How to paste a copied clip inbetween other existing tracks?

How can we paste a copied clip to be on the position of the cursor, but on a new clip in between other tracks (where we exactly specify where)?

Right now the only way I know is to copy a clip, paste it on the end of the same track, create a new track (whith 'add trackS' as that seems to be the only way to define somewhat where the track will be added in the stack) and move the clip to that new track and the wanted position.
Which is a extremely unintuitive and time consuming workflow, so I must be missing something.

At the moment I need to create multiple tracks in the timeline track stack which should be copies of a single track I already have. So this is the moment to finally learn to do this the right way.

Anybody could please help me by telling me how to quickly paste a copied clip in between tracks?
Thanks!

[edit] I just found this video (

) which should answer this question, but the method provided must be the most rediculous way I've ever came across in software before if this is really the only way to paste to the track we want. So please tell me this isn't true... !!!! Copy'n'paste is the most basic thing in computer software, tell me Davinci got it right somewhere???

He’s pretty much nailed it. This method is pretty normal for editing programs (NLEs).

What other ways have you seen? Do you have a specific suggestion?


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This method is pretty normal for editing programs (NLEs).

You can't be serious.

This is normal to me: copy clip --> place cursor on time and track --> paste.

That's how basically every other (windows) software normally handles copy and paste. That's just how the UI convention of Windows and graphical UI's normally is.

I don't work work with Premiere or other video editor at the moment, so can't check there, but it works like that in every motion graphics editor, animation software, audio editor/DAW, MIDI sequencer and graphics and 3D software (also software specifically designed for broadcast), playlists (also for broadcast) or other software that has layers I've ever used. Apart from how obvious software like Excel, word etc. handles copy'n'paste just the same.

In this video, she demonstrates how to copy and paste a clip to the track you want in Premiere Pro. In it she explains that you shift-click on a track to unselect them all then click on the track you want to paste to.

In Resolve, you shift-click the Auto Track Selector on any track which will disable it on all tracks, then you click on the Auto Track Selector for the track you want to paste to. Then you paste. What is the big difference?

In this video as well.

What is the major difference?

I agree it would be nice to select a track and have that be looked at before looking at auto selects. I think that’s a fine - and probably easy - enhancement request.

What editors have you used that do it that way?
Premiere does this.
FCPX is trackless but has Paste connected clip which neatly addresses this case.
Avid has a different complicated approach.


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This method is pretty normal for editing programs (NLEs).

You can't be serious.

This is normal to me: copy clip --> place cursor on time and track --> paste.

That's how basically every other (windows) software normally handles copy and paste. That's just how the UI convention of Windows and graphical UI's normally is.

The one knotty difference between normal UI convention and what happens in an editor is that in general you’re pasting TWO things: the video and audio clips. So you kinda need two places you’ve clicked.

I think it would be a good enhancement to allow track selection like exists in the Fairlight page. Then, if a track is selected, the paste will go there. If one selects a video but not audio track the autoselects would be used to place the audio.

I totally agree with you that the current way is hard to discover, not intuitive, and too many clicks. That said, it’s the typical way it’s done in most editors which I think makes it somewhat defensible.


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What editors have you used that do it that way?

I'm no video editor so don't use other video editor software at the moment. But just to name a few layering software that just works as expected:

- Motion design software (like Cavalry)
- Ableton Live and all other DAWs I've ever used (cubase/cakewalk/soundforge/acid/vegas etc. pretty sure logic works like that too)
- Graphic layering software like Photoshop/Illustrator, Affinity Photo/Designer/Publisher, Krita
- Animation software (Adobe animate, Spine etc.)
- 3D modeling, animation and compositing software (Blender etc.)
- Online animation editors for svg etc.
- Lots of graphic- and playlist specific software for TV broadcast
- other basic Windows software like Excel
- etc. etc.

Never came across such a time consuming, unintuitive, error prone workflow before TBH. And see no reason why it should even be needed to do so many clicks for such a basic action we need all the time.

Added feature request: viewtopic.php?p=873117


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I totally agree with you that the current way is hard to discover, not intuitive, and too many clicks. That said, it’s the typical way it’s done in most editors which I think makes it somewhat defensible.

I totally understand you too. You're just the messenger and I take your word in that it's the same in other 'major' video edit software

Let's conclude that the video edit world could use some real UI improvements to let us work way more intuitive and faster!

When I work in Resolve some simple things (like this, or just doing things like changing the curve of a single keyframe) where equally actions take seconds to minutes in other software and feel intuitive, take literally hours in Resolve. It would be a too big of a list to name them all I'm afraid, but hope that will once improve. In the mean time I try to get used to them and find at least the quickest way

Thanks for your responses

[edit] And thanks for the feature request! I'll add a +1

I'm no video editor so don't use other video editor software at the moment.
…
Never came across such a time consuming, unintuitive, error prone workflow before TBH. And see no reason why it should even be needed to do so many clicks for such a basic action we need all the time.

How do they handle the choosing two places problem? Do they ever have it?


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If it worked in the Edit Page the same way it does in the Fairlight Page ie quickly, simply, incredibly intuitively, it would (for me) be a huge improvement. Auto Track Selectors are a powerful targeting mechanism, and work perfectly well for the task... but they are frankly a little onerous to work with for such a straightforward operation (and if inadvertently left unpatched, can heap a multitude of woes down the road on an inexperienced and/or unwary editor).

Just my 2c.

Agreed Andy. Does my feature request sufficiently address this? Is there more to borrow from Fairlight here?


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I'm no video editor so don't use other video editor software at the moment.
…
Never came across such a time consuming, unintuitive, error prone workflow before TBH. And see no reason why it should even be needed to do so many clicks for such a basic action we need all the time.

How do they handle the choosing two places problem? Do they ever have it?


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Normally when you want to copy'n'paste multiple layers at once in other software you either need to select the same amount of layers to paste them on (= insert/paste in place), OR paste them ON a track, where the software is clever enough to either put the multiple tracks above or below the track you paste them on (automatically adding new tracks on these places to put the clips to).

Audio tracks IMO shouldn't be any issue, because these are linked clips anyhow, right? So I would expect that to work just the same; when pasting multiple layers the audio goes with it on the exact same tracks/channels, but in audio.

And if these clips aren't linked it's not an issue and we decided to treat them as seperate clips anyway. So than we just need to select them and paste them to whereever we want. The same as with video.

If I select a particular video track but don’t select an audio track and hit Paste, where would you expect the audio clip to be pasted?


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Agreed Andy. Does my feature request sufficiently address this? Is there more to borrow from Fairlight here?

Yep, here's my request for the same thing Joe;
https://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=153835

If I select a particular video track but don’t select an audio track and hit Paste, where would you expect the audio clip to be pasted?


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I would expect either some clever way, OR it should tell you to select an audio track first to paste it on.

It's a computer we're working on. Not an old Swiss watch

The “something clever” is key.
I’ve addressed it in the feature request. So it’s not as simple as “just do what every other program does” but there is a better solution than the way it’s done right now.


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It would should default to working the same way it already does Joe, ie to the same track as it came from, if applicable, or to the first otherwise targeted track.

Yup!
I was just responding to the OPs follow up to my follow up.


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The “something clever” is key.

I understand. But then we're really addressing more advanced workflows and there are lots of solutions to that, if only a will to address them and to accept that the program will change for its users that are used to this.

But most users and most situations aren't this complicated IMO and now all suffer from this. I see myself not even trying to copy'n'paste as it's way too difficult to figure out. To me that's the world upside down in UI.

Things like moving tracks around isn't complex, let's be honest, that's easy stuff.

But in Resolve we now have overly complex things, like multiple tracks suddenly being called V1... which is completely mind blowing to me and making easy things way too complex without any need to do so.

Anyway, going to do some more work now

We’re on the same page.


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If I select a particular video track but don’t select an audio track and hit Paste, where would you expect the audio clip to be pasted?

The video and audio track numbers are vertically mirrored:

V3
V2
V1
---
A1
A2
A3

When the video is pasted in V3, I would expect the audio in A3.

I can see that.

I wonder how one might integrate that with both the current autoselects and proposed Fairlight-like track selection while keeping it discoverable and intuitive?


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We’re on the same page.

Yes indeed! the edit-page

While I welcome improvements in efficiency for simple tasks, I would generally advise a new user (and inexperienced editor) to go through the Resolve training material before raising their hand and claiming that the UI is completely wrong.

I recall some 20 years ago when I first started working with Avid (having spend many years with Liquid) I was completely lost when it came to some basic workflows (and I had already been editing for many years at that point so I was familiar with some of the editing basics and the mechanics of introducing source clips to the timeline, etc.). Anyway, I suppose I could have posted on Avid's forum that Media Composer didn't make any sense and that everything was super slow (which was true for me, btw, so I totally understand the sentiment). However, I could also watch experienced editors working at light speed using mostly keyboard strokes, assembling complex timelines much faster than I could have in Liquid so I knew I had some learning to do.

I suppose we don't see as many experienced editors churning out light-speed results using Resolve (although I've seen a few work pretty quickly in some online tutorials). Maybe Resolve can't keep up or maybe we just need to learn how to do things faster in Resolve by using some of its strengths.

For example, to do what the OP described, I would use Add Tracks to insert a new track wherever I wanted (assuming I needed to insert the clips between two existing tracks) and then select the series of clips I wanted on one track (CMD-clicking them or lassoing them - using OPT to restrict selection to just video or audio if needed) and simply OPT+drag the selection to the new track (thus copying the clips while positioning them where I wanted them, typically using snapping to snap them to the head of the first copied clip).

I've also played with the copy/paste paradigm in Resolve and it certainly caught me out the first time I used it. I can see how the suggested improvement could be helpful.

An odd thing here is that in earlier versions, the manual claimed that alt-clicking any blank area of a track would solo that track for pasting operations (the equivalent of alt-clicking the auto-selector). If such an option existed, it would at least be an improvement. But in fact the feature was never operational, and the claim was eventually was removed from the manual.

Anyway, here's hoping they work on this one, because it's such a common operation. It's been a topic for some time now, well before the exchanges cited above.

Thanks Steve. Lots of good points in there.
Avid is the granddaddy of editing so it’s got both a dominant market position and lots of ui oddities because it had to go its own way because ui “standards” didn’t exist yet.

Premiere and FCP7 had the benefit of ui standards and were targeting a market that was familiar with them - so they diverged from Avid in many ui respects while keeping the basic paradigm that Avid pioneered.

Both price and ease of use got them decent market share - with FCP7 eventually eating Premiere’s lunch because (imho) they did much better on ease of use.

When FCP7 got canceled, Premiere went after its users by adding a lot of FCP7 ui. With FCP7 gone they became the market share leader.

Resolve tried to do the same as Premiere, adding an Edit page that’s based on FCP7. But they also had this super mature Color component that’s the market leader in its market.

So Resolve has been pulled in two (or more) directions. Very mature Color ui, immature Edit ui that was originally based on a mature ui but has been pulled away from that source toward something else.

The upshot to me is it’s hard to “trust” the Edit ui. It’s not mature. It hasn’t been refined over years for its editing audience. That’s why I lean toward referring back to FCP7 and noticing where the Resolve Edit ui is either gratuitously different or actually in conflict with a mature ui that was embraced by a majority of the editing community.

Sorry for the long post! Hope it’s at least somewhat informative.


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One more thing! Since Resolve isn’t the market leader in the editing market it’s not viable to gain users while saying forget everything you know and learn our different way of doing things. Even Apple - a 10,000 pound gorilla, has been having a tough time of it doing that with FCPX.

The way to gain market share when you’re the new guy on the block is to be quick and easy to learn, and to have very low barriers to entry - and probably to exit. If you get a rep counter to that people will steer clear of you.

A big advantage Resolve does have is price. Adobe is now expensive and people hate the subscription model. So there’s an opportunity for Resolve if they manage to reduce the barriers to learning it. Which is why, I think, they’ve done so much with free doc and courses. But it’s still just too complicated and unintuitive, again imho.


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The folks here who tend to repeat "forget everything you know" are not working narrative editors. And that line has never been heard here from BMD support staff, developers or the project manager.

The advantage of adopting the basic Avid model -- Premiere, Resolve, Edius, FCP7, etc -- means that any practiced editor can start cutting on any of these systems with a minimum of preparation. Which is sort of the point. And nobody is going to tackle a new system by sitting down and reading the manual. You fill in what you don't know as you go along.

It also follows that editors will want to see the best of all approaches combined, since all these systems are fundamentally the same, except in the details. "Forget everything you know" is like saying, forget all potential improvements or better ways of doing things.

Just a quick in between:

I'm definitely no newby, neither on Resolve and not on editing in general. I work all my life with video and graphics and am also a motion designer and developer so I know a thing or two about UI's.

I completely understand people that are used to certain workflows don't like changes in that. But two things will never convince me in keeping software the same as is:
- Don't change the software because we're used to it after finally getting it after a long time.
- If you read everything in the manual you understand how it works.

Both are a clear indication that the UI isn't intuitive and could be inproved for a better workflow. Because if it was already quick and intuitive... we
1) didn't need a manual to quickly find your way at least for the basic all day steps (like copy'n'paste is)
2) didn't need a steep and long learning curve for something as easy as copy'n'paste and handling layers
3) shouldn't even need to learn something new for interfaces where consensus is for years among other software

Also
- We should do everyting the same as the competition does or else Blackmagic won't gain users

Is a non-argument to me. The whole reason lots of new software is coming up last years is because Adobe messed up and never made the core of its software better and faster and build it from the ground up. While all new software does and not only drastically improved workflows and speed (often making things real time, while Adobe is extremely slow), but also much improved with all gained knowledge over the years AND without the nasty crashes Adobe has.
The same goes with a lot other brands and software out there. Examples all over.

The fact that something is 'industry standard' is a non-argument to improvement and innovation. It's exactly the opposite; it keeps it from improving and makes people and companies lazy. Settling for less.

While companies that DO improve things gain new users exactly because they do innovate and look at systems with a fresh perspective. With all gained knowledge about several pieces of software out there and mixing and matching the best parts in new software that's build from the ground up. Keeping things the same is never a reason for clients to switch software. Making things better and faster and more fun and intuitive to work with is.

Keeping things the same as they were was never a reason for success. Also as a character trait it's better to accept changes and embrace what's new and better than to keep hoping things remain the same. As the world moves on and younger people and new startups have new ideas that might be the next best thing.

To conclude: the fact that motion tracking on surfaces alone, or doing object removal or other effects has an easier and faster workflow than do a simple copy'n'paste of clips should be an eye opener.

It's not wrong to admit that some things could be way better than they are now. I love Davinci because its crazy intelligent stuff and possibilities, but let's be honest, it's not the best when it comes to UI. Try for one to edit keyframes in the edit tab. It's made so strange that we constantly need to open and collapse little inline graph editors which we can only open or close when zoomed in far enough (disturbing the full workflow and overview). And then try to change a keyframe handle... it's dark purple on a dark gray background... you can hardly even see it, let alone move it within such a small area of the UI and try to keep the handle in a straight line... impossible to do. I can continue with more things, but hope you get the point; it's not perfect by far)

When the UI gets a little more attention in certain areas Davinci would not only be killer on technical side of things, but it would actually be fast and intuitive to work with on a daily professional basis (talking about the edit-tab).

I think we mostly agree.

To summarize my POV: Resolve has plenty of strengths. UI isn’t its core competency. Apple - especially under Jobs - had UI as their highest core competency and FCP7 benefited from that. So far it’s the Best of Breed NLE UI-wise.

So innovate yes - but not where there’s already a well accepted way of doing things and you don’t have an innovation that’s way better.

Look to FCP7 to see how they did it first. Then look around and see if anyone’s got a better way that people are delighted with.

Doing it different but not way better is just creating roadblocks to your own success.


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> So innovate yes - but not where there’s already a well accepted way of doing things and you don’t have an innovation that’s way better.

We fully agree on this one. I'm all for industry standards when they are proven to be working great.
I definitely think that's not the case with this thing tho and I made it clear why and what I would expect. ALso the real industry standad that's accepted by everyone since the beginning of UI's is what I described. The issue here is that for some reason I don't get this software (or pre-existing ones) decided to leave a great working industry standard for copy'n'paste and do it wors. Even if that, to me, bad decision were around for 100 years and everybody has accepted that bad workflow, that's still no excuse to continue using it while a way much better alternative has always been around and is used in basically all other software out there since the beginning of UIs.

Unfortunately guess it will never change with this software if most users stay conservative and keep thinking it cannot be made better and faster. And probably are mostely scared for new things and changes.

I'll leave it with this for now and we both made our points clearly by now. It doesn't help if it won't get read by Davinci anyways and if they don't take things like improving UI seriously (not saying that they don't take this serious at all, just saying we can feel things should improve a loot, but if Blackmagic doesn't it just doesn't going to change and for us it's just guessing what they read or ignore here and put on their list or don't).. Davinci is pretty great in amazing technical stuff and innovation under the hood and I love it for that, but it seems like the UI is not getting the love and enthousiasm it deserves at the moment on some places that are just weird UI IMO. Hope it'll change one day. No hate at all and it has probably to do with the product still being relatively new and needs growing up.

Have a nice day.

Are you an editor? I couldn't tell from your posts as you seem to be saying that all NLEs have it wrong when it comes to copy and paste. Honestly, my guess is that most editors don't use copy and paste so perhaps that is why it has not evolved.