Jean-François Fortin Tam
nekohayo@gmail.com
Brian Grohe
grohe43@gmail.com
Tomáš Karger
tomkarger@gmail.com
Managing your imported clips with the Media Library

Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0

# Using the Media Library

# Importing a file to the Media Library

There are two ways to import files into the Media Library. The first way is to click on the Import button in the upper left corner. This will open a file chooser in which you can preview selected files or select multiple files (by holding Shift or Control while selecting them). The second way is to drag and drop the files from a file browser to the Media Library. Files imported into the Media Library are called clips.

The clips in the Media Library are sorted alphabetically.

# Previewing a clip from the Media Library

To preview a clip before placing it on the timeline, you can double-click on it in the Media Library. This will open the clip in a window that automatically closes whenever you click outside the window.

# Filtering search

A search bar is shown at the top of the Media Library. Typing into the search entry filters the contents of the Media Library to show only clips whose filenames match your search terms. To reset the search entry, click the "cleanup" icon in the search entry.

# View modes

The Media Library can display your clips in a list or in an icon view. The default mode is icon view because it display more clips without needing to scroll down. However, the list view mode shows more details about each clip. To activate/deactivate it, click on the Show clips as a detailed list button next to the search bar.

# Selecting unused clips

You may sometimes find that you have imported more clips that you needed in your project. Pitivi allows you to select clips that are present in the media library but not in the timeline. There are various reasons to do this:

Improving performance when loading the project

Simplifying your editing workflow

Check which clips you may have forgot to use in your movie

Backup or share your project more easily

To identify which clips are not being used in your project, use the Select clips that have not been used in the project button at the left side of the search bar. Unused clips will then be selected in the media library.

If there are no unused clips in your project, nothing will be selected in the media library.

# Other actions

There are three further actions you can perform with clips. Each is represented by a button in the upper right part of the Media Library:

Remove selected clips from the project (this can also be performed by pressing Control Delete).

Clip properties... opens a new window with information on video size, frame rate and aspect ratio. Clicking the Apply to project button adjusts the project settings to the clip properties. You can select which properties to apply by leaving them ticked/unticked.

Insert selected clips at the end of the timeline inserts the selected clips one after another into the longest layer of the timeline where the last clip on that layer ends.

In order for these actions to become available, one or more clips must be selected.