The jahshaka editing module is new and improved, currently only on linux but with RC2 Osx and windows for our final release! Read on to find out how to use it and what it can do!

Jahshaka Editor Module
This document provides a short user guide for the video editor module.
At the point of writing, this functionality is only available on the linux platform.

Table of Contents

* Getting Started
* Configuring
* Media Support
* Loading Media
* Adding Media to the Project
* Playing and Navigating
* Trimming, Splitting and Deleting
* Project Multitrack
* Cut Effects
* Track Effects
* Saving and Loading
* Undo and Redo
* Rendering

Getting Started


To access the editor, click on the Editing button on the left hand side of the lower section of the Jahshaka window.





Configuring


Before you use the editor for the first time, it is recommended that you configure it to your needs. To do this, you can go to the Settings page:



Here you can select your:

* Normalisation - You can select either PAL or NTSC - generally, it is better to select the normalisation of your source material. For telecine material, it is suggested that you use PAL. It can only be changed prior to the inclusion of source material.
* Deinterlace - There are a number of techniques available for deinterlacing and they are listed in order of CPU overhead requirements and quality. This should have no impact on progressive source material.
* Rescaling - There are a number of techniques available for software scaling. These are listed in order of CPU overhead requirements. Note that while 'No Scaling' is provided, its use is not recomended and it will be overruled on a needs basis.
* Resolution - Specifies the projects resolution - it can be useful to reduce this during the authoring phase, since it will reduce CPU usage in many cases.
* Aspect Ratio - You can select your aspect ratio here - again, it is recommended that this matches your source material.
* Audio Resampling - You may select either 44.1khz or 48khz stereo.



The remaining two items are not related to the project itself, but to the preview.

* Audio Driver - Linux has a plethora of audio drivers - we support a few of those - choose which one suits your system.
* Preview Audio - Here you can select to preview with audio and frame dropping (smooth audio, choppy video when the project is complex), with audio (choppy audio, every frame shown) or without audio (every frame shown).



Once selected, these settings will be automatically saved when you exit the application normally and will be reused when you reload. The first group of properties are also stored with the project and will be reused automatically when you load the project in jahshaka.

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Media Support


After the configuration step (which you can return to at any point), you should be ready to load some media.

Many video formats are supported, but availability depends on what you have installed on your system. Typically, good formats are Digital Video (DV) in raw, avi (types 1 and 2) and quicktime mov format. Other formats, such as DiVX (mpeg-4 with an mp3 soundtrack in an avi container), MJPEG and others are supported with varying degrees of success.

Audio in the form of mp3, mp2, wav and ogg are also supported.

Still images can be loaded from png, jpeg, bmp, tga and probably others.

Rendered images and animation sequences from the other modules can also be loaded as clips in the editor.

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Loading Media


There are two methods to introduce media into the project.

The first is via the Get Desktop button - selecting this will cause the preview to be replaced by the main Jahshaka desktop.

To load media there, right hand click anywhere in the preview and select 'Load'. In the file selection dialog provided, you may load any number of items by clicking on each with the shift key held down.

Finally, select your media and press the Return button. To cancel the operation, select the Editing button on the lower left hand side of the window.

The alternative is to do it in place in the Editor itself. To do this, you can drag the hidden Media Tray located on the left hand side of the preview:



Again, to load media there, right hand click anywhere in the tray or preview and select 'Load'.

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Adding Media to the Project


Select the item you want from the tray and drag it on to the preview:



You may do this repeatedly to load multiple clips on to the first track of the project (see below for more information about tracks and effects).

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Playing and Navigating


A number of methods exist for playing and navigating the current project:

* Transport Bar - these are the traditional VCR style buttons below the preview.
* Keyboard Control - the J, K and L keys (JKL) can be used to play back, stop or play respectively - there are variations on these with the Ctrl and Alt keys (vary degrees of speed). Cursor left and right (with similar Ctrl and Alt variants) can also be used to navigate the video.
* Scrub Bar and LCD - this is the horizontal scale to the right of the Transport Bar - it can be used to quickly move you around in the video. You can also click and drag on the LCD display to the right of the scroll bar to move around.
* LCD Calculator - a right hand click on the LCD widget will bring up a calculator which can be helpful to move to a particular time (1 second = 25 in PAL and 29.97 in NTSC).



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Trimming, Splitting and Deleting


One of the most common needs for an editor is simply to 'trim' unwanted footage from a video clip.

There a couple of ways of doing this while in the Project page:

* LCD Trimming - there are 3 LCD displays labelled In, Out and Length respectively - In and Out are interactive and can be used in the same way as the Scrub Bar LCD described in the previous section - click and drag to change the values, or use the LCD Calculator. Double clicking on these will restore the values to the originals.
* Keyboard Trimming - you can use the I and O keys to set the In and Out points of the cut.
* Splitting - you can also use the S key to split the cut at the current point.
* Deleting - pressing the Delete key will remove the current cut. Pressing Ctrl and Delete will replace the cut with blanks.



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Project Multitrack


The project multitrack in the Project page is used to edit and provide an overview of the project you're working on - tracks are processed from the top down so in normal situations, the first track (labelled T1) is the background, with contents from the higher numbered tracks being composited and mixed on to that.

The multitrack will always indicate the active track and cut as shown:



Editing on the multitrack largely consists of clicking to select an active cut and change the position of the project. Clicking and dragging will move clips around on the same track.

To change track without changing position, click on the track label or use cursor up and down.

All items (including blank areas) can be trimmed using the techniques described above.

Track manipulations, such as adding a new track, removing or moving the current track up or down, can be done via the Tracks button.

The selected Mode dictates how new media is introduced into the project after it has been dropped on to the preview from the side tray or via the Get Desktop button.

Finally, the Zoom controls allow you to zoom in and out on the multitrack view.

Note that tracks are independent of one another - a modification on one track will not affect any tracks above or below. Perhaps confusingly, the multitrack will always resize itself to the length of the project.

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Cut Effects


Effects are introduced via the same mechanism as media. You will find a collection of .jfx files in the (TBD) directory.

Typically, these effects will apply to the currently selected cut after they have been introduced. Many of them have properties that can be modified in the Cut page:



Effects can be disabled or removed using the Off and Remove buttons below the table on the right hand side.

Effects can also be trimmed via their table or using the I and O keys.



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Track Effects

Associated to every track are compositing and mixing effects - these allow control over how a lower track is combined with the image and audio resulting from the tracks above.

There is a special case relating to the composite which allows you to (relatively) simply specify where the compositing will occur. To use this, select the (lower) track in the Project page, then change to the Track page and select the composite effect. Finally, click on the preview and drag your mouse:



As with cut effects, track effects can be turned off and removed.

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Saving and Loading

The current project can be saved via the Settings page. Projects can be saved either directly to a directory of your choice, or stored transiently on the desktop.

Note that if you reload a project from the desktop into an empty project, you will see the multitrack and effects as you did when you saved it. If the project is non-empty, the reloaded project is treated as a normal cut.

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Undo and Redo

The convential Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-R key bindings are used (... at least, that's the convention on Linux :-)).

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Rendering

In the current version, there is no specific render functionality provided in the application. This will be introduced in RC2.

However, projects saved can be loaded directly in the Animation and Effects modules from the desktop (use the Store on Desktop functionality provided in the Settings page for this).