Capturing pictures and sound

As a necessary precondition for this tutorial you should already have created a project. You can use pictures and audio files from the Wings Vioso RX DVD or from the USB stick, which were saved to folder My documents on the harddisk during the Wings Vioso RX installation. We will show you how to add these media files to the Media Pool. Please note that all media files contained on the Wings Vioso RX DVD are protected by copyright. See Also Copyright for media samples.

As you may well suspect, the Media Pool accommodates all media files of a project, e.g. picture, audio, video and text files. In addition to this, other items which are also important for your project, such as screen and device configurations and a collection of user-defined dissolve ramps are also managed in the Media Pool.

Clicking the wrong buttons while trying to reproduce the workshop is really no problem. Virtually anything can be undone. The Undo Function will help you undo or restore editing steps most easily. The Undo and Redo keys can be found in the function bar below the main menu.

This is how you can import existing media files

Note: The screenshots are based on Wings Vioso but it shouldn’t be any problem to follow and work through the workshop.

Folder Media Samples contains various picture and audio files which you can use for this workshop. In the main menu click Extras followed by Open folder Media Samples and Windows Explorer will appear. If this is not the case the sample files may be missing on your computer. Insert the Wings Vioso RX DVD or plug in the USB stick and click Install sample media in the selection dialog. Do not change the default folder My documents as storage location.
In the Media Pool on the left highlight category Pictures (A). Bring the Windows Explorer window to the foreground and drag and drop folder Pictures into the Media Pool (B), following which the files are listed in the Media Pool.

Since Wings Vioso RX renders the media display data in the background it may take a while before the pictures are displayed. The number of files remaining to be processed is indicated in the bottom right corner on tab Tasks.

In the Media Pool click category Audio and drag and drop folder Sound from the Windows Explorer to the Media Pool.
When you highlight an audio file in the Media Pool, the corresponding graphic representation of the audio is displayed in the Preview window. If necessary you need to click tab Preview beforehand.
When you click on category Pictures and highlight a picture file, the picture is enlarged and displayed in the Preview window.

If you have added large amounts of data into the Media Pool, you may be confronted with blue crosses in the Media Pool as an indication that display data have not been created. In such a case you can have the display data created all at once. Just click on Create display data in the tool bar below the main menu. This may take a while, depending on the number of files. You can, however, continue editing, since this process is running in the background.

Import of video files

Creating new audio files

Wings Vioso RX offers various ways of creating new audio files, e.g. recording sound via a sound card, copying sound from audio CDs. All these procedures are explained in more detail in the Wings Vioso RX Help files, in the following chapters:

Copying audio samples from audio CD

Recording sound via a sound card

As an example, we will show you how to copy a piece of music from an audio CD.

Insert CD and make preparations

Insert an audio CD into your CD ROM drive. If the Windows Media Player should start up a little later, abort it.

You can prevent the Media Player from starting up by holding the Shift key for a few seconds while inserting the CD into the CD ROM drive.

In the main menu click Media Pool and Create new files.
In the left window section, click on the plus sign next to Audio and Pictures to display the subordinated items. These are the options for creating new media files. Now click Audio CD.
In the centre of the pop-up dialog you will find a list of audio tracks of this CD starting with 01. Should this list be empty, choose the correct CD drive at the top.
As target directory, Wings Vioso RX has chosen the corresponding folder. You don't need to make any changes.

If you have access to the Internet, you can download the names of the music titles and other information from a data base on the Internet. To do so, click on Track names from Internet database. When there is no Internet connection, you are requested to dial up.
If you do not have access to the Internet or if the name of your audio CD is not contained in the database, you can enter the base file name, e.g. an abbreviation of the CD title. In combination with the number, the tracks are then clearly defined. However, you can also enter individual names for your tracks. Just mark a name on the list and click the name again. Enter the corresponding name and press the Enter key.

Listening to and copying track samples

Highlight a title and click to listen to the sample.

Some, usually professional sound cards, do not support this function. For these cases, you can directly connect a headset to the CD ROM drive.

If you click any other titles while playing back, playback changes over to the selected titles.
Click on to terminate playback.
Highlight the titles you want to copy (... one or more).
Click on . The dialog appearing allows you to keep track of the progress. The copied titles can then be found in the Media Pool.

If you only require a small portion of a piece of music, you can also copy portions. You should, however, choose a larger section which leaves you enough scope for editing the sound object at a later time. Further information can be found upon pressing the F1 key.

Terminate the Record Dialog by clicking OK.

Viewing, listing to and organizing media files

You have now added a number of files to the Media Pool and may continue adding further files at any time. As you can image, a comprehensive show may comprise hundreds or thousands of media files in the Media Pool. In the following we will show you how to view or listen to media files and how these files can be structured and organized in a system.

Viewing and listening to media files

In the Media Pool click on category Audio and highlight an audio file to make the graphic of the audio appear in the Preview window.
Move the mouse to the Preview window (you may have to activate it beforehand) and the mouse pointer will be provided with a Play symbol. After a mouse-click playback is started at exactly this location in the audio file. Click the preview window once again to stop playback. Alternatively, you can also start playback via the Play button in the Media Pool.
If you click any other files in the Media Pool while playing back, the corresponding files are immediately played back. This way, pieces of music can easily and comfortably be compared and selected.

You can also sort the listed audio files according to different criteria. In the line containing the column headers click on Duration. Following this, all audio files are sorted in a descending order in accordance with this criterion. Click on Duration again to reverse sorting, i.e. the longest piece of music is now at the top of the list. After clicking on Name the files are again in alphabetical order.
Now click on Pictures and highlight a picture file to display the picture in the Preview window.
Of course, it is also possible to sort the pictures in accordance with the available criteria. Moving the scroll bar at the bottom to the right will cause further criteria to appear. Under Comment you can enter your personal remarks with regard to a file. Using the mouse, you can grab a column at its header and move it to any location, e.g. column Comment to the very left. This means that the columns can be arranged and organized in any desirable way.
For category Pictures you can choose a different form of display which allows several pictures to be viewed at a glance, just like on a lightbox. Just click on button Lightbox view in the function bar below the main menu.
Just like on a normal lightbox you can sort and move the pictures by grabbing them with the mouse and dragging them to the desired location. In order to have free spaces for sorting, right-click the first picture in the top left-hand corner and Insert empty row.
You can also test dissolves of pictures. With the right mouse button, drag a picture onto another picture and a test dissolve will be displayed in the timeline window as long as the right mouse button is kept pressed. You can also test dissolves with various other pictures by just dragging the picture onto other pictures. If you don't like the dissolve time, you can change it by hitting a number key on the main keyboard between 0 (zero seconds) and 9 (10 seconds).
This test functions is an excellent means for evaluating individual pictures. Right-click a picture with the mouse-pointer and move the mouse-pointer slightly on it to make the picture appear in the timeline window.

Structuring content

The left side of the Media Pool consists of categories. They help you organize everything contained in the Media Pool. You can create as many folders and subfolders for every category as you like and name them in accordance with the contents. These folders are created, shifted and renamed, just like in the Windows Explorer. By highlighting a folder its contents are displayed in the right section of the Media Pool.

Right-click category Pictures and select New Folder. Name the new folder to specify a group of motives or a topic, e.g. Landscape and press the Enter key.
Now right-click folder Landscape to select New Folder; Name it for example, Coast. Repeat this procedure and create a new subfolder in folder Landscape called Forest, for instance.
These folders can now be used to accommodate the corresponding pictures. Click on category Pictures. Keep the Ctrl key pressed and highlight a few pictures with coastal motives on them. Grab them and move the pictures into folder Coast. Do likewise with any other groups of motives.
When clicking one of these folders in the Project Explorer, the pictures contained therein will be displayed.
This way, contents can also be organized in accordance with other criteria, e.g. according to Pop, Classic, Noises, Language, etc. for Audio.
For sorting a vast number of pictures into various folders you can open the corresponding folder in a separate window. Right-click a category or a folder and select Open in new window.
In list view, the folder contents can also be sorted in accordance with certain criteria. To do so, click at the header of a particular column, e.g. Name, for all the lines to be sorted in accordance with this criterion. Click again to reverse sorting. Sorting works likewise for all columns. Tip: When you hold down the Ctrl key while changing over to lightbox view the current sorting order is taken over from the list into the lightbox view.
Presumably you may not be able to see all columns. Move the scroll bar to the right to see even the very right columns. If one of the last columns appears to be more important to you, drag the corresponding header to another location, e.g. further to the left. This way the order of columns can be arranged in accordance with your individual requirements.

A final tip: Any folders on the hard disk that contain nicely structured files can easily be transferred to the Media Pool by dragging the folder from the Windows Explorer and dropping it onto a Media Pool category or a subfolder of it. However, this works only if the folder on the hard disk contains only one type of media, e.g. only pictures, audio or videos.

Please bear in mind that the folders in the Project Explorer do not necessarily exist on your hard disk, but are only used for structured filing withing Wings Vioso RX! Wings Vioso RX only stores the references to the media files on the hard disk.

If you would like to take a break, save your practice project by clicking on Save project in the function bar below the main menu. You should now go on to the tutorial Editing sequences of pictures and objects. You will be supplied with some basic information about how to deal with objects, which you may use for sound and video editing as well.