Should Offset on an audio clip work like this?

[PGA]

In this recent topic Gary (goddi) was trying to move an audio clip from one track to another whilst guaranteeing that the position with respect to the timeline didn't change. Whilst investigating this I have come across a behaviour that seems wrong to me.

The first screen shot below shows the value of the Offset field for the second clip immediately after it was dragged into place in the Timeline view. The offset is 16 seconds from the start of the track. The second screenshot shows the situation after dragging that clip from Track2 into Track 1 here in the Project Options > Audio tab. The Offset is still showing as 16 seconds. This to me implies that the clip will now start 16 seconds from the start of Track 1. But when I OK that change the result is as in the third screenshot. The offset has been applied from the end of the previous clip. I find this an unnatural behaviour. To me, it would make more sense if the Offset field was always the offset from the start of the Track.

If the offset was always applied from the start of the Track, then dragging audio clips from track to track in the Project Options > Audio tab would guarantee that there would be no lateral movement.

regards,

Peter

[davegee]

If you look at the "rules" for Single Track/Multiple Audio Clip, doesn't your example follow those rules?

If you add two clips to the same track in Project Options (PO)/ Audio then the second track's offset is relative to the first track's end (zero).

Dragging a clip from the File List gives the exact same result (as your example). It is possible to introduce a negative offset and crossfade this way.

So, dragging a clip from one track into another should obey the same "rules" as adding a Clip via PO?

DG

[PGA]

Dave,

As this wonderful product gets more and more complicated with more and more new function, there is a need to take every opportunity to make the user interface simpler and easier.

I believe that such an opportunity exists here. One solution would be to have PTE recalculate the offset when a clip is dragged from track to track in Project Options > Audio. It does that calculation when you drag a clip from track to track in the Timeline view, so why not in Project Options as well?

regards,

Peter

[davegee]

The question that comes to mind is "Why now?".

The Offset Value for an Audio Clip in Single Track / Multiple Clip has always been this way.

Why, suddenly, should it change?

If each track is considered in its own right then this "feature" makes sense.

When adding a second Audio Clip to an existing track it is added to the end of the previous clip with zero offset with respect to the previous clip. Adding a positive offest creates a gap of "silence" and adding a negative offset creates a crossfade. The value of the negative offset is the "duration" of the Crossfade.

What could be simpler?

DG

P.S. In your example (bearing in mind the Crossfade feature) wouldn't the previous clip fade out during the "Silent Offset" of the following clip?

[jt49]

I do not want to argue in which way tho offset should be defined (relative to zero or relative to end of the previous clip). But I would like to agree with Peter that in the present situation the dragging of clips in Project Options > Audio does not work well.

Regards,

jt

[jevans]

This discussion and some recent similar posts illustrates the difficulties that can occur as software becomes more and more complex. PTE is now so complex and flexible that there are so many different ways to acheive a final result. This means that users may have many different requirements and, if Igor was to implement all of these it might drastically reduce the product's usability.

In this thread, the possibility to move clips from one track to another using either dragging from a track on the timeline or by dragging a track in the in the Project/audio window is being debated. Rather than having multiple ways to acheive a function perhaps the most important requirement is to have a simple easy to understand procedure. For myself, looking at the timeline whilst moving a clip from one track to another seems to be the most straightforward method and I cannot envisage why I would want to do this in the Poject/Audio tab.