Manually Importing a Media Clip

Importing a media clip without the wizard is an identical process, but without the handholding. This means that you must choose which Rack you want your import to be stored in before you begin. It's not a big step, and once you understand the import process, you will probably want to stop using the wizard completely.

To import a media clip

1.	Check to make sure you have selected the correct Rack in the Project Browser. (By default, media clips will always be imported into the last selected Rack.)
You select a Rack by simply clicking it in the left window of the Project Browser.
2.	Do one of the following: Click inside the right window of the Project Browser and select Import from the pop-up menu (Figure 3.14). Figure 3.14. Open the Import Media window by right-clicking in the Project Browser… Select File > Import > Media (Figure 3.15). Figure 3.15. …or use the drop-down menu. This will bring up the Import Media dialog (Figure 3.16). For full details of the Import Media box see Figure 3.2. Figure 3.16. The Import Media box; see figure 3.2 and the accompanying text description in the section "Elements of the Import Media window" for full details.
3.	Use the Windows browser to locate the file you want to import.
4.	Highlight the media clip you want, and then click the Open button or press Enter. The media clip will now import into the Rack you have selected in step 1.

Tips

• Just as you can in Windows, you can select more than one media clip to be imported at a time. Select multiple media clips by holding down the Shift key to select neighboring clips or by holding down the Ctrl key to select individual clips. By clicking once inside the file selection area and then pressing Shift+A, you can select all of the clips in this folder. Unsupported clips (operating system files) are not seen by Liquid Edition and will not be selected.

• Liquid Edition also allows you to drag and drop clips from Windows Explorer into the Project Browser.

Importing S/VCD and VOB Files

If you try to import a VCD/SVCD or VOB file, a dialog will appear displaying the available audio and video tracks (Figure 3.17). VOB files may display more than one audio file; this will probably contain the different language versions built into the DVD.

Figure 3.17. If you choose to import an SVCD or VOB file using this screen, you will be able to preview the file before you finish importing it.

Once you have decided which audio track to use, click Preview to bring up a small inlay window inside which the VCD/SVCD or VOB file will play (Figure 3.18). Click Import to import the files.

Figure 3.18. The Preview window open under the selection screen once the Preview button is clicked.

Although you can import a VOB file (video objectMPEG-2 compliant files found on a DVD) into Liquid Edition, because of copyright restrictions, you must first copy it to your hard drive. You can acquire many popular tools on the Internet to do this.

You must also have an AC3 codec installed on your computer to use the audio in a VOB file. Codecs are freely available from http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net.