time at which the clip is to end the same way, and click the scissor icon once more, repeating the 5 second jump back to check the end of the clip.

Delete the part of the video on the timeline to the right of where your clip will end:

If you want to adjust exactly where the clip ends you can drag the purple tab at the end to the left or right.

Reenter your start time, and then delete the start of the source video, again finetuning the start of your clip as necessary.

Here at the beginning after the video segment is deleted, you will need to delete a gap of what will be black screen in the exported clip if is not removed.

When exporting the clip,, note that a a video set to 480p should be of sufficient quality for most purposes. If you unselect the option to store the video in the cloud, you will be prompted to save the file on a network drive.

Restart Clipchamp and open the source file again, instead of choosing the option to keep editing.

The free version of DaVinci's Resolve has many more options than Clipchamp.

Click on the EDIT option in the bottom toolbar, and then in the File menu select the option to Import . . . Media

Your video will appear as a small thumbnail in the Master pane on the left. Click on it and you will be able to bring the full video into the editing panel to the right. Be sure to enter eight digits including milliseconds at the end to mark the beginning of your clip.

The red marker will go to the point in the video you have set. Then by pressing the letter 'I' on your keyboard, you'll be able to bring the editing range from the left to that point. Enter the ending time for the clip the same way and then press the letter 'O'.

Go to Mark . . .Create Subclip

. . . and your clip will appear as a new thumbnail to the left.

Drag it down to the lower timeline to finetune the clip. Here it may be necessary to remove dead air from the beginning. Just right click and select the option for 'Ripple Delete'.

The Play, Stop, Fast Forward, and Rewind buttons for the copy of the video that appears at the top right, will help you fine tune your video.

Choose the option for 'Deliver' in the lower toolbar:

You will be able to select an array of options for the exported file. MP4 files with a codec set to H.264 will work well. Resolve will give you a preview of the resulting file size at the bottom of the pane.

Then just click the option to 'Render All' on the right of the screen.

Advancing in a video file by one second at a time

Anyone who has ever attempted to get to a precise position in a long video file in Windows Media Player, has likely become frustrated by the inability to go forward or backward in precise increments - whether by one second, five, ten, or more. You jump forward X number of seconds, then scroll back X seconds without landing at the exact point in the video you want to begin a playback or start an excerpt from.

VLC Media Player has a solution to this problem. You can fix the exact number of seconds that it will fast forward when either the left arrow or the right arrow is pressed in conjunction with the SHIFT, ALT, and CTRL keys.

In the Tools menu, select Preferences:

Select the 'All' radio button at the lower left in the 'Show settings' section. This will shift the available settings which are displayed, and you will see a drop down menu available on the left named, 'Interface'. Within this subsection, click 'Hotkeys settings'.

Then on the right, scroll down to show the options for very short, short, medium, and long jumps backwards and forwards.

Here you can easily give yourself the ability to go back or forward in the video by different numbers of seconds when using hotkey settings with the left or right arrow keys.

Free emergency pass for OnCue

I was pleased to discover that OnCue includes an option for an emergency license which lasts 24 hours. See the red box in the 'Activate License' dialog:

It could come in very handy if you're stuck in a situation where you can't get online and your subscription has just expired. See the confirmation here from OnCue's support team that this option will work if your laptop is offline: https://www.oncuetech.com/articles/emergency-activation/p