Blackmagic Forum

I was having difficulty inserting any sort of transition between my clips - this happened to be video of a band. I researched the issue both here and on the internet and understand the issue to be not enough info at the end and beginning of the clips for Resolve to process a transition. I'm told the solution is to trim a couple of seconds of clip from the end of one and the beginning of the other and then transitions work.

Sure enough, this worked. But I don't quite understand what trimming the clips accomplishes. Once you trim is the info still there? How can that be if that portion was trimmed? And if the info is still there, it was also there before the trim, so why the need to trim?

I know I am fundamentally missing something so I hope to have this clarified. The transitions not working also occurred in Premiere Pro, so I know it is a user issue. I know "what" needs to be done but not "why".

Thanks all-

This is the kind of thing you learn in "film school". I do advocate for that kind of education before entering this field, whether it's a four year degree or even just some online training courses.

First learn, then do.

Things go a lot smoother that way.

For any transition to work you sort of have to have overlapping clips.

This will not work:
clip 1___Clip 2
11111112222222
because the last frames of clip 1 have no information from clip 2

You could place the two clips on your timeline like this:

Clip 1_Clip 2
_____2222222
1111111________

Now clip 1 and clip 2 have a place on your timeline where they share time and DVR can work on frames from both clips at the same time and blend those frames together.

When you trim a clip you do not delete anything, you just set in/out points. Just double click on a trimmed clip to se this. When you make a transition on two clips that are butted together and where both are trimmed DVR can work on the invisible frames as overlapping frames and make transitions on them. You will se this in your timeline:

1111122222
___2211___ <-This is invisible to you and are the trimmed parts of your clips

If that makes any sense

Oilar - thanks. Makes sense - sort of. I get that Resolve needs info from both clips. But if you have to trim and the info is still there - the same info is there if you don't trim. Either way it's the same info. So why the need to trim first?

Davinci offers an alternative method to create transitions without the need to trim first. Maybe this will help you to visualize why you need to trim the clips if you do it the normal way.

You hold alt+shift and you drag one clip inside another, as you can see on the gif bellow the transition is created by the overlaping parts.

Thanks Panos.