Using the Input Wizard

To help users gain a quick understanding of the Liquid Edition workflow, version 6.0 introduces a wizard to assist with the import process. If you have never imported a media clip before, it's well worth running the wizard at least once just to see the workflow in action.

To import a media clip using the wizard

1.	Select File > Input Wizard (Figure 3.7). Figure 3.7. Selecting the Input wizard. This opens the Input wizard (Figure 3.8). Figure 3.8. The various choices available in the Input wizard.
2.	Choose which media type you want by clicking the appropriate icon. You are asked to select the Rack to which you want to import the media file (Figure 3.9). Figure 3.9. Choose a Rack or create a new one from here. Importing Studio 9 Projects New to Liquid Edition 6 is the ability to import a Project created in Pinnacle Studio 9. You must be using the latest patched version of Studio 9 and the media files must be accessible by Liquid Edition 6. Studio projects can be imported by selecting File > Import > XML/ALE, and importing the relevant *.STE file. Although, Clip effects (filters) are not imported and all Transition effects are transformed into simple dissolves. DVD menus and other DVD-related objects are also not imported. Classic Interface Wizards are not available when using the Classic interface.
3.	Make your choice, click Select, and the Import Media window will open from which you can pick your file (Figure 3.10). Figure 3.10. The Import Media window. See the start of this chapter for a detailed tour of this window.
4.	Browse to the file using the normal Windows functions (Figure 3.11). Figure 3.11. Find your file using the standard Windows functions.
5.	When you have located your chosen file, click once to select it, and then click Open or press Alt+O. The clip takes a moment to import and appears in the Rack you selected in step 4. Once inside Liquid Edition, you can alter the media clip anyway you like without altering the original. Remember: Liquid Edition is a nondestructive editor.

Tip

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

Search Media

New to version 6 is the Search Media option, the third icon in the Input wizard .

This is a useful tool for tracking down those hard-to-find media clips that exist on your computer. The interface contains many filtering options that you should use to stop a search from taking too long and to pinpoint the results with a little more accuracy.

The window in Figure 3.12 has been set up to search just the F drive for images. The results of that search are displayed in the top-right window.

Figure 3.12. The Search Media box after it has searched the D drive for images.

By highlighting those images you want (using Ctrl+left-click and Shift+left-click) and then pressing the Down arrow, you can quickly select which images you want to import.

Clicking the Import button finishes this process and places your imports into a specially created Folder and Rack (Figure 3.13).

Figure 3.13. The new Search Media Folder containing the imported files.

Audio, video, and images racks are automatically created during the import stage using the Search Media method, creating a pretty neat and quick method of collating your imports.