Using PS 24U, and having used the Scene Detector (by Content) there are some detected scenes which I would rather remove as they contain non-useable material. The User Manual states; “To remove individual scenes, select one or more scenes then press Delete.” But I can’t get this to work and there is no “Remove” item on the context menu either.

How can I remove unwanted individual scenes after automatic scene detection?  Is there a workaround or have I missed something obvious?

My opinion : it makes no sense to remove a scene from the library. Scenes are just subdivisions of an entire clip. A scene can merge with previous and next scene but can t be deleted.

By subdivisions I don t mean actual pieces of the whole clip but rather a way to tell "this scene is the part of the clip which starts at time code x and ends at time code y. The following scene must start at time code y".

I don t have access to PS24 user manual right now.

Would you tell me what page number you found this text ? I ll have a look to it tomorrow evening when back at home.

saby:

My opinion : it makes no sense to remove a scene from the library. Scenes are just subdivisions of an entire clip. A scene can merge with previous and next scene but can t be deleted.

By subdivisions I don t mean actual pieces of the whole clip but rather a way to tell "this scene is the part of the clip which starts at time code x and ends at time code y. The following scene must start at time code y".

I don t have access to PS24 user manual right now.

Would you tell me what page number you found this text ? I ll have a look to it tomorrow evening when back at home.

Physical Page 35 which is Page 45 of the pdf online at https://help.pinnaclesys.com/pinnacle/how-to/en/user-guide/pinnaclestudio.pdf#page44

My opinion regarding scenes differs from yours. I wish to remove unwanted scenes which clutter up the scene display, making scene selection at the timeline assembly stage slower. If the scene detection by content cuts the scene (by for example wrongly detecting a whip-pan as a change of scene), it is easy to go back to the original imported file to use the selection without the erroneous scene detection break.

Deleting a scene in library is like removing a part of a clip in the library. 

It's in the timeline that it should be done, not in library.

saby:

Deleting a scene in library is like removing a part of a clip in the library. 

It's in the timeline that it should be done, not in library.

You have obviously missed / don’t understand the point I am making.

Please just explain why when I select a scene and press Delete, it is not removed from the scene line-up. 

How else would you interpret “ To remove individual scenes, select one or more scenes then press Delete.” ?

IMO the reference in the manual to deleting scenes is either misleading or just plain wrong...

The place the statement appears is in with Library operations, suggesting that there should be some way to do it in the library (see screengrab of PS25 manual page (PS24's text is identical, just with page breaks in different places)).

However, pressing Delete to remove a scene "would work" under the following situation:

• The scene had been added to a Project Bin or Collection
• The contents of that Bin or Collection were displayed, the "unwanted" scene was selected and the Delete key pressed

But it doesn't address the requirement to be able to remove or hide unwanted scenes to simplify the assembly of the project after all scenes in the source clips have been detected.

Suggestion:

• If there is an unwanted scene break (e.g. photo flash, whip pan etc.) - remove it in the "edit scenes" view by selecting the scenes each side of the unwanted break, right clicking and choosing "combine scenes"
• For each wanted scene right-click it and choose "add to project bin" or "add to collection" to send a "shortcut" to that scene to the chosen bin/collection
• Then only the wanted scenes will be seen in that bin/collection and the garbage is left in the "show scenes" / "edit scenes" view

HTH
Richard

Smoothie:

saby:

Deleting a scene in library is like removing a part of a clip in the library. 

It's in the timeline that it should be done, not in library.

You have obviously missed / don’t understand the point I am making.

Please just explain why when I select a scene and press Delete, it is not removed from the scene line-up. 

How else would you interpret “ To remove individual scenes, select one or more scenes then press Delete.” ?

I perfectly understood your point.

Like Richard I think the user manual is wrong.

I simply tried to illustrate the fact that removing a scene without merging/combining it to another scene makes non or poor sense.

culpanr:

IMO the reference in the manual to deleting scenes is either misleading or just plain wrong...

The place the statement appears is in with Library operations, suggesting that there should be some way to do it in the library (see screengrab of PS25 manual page (PS24's text is identical, just with page breaks in different places)).

However, pressing Delete to remove a scene "would work" under the following situation:

• The scene had been added to a Project Bin or Collection
• The contents of that Bin or Collection were displayed, the "unwanted" scene was selected and the Delete key pressed

But it doesn't address the requirement to be able to remove or hide unwanted scenes to simplify the assembly of the project after all scenes in the source clips have been detected.

Suggestion:

• If there is an unwanted scene break (e.g. photo flash, whip pan etc.) - remove it in the "edit scenes" view by selecting the scenes each side of the unwanted break, right clicking and choosing "combine scenes"
• For each wanted scene right-click it and choose "add to project bin" or "add to collection" to send a "shortcut" to that scene to the chosen bin/collection
• Then only the wanted scenes will be seen in that bin/collection and the garbage is left in the "show scenes" / "edit scenes" view

HTH
Richard

Richard -

Thank you for your very full and helpful answer.  I am still puzzled as to why one can’t simply press “Delete”  when a given scene is highlighted in order to remove it from the others, which would be intuitive. It would save quite a bit of time when sorting through useable scenes to make clips on the timeline.  Especially so as the Manual clearly states:

“To remove individual scenes, select one or more scenes then press Delete.”  

The facility (Delete) could quite easily be available on the context (right-click) menu of course. 

It seems to be a bug, so could it be reported to the developers, please?

Smoothie:

It seems to be a bug, so could it be reported to the developers, please?

I bet they will simply update the user manual and remove this part of the text. 

saby:

Smoothie:

It seems to be a bug, so could it be reported to the developers, please?

 

I bet they will simply update the user manual and remove this part of the text. 

That would be very foolish as it is an obvious requirement (by one user at least and probably others who have tried) and one they have clearly documented. That documentation (the User Manual) has been published and past versions cannot be removed from the public. Finally, I able to remove unwanted scenes in the other (sadly, now legacy) NLE that I have used extensively.

Ever since Avid Studio, you never been able to delete individual scenes. As Yann says, scenes are just a list of timecondes that define the In and Out points of the scene detection on a single clip.The orginal workflow for this operation is to take into account that Pinnacle have always recommended converting scenes into shortcuts (LIbrary clips in Library Media, Collections, or Project Bins) before using them for anything complex.

The introduction of Project Bins and the default hiding of Library Media have all muddied the waters here as well. The message above the Scenes View currently says "Add Scenes to a Collection to create clips that can be tagged and named". This should say "Add scenes to a Collection OR PROJECT BIN". When you do that, you simply don't add the unwanted scenes.

The fact that the manual and the above message are wrong is more of an indication that Corel don't completly understand the the workflow of the program that they bought from Avid, rather than it being a bug.

As for reporting it, I think ther Corel response would be that Scenes are retained for backward compatibliy, and you have never been able to delete individual scenes. They would tell you to do what I do - convert the scenes to clips, but only the ones that you want.

jjn:

Ever since Avid Studio, you never been able to delete individual scenes. As Yann says, scenes are just a list of timecondes that define the In and Out points of the scene detection on a single clip.The orginal workflow for this operation is to take into account that Pinnacle have always recommended converting scenes into shortcuts (LIbrary clips in Library Media, Collections, or Project Bins) before using them for anything complex.

The introduction of Project Bins and the default hiding of Library Media have all muddied the waters here as well. The message above the Scenes View currently says "Add Scenes to a Collection to create clips that can be tagged and named". This should say "Add scenes to a Collection OR PROJECT BIN". When you do that, you simply don't add the unwanted scenes.

The fact that the manual and the above message are wrong is more of an indication that Corel don't completly understand the the workflow of the program that they bought from Avid, rather than it being a bug.

As for reporting it, I think ther Corel response would be that Scenes are retained for backward compatibliy, and you have never been able to delete individual scenes. They would tell you to do what I do - convert the scenes to clips, but only the ones that you want.

 

Great to hear from you again, Jeff, and thanks for your very full explanation.  With the sentence “To remove individual scenes, select one or more scenes then press Delete” clearly in the Manual on page 35, though not in your book I suspect(!), someone somewhere must have thought it a good idea as I do!

I checked it out : this mention of the possibility to delete scenes has appeared for the very 1st time with AS user manual. With PS15 and older versions no such mention.

I will open AS this evening to test it and see if deleting individual scenes were actually possible or not. I think like Jeff that it was not possible.

Smoothie:

If the Manual clearly states that a certain method is available to use and it doesn’t work, then the software should be adapted to make it work, not the Manual changed to eliminate the described procedure and thus limit the user’s modus operandi.

Even if this part of the manual was a mistake ?

Results of my tests this evening : scenes deletion has never been available in any of Pinnacle Studio's version from PS10 to PS15 and Avid Studio to PS25. I've even checked PS9's user manual => no trace of such a feature.

I doubt Corel will ever fix it, for 3 main reasons :

1. if I recall correctly, this is the very 1st time that someone ask for such a request in this forum. The vast majority of users don't need to be able to delete scenes
2. scenes are for tape based footage. It's less and less used. Why would they spend some developpement effort on a feature of the past ?
3. like Richard or Jeff, I still consider that deleting some scenes should not be done except if they have been previously added into a collection or a bin. Maybe Corel thinks the same.
   

saby:

...scenes deletion has never been available in any of Pinnacle Studio's version from PS10 to PS15 and Avid Studio to PS25...

I recall it being the case too for even older versions - probably right back to Studio 400!

• In Legacy Studio (15 & before) I just switched the album to "comment view" and added a comment to each wanted scene, so when assembling the movie it was easy to distinguish between the wanted footage and the garbage.
• In current versions of Studfio I open the "edit scenes" view and send the wanted scenes to a project bin. I also change the scenes' captions as they appear in the bin so I can more easily tell what they are, but need to include a numbered prefix as part of the caption (e.g. "01 Starting Scene", ""02 A Scene in the Middle", "03 The End") as by default they will get sorted by name once in the project bin.
  Note: It's possible to exploit a long-time Studio bug by editing the scene caption in the "Edit Scenes" view before sending it to the project bin; caption edits made in the "Edfit Scenes" view don't "stick", but if sent to the bin, the scene's "shortcut" has the edited caption!

Regards,
Richard

culpanr:

saby:

...scenes deletion has never been available in any of Pinnacle Studio's version from PS10 to PS15 and Avid Studio to PS25...

I recall it being the case too for even older versions - probably right back to Studio 400!

• In Legacy Studio (15 & before) I just switched the album to "comment view" and added a comment to each wanted scene, so when assembling the movie it was easy to distinguish between the wanted footage and the garbage.
• In current versions of Studfio I open the "edit scenes" view and send the wanted scenes to a project bin. I also change the scenes' captions as they appear in the bin so I can more easily tell what they are, but need to include a numbered prefix as part of the caption (e.g. "01 Starting Scene", ""02 A Scene in the Middle", "03 The End") as by default they will get sorted by name once in the project bin.
  Note: It's possible to exploit a long-time Studio bug by editing the scene caption in the "Edit Scenes" view before sending it to the project bin; caption edits made in the "Edfit Scenes" view don't "stick", but if sent to the bin, the scene's "shortcut" has the edited caption!

Regards,
Richard

Thanks, Richard, for the very helpful tips you have given. 

I am still amazed that there is a mistake in the Manual which has persisted over past versions right up to the present (PS 25)!

Smoothie:

I am still amazed that there is a mistake in the Manual which has persisted over past versions right up to the present (PS 25)!

Most people don't read the user manual nor use scenes.

saby:

Smoothie:

I am still amazed that there is a mistake in the Manual which has persisted over past versions right up to the present (PS 25)!

Most people don't read the user manual nor use scenes.

 I am so pleased that I am not representative of “most people” on both these points!