Ableton/Live/UG/28 Video
- Importing video into the Arrangement, aligning music to it and trimming it.
- Live suits scoring to picture: trim video clips, align music to the video with Warp Markers in Arrangement View, then render the edited video with the audio.
- Background: Ableton/Live/UG/09 Audio Clips Tempo and Warping; syncing with external video gear: Ableton/Live/UG/37 Sync with Link Tempo Follower and MIDI.
- Live imports QuickTime (.mov) movies as video clips; drag them in from the browser.
- Video shows only for clips in Arrangement View. In Session View a movie plays as an audio clip.
- How video clips, the Video Window and Clip View behave.
- A video clip in Arrangement View looks like an audio clip with "sprocket holes" in its title bar.
- It edits like an audio clip, but Consolidate, Reverse and Crop turn it into a plain audio clip inside the Set. The movie file is never changed.
- The Video Window floats above Live's main window. Show or hide it from the View menu, move it anywhere, and resize it from the bottom right corner; its size and position are remembered across Sets.
- Double-click it for full screen, optionally on a second monitor.
Option-double-click (Mac) / Alt-double-click (Windows) returns it to the video's original size. 28.2.2.1 Movies with Partial Tracks
- QuickTime audio and video tracks needn't span the whole movie. During video gaps the window shows black; audio gaps play silence.
- In Arrangement View, video clips default to Tempo Leader and audio clips to follower, so Warp Markers on the video set "hit points" the music follows. The video clip's Warp switch must be on.
- Only the lowest currently playing leader clip actually leads, so other video clips can end up warped, which shows as warped video.
28.2.3.1 Warp Markers
- Dragging a video clip's Warp Marker updates the Video Window to that frame, making it easy to line up music with picture. QuickTime markers embedded in the movie show as visual cues.
- To fit music to edits or hit points:
- Show Arrangement View (
Tab switches views on a single monitor). - Drag a QuickTime movie from the browser onto an audio track; the Video Window opens.
- Drag an audio clip into the drop area to create its own track, and unfold both tracks.
- Double-click the video clip, make sure Warp is on in its Audio tab, and set Leader so the rest of the Set follows the video's normal speed.
- Add and move Warp Markers on the video clip to set sync points; the waveform updates as you go.
- Optionally loop a section with the Ableton/Live/UI/Control Bar/Toggle/Arrangement Loop.
- Finish with File → Export Audio/Video, which mixes the audio to one file and can also export the video.
- Movies often arrive with a few seconds of pre-roll (the "two-beep") that the mix engineer expects in the delivered audio too. To compose with the action at 1.1.1 and timecode 00:00:00:00, then restore the pre-roll:
- Drop the movie at 1.1.1.
- In Clip View, drag the Start Marker right to where the action begins.
- When the music is ready to render, Select All and drag everything a few seconds right.
- Select only the video clip and drag its left edge all the way left to reveal the pre-roll.
- With the video clip still selected, Export Audio/Video renders a file as long as the original movie, pre-roll included.
