Editing in Liquid

Clips can be loaded into a clip window, where in and out points are set or into a traditional source/player window like Adobe Premiere and Avid Xpress DV. Clips can also be played in the ICON view in the project window and you can even set in and out points within this window. 

Here you can also see one of the new additions in version 5 of Liquid.  You can colour correct a clip in the clip window before it is placed on the timeline.  This means that rather than looking through a large number of clips and correcting the colour one by one you can fix the entire clip first then use it.  Of course, the same type of colour correction is also available to apply individually to clips on the timeline if you prefer.

The colour controls are split into highlights, midtones and shadows with controls for adjusting the overall brightness, and red, green and blue levels of each brightness level.  This is good for brightening up the midtones whilst not making the overall clip too bright, for example.

Scene Detection

Another new feature for version 5, Liquid can detect scenes in your video either based on the date and time the footage was recorded (provided you set the date and time in your camera in the first place) or based on picture content.  The date and time splitting (referred to as based on metadata) is more accurate and can be done either during capture or afterwards.  The picture content scanning can only be done post-capture.

Asking a computer to find scenes by watching the video is never going to be 100% accurate – it may mistake a whip pan for scene change or not detect a change because very little in the shot actually changes.  The sensitivity can be altered so it will look for large or small changes and you can specify a start and end point on your clip so you can analyse it in small chunks.  Finally if you are not happy with the findings you can remove the scene markers or add your own.

Once scenes have been detected you can then get Liquid to split the clip into either whole clips (known as Master clips) or subclips.  Subclips just mark and in and out point on the main clip and produce an icon in the project window of this clip.  This means you can still adjust the in and out point, using more of the original clip if preferred, or if the scene analysing got it wrong, but it creates a nice list of all your shots to help with later editing.

The scene detection in Liquid has to be the best we have used.

Of course you don’t have to use the scene detection at all – you can still watch the clips and split them as you do so.  Scene detection just helps to speed up this process.

Using the traditional clip window Liquid still has a few refinements. As you would expect, apart from the usual play, stop, fast forward and rewind using the keys J, K & L, you can also skip through the clip by dragging your mouse along ruler bar underneath the clips. However, with long clips this can become very inaccurate. Liquid allows you to zoom into a small section of the clip, with the long dark grey bar showing you where you are in the particular clip. This is extremely useful, especially when dealing with large clips. 

You can also drag anywhere in the picture area to move through the clip and you can use the wheel on your mouse to move forward one frame and back one frame at a time.

Storyboarding on the desktop

Alternatively you can drag several clips to the desktop, play them within their icons, set in and out points and arrange then in a simple fashion right there. Once you are happy with the order then you right click and either choose to preview the edit as it stands - a clip window then appears with all the clips ready to play - or you can send the lot to the timeline top refine the edit. This makes very simple quick storyboard editing.

THE PROJECT WINDOW 

Clips can be displayed in various ways, although the simplest is the icon view as shown. Even if the clip has only been logged and not yet recorded onto the computer the icon will still be shown.

You can create folders for different, re organise, copy clips from one folder to another etc.. You can even create a folder of all the clips used in a particular timeline and then instruct Liquid to capture just that footage.

You can play clips in the icon view if you want and even set in and out points prior to dropping them on the timeline.

Picon play

The clip here is being played right in the project window, with full output to the connected DV deck, and you can even set in and out points as shown.