The first step after shooting/recording your video is to digitize. Obviously, begin by placing your tape into the Digital Videocassette Recorder. The recorder should be in "remote" mode (switch on the left of the recorder). If EditStation has not been automatically started by the computer, double click on the icon or click it from the desktop.

Once EditStation has been booted, the initial screen should appear. You begin creating your clips according to the type of tape you used.

If your tape has the ClipLink feature:

A.) you can select Clip from the top menu bar, then click on ClipLink. You will then have a dialog box appear.

B.) Select the VTR that will upload the video clip: RECORDER

C.) Select whether to accept only video clips with OK status or to accept ALL video clips.

D.) Then select OK.

You will get another dialog box asking for the Input Reel Name, so simply give it a name.

Once the cassette has been read, the clips will appear, without pictures on the Clip Bin.

Warning: If you began recording at 0:00:00:00 (normal time code start) and want to use that clip, the editor will not digitize it because it tries to go back at least one minute for preroll and gets lost in the numbers. To prevent that you can double click on the first clip, which will activate the Video Clip Editor. You can go to the beginning of the tape, or where recording began several ways-but the easiest is to select the "go to IN point" button (to the right of the eject button). Then forward you tape to a recommended one minute ahead, and push the "IN point" button on the dialog box or the video controller. You have now made a new clip that can replace the old one, so push "Replace" and exit out of the Video Clip Editor.  Please note:  if your first clip (or clips) is shorter than one minute, you will not be able to use that clip.

To Digitize, you need to select the clips you want to send to the digital recorder, otherwise it will only do the last one you worked on. To select them all, click on the first clip, hold down the shift button and click on the last clip. Then select Clip, then select Upload to DR (All Clips) or (Selected Clips). If you marked your pre-roll clip and your post-roll clip "NO GOOD", then you want to digitize all okay clips. If you did not mark your pre-roll and post-roll clips "NO GOOD", then click on your second clip, hold down the shift key and click on the next to last clip.

Using a tape without the ClipLink feature.

A. In the menu bar, select Clip, then Video Clip Editor.

B. Make sure to select the Recorder at the top of the dialog box. (It defaults to Player 1)

C. Rewind the tape to the beginning or where recording started.

D. Move one minute into the recording and push the "IN" button to place a mark in.

E. Forward the tape to the end of your recording and push the "OUT" button to place a mark out. (DO NOT      INCLUDE YOUR POST ROLL)

F. Close the dialog box. Make sure your audio board is on and up on Channels 1 and 2.

G. In the menu bar, select Clip, then select Upload to DR (All Clips).

(Each clip that has been digitized will have a green rectangle [the disk indicator] in the upper right hand corner.)

You now have one large digitize clip on the digital recorder. To make smaller clips from this mother clip, double click on the clip, which activates the Video Clip Editor and find a shorter clip. Simply push the "IN" button for a new mark in point and "OUT" for a new mark out point. You can even give this new clip a name in the dialog box and see its duration. It is important that you then choose to push the "Add" button instead of the "Replace" button. "Add" makes a new clip; "Replace" wipes out the old one and leaves you with just the one. Continue the process until the mother clip has been chopped up into smaller clips.

To record a reporter’s narration

You can do this two ways, before you begin editing or during the editing.

A.) Go to Clip, Video Clip Editor

B.) A "Properties" box will appear as one of your dialog boxes. Click the arrow out of the V/A link (which deactivates it).

C.) Select only A1/A2. (A musical note will appear as you video)

D.) Turn up the microphone on your audio board. The audio monitor next to your dialog box will show you how it is coming into the recorder.

Set the levels so they peak at or around 20.

E.) Push "M-Upload" on the Video Clip Editor dialog box

A record box will appear with three arrows. The first arrow, which blinks, is for the pre-roll (a countdown will accompany it). When the second or middle arrow starts to blink, the recording has begun. To stop, simply click on the "All Stop" button. The digitized audio clip will automatically be put in your clip bin.

Or...move to the Editor (in the second half of the screen). You should have a new menu bar.

A.)  Click on the audio track where you want the narration placed (recommended: S3).

B.)  Under the new editing menu bar, select Audio, Narration recording

The same record box appears. This time, the clip will be placed in the bin and on the editing timeline for you.

Editing your package

Once you are working on the Editor, there are two steps to take that will make editing easier. First, move your cursor to the menu bar and click on View, Clip on Track. This will allow you to see more of your video and audio tracks. Second, right click anywhere on the video and audio selection tracks (left side of the screen, bottom half). Select audio track, then audio mixer, then 2 ch. (Instead of 4 ch.), then OK.

This will allow you to hear your audio narration in S3.

You can begin laying down your video. Just click on the clip from your clip bin, drag the selected video or audio track down into the timeline. You should begin at 0:00:00:00. Otherwise, there will be blank video before your story.

If your reporter’s narration is still in the Clip Bin, I recommend bringing it down first into S3. You can then start dragging video clips to cover up the audio. The first video clip should go in V1 (the audio automatically goes into S1), while the second will be placed below the first in V2 (with the audio in S2). The more overlap of clips in V1 and V2 will cause the editor to automatically fade from one clip into the other.

If you want to shorten a clip in the timeline, move your cursor to the end of the clip and a double arrow appears. Then, click and drag the blinking arrow to the desired length. This way of shortening a clip affects the clip on the timeline, but not the digitize one in your bin.

Adjusting Audio on Clips

If you have audio sound on your video clips, you can either mute the audio by pushing the small square to the right of S1 and S2, or...

To adjust S1 and S2, right click on S1 or S2 edit bar, select track map, add/activate S1 and/or S2 faders. Controls for S1 and/or S2 will appear in the editing timeline. To adjust them, you can click on each end of the clip on the fader and drag them down which lowers the audio level.

Putting the Story back onto Tape

Place a resume story tape into the recorder. If you haven’t made a master tape yet, you need to now. Switch the recorder to local and rewind the tape.

A.) Select Tools, Create Master Tape....

B.) Make sure that the time code counter is reset to 00:00:00

C.) Select OK

(If your tape is 32 minutes, it will take 32 minutes to create a master tape.)

Once you have made a master tape, you can dub the story on:

A.) Cue your master tape to where you want your new package to be recorded.   Please be careful to cue your master tape to a point after your saved stories.  

B.) Drag the red cursor line back to the beginning of your timeline.

C.) Right click on your timeline.  Select adjust timeline to recorder.    This will change the time code on your timeline to match the time code on your master tape.  (If you do not adjust timeline to recorder, the editor will rewind your master tape to 00:00:00.  Probably this will cause your new story to be recorded over an existing package saved on your master tape.)

D.) Select Options, Timeline, Disable Recorder VTR (Off-should be enabled.

Click to take off check mark)

E.) Select Execute, Download to VTR (Analog/SDI)