Moving and Resizing Sources

Any source in the timeline can be moved or resized easily. In addition to dragging sources, they can also be forced to move in the same track. The duration of the sources can be changed by resizing the sources

Moving Sources

In addition to dragging sources, to move a source to a different location on the same track, simply select it with the mouse, press the Ctrl key, and drag it to the desired location. You may even select the source and move it by tapping the Right or Left arrow keys. Keep the Shift key pressed if you want the movement to be slower.

Multiple sources can be moved together in the same track or in different tracks relative to one another. For instance, you can  move two videos, say clip 1 and clip 2, present in the video 1 and video 2 tracks respectively. The two videos can be moved in their respective tracks while maintaining their relative positions with respect to one another. Select the desired tracks, while pressing the Ctrl key and move the sources together using the arrow keys on the keyboard. This is very important when the alignment of two videos or the video and audio streams of the same media file is to be maintained while moving them.

Resizing Sources

To resize a source, use the mouse to grab the triangle at the top right hand corner of the clip and drag. This will change the duration of the clip. Whenever you resize a clip, the speed at which the video or audio is played, changes.

For example if an audio clip is 10 seconds long and contains 20 beats of the drum, 2 beats will be audible every second. If you change the duration of this clip to 5 seconds by dragging it, you will hear 4 beats in a second. Technically this is called as a pitch shift.

If the duration of a video file is reduced, it will play faster than normal and if the duration is increased, it will appear to play in jagged slow motion. Thus, resizing sources drastically is not a good idea. However it is an easy way of changing the speed of the media that is being played in that clip.

You may select multiple sources and resize them together. This helps when video and audio belonging to the same file needs to be resized.

When you have more than one source on a track, then resizing one of the sources will not affect the position of the other sources. Their original position with respect to the timeline remains the same. To view the time duration for which the source will be active, simply move the mouse pointer over the source.

Restoring a Source to its original size

If you have resized the source and do not like the effect, you may restore it back to its original size (duration). Just select the media clip and choose Edit > Restore Size.