Video

Import clips, cut them on a timeline with audio and transitions, export.

Video is nodes too. A clip is a node, the timeline is a node, the export is a node. Everything on the board can feed a clip, and every clip can take a filter.

Import#

Drop an .mp4, .mov, or .m4v on the board (.mkv too, on Windows). It lands as a Video Proxy. The file stays on disk, not inside your document: move it and the node offers Relink. Open a document whose clips moved and Magerie says how many are missing: Relink... asks for one folder and relinks every clip it finds there. Hover the node and press play to preview it in place.

Big files? Click the lightning badge on the node's title, pick 240 to 720p, and Optimize for a light editing copy. Export always uses the original.

Drop an .mp3, .m4a, .wav, or .aac for an Audio Source. Audio is saved inside your document.

Play#

Wire any video into a Video Monitor for play, pause, scrub, and preview volume. The loop button next to play makes it play round from the end to the start; the board remembers it. The Timeline has no play button of its own: the Monitor drives it.

The Timeline#

Add a Video Timeline. Lanes stack bottom to top, any clip kind on any lane, audio always mixes.

Add clips#

Anything that makes a picture or a video goes on the Timeline. A clip lands where you let go: that lane, that time. The wire makes itself.

  • Drop a wire: drag from any video or image output and let go over the lanes.
  • Alt-drag a node: a Video Proxy, Audio Source, or Image node.
  • Pictures become stills: an image output (a painting, Noise, a Composite) lands as a 5 second clip that holds the picture. Drag its edge to any length. Change the picture and the clip follows.
  • Not rendered yet? Drop the wire of an Image to Video, Flipbook, or Frame you never rendered. It renders first, and the clip lands when the render is done.

Edit clips#

  • Edit: click to select, drag to move, drag an edge to trim. Snapping is on. F zooms to the clip. Delete removes it.
  • Right-click a clip to split at the playhead, ripple delete, or detach audio.
  • Right-click a lane's gutter to add or remove tracks. The M and S buttons mute and solo a lane.
  • Place it in the frame: select a clip, put the playhead inside it, and drag its box in the Monitor. A corner scales it, the handle above rotates it. Right-click the box for Fit, Fill (crop), Stretch, or Source (1:1). Where another clip sits on top, a click selects that clip and a drag still moves yours.
  • Loop: turn on Loop in the Inspector and the clip starts over when its footage runs out, so its right edge drags out as far as you like. A tick on the clip marks each restart.

The Inspector badge (sliders icon) on the title shows the selected clip: Speed, Loop, Fit, Scale, Rotation, Opacity, Fade In / Out, Volume, and a Filters slot for a look from the board. A still has no Speed or Loop: it is one picture.

Transitions#

Hover the cut between two clips on a lane and click the diamond for a Dissolve. Click the wedge that appears to change its length or swap in a custom transition from your board: a subgraph with two image inputs and a progress number input. Drag the wedge to re-time it.

Dissolve needs unused media at the end of the left clip. Trim its right edge in first.

Follow a voice#

Make a graphic show only while someone is talking. Add a Speech Gate and Alt-drag it onto the narration clip. Select the graphic's clip, click its Opacity in the Inspector, and pick Narration.

Want a different threshold? Double-click the Speech Gate to step inside. It is ordinary nodes: Audio Level turns the clip's loudness into a signal over time, Gate opens when that rises past a threshold and closes when it drops back, and Smooth takes the edge off. Add them yourself to make your own. Sample Signal reads a signal at the playhead so it can drive any slider on the board.

Composition#

The gear badge sets the frame: 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, 4:5, or custom, at 2160p, 1080p, or 720p, and the frame rate.

Export#

Wire the Timeline (or any video) into a Video Exporter. Pick a Preset or set Format (MP4, MOV, GIF, PNG Sequence), then press Export. Mixed audio is included. MOV is macOS only.

Bake#

Node Use it to
Image to Video Bake a Time-driven image graph into a clip. Titles, procedural motion. A picture that does not move needs no bake: drop it on the Timeline.
Frames to Video Turn a Flipbook's frames, or any image array, into a clip.
Video Baker Apply a board filter to every frame of a clip, permanently.

A dot in the top-right corner of a baked node means it is out of date: its settings or input changed since. Render or bake again to update it. The same dot shows on a Timelapse and a Flipbook.

Where to next#