Apple Final Cut Express HD - Manual (Page 508)

508 Part VII Fine-Tuning Your Edit
Video made this process faster and easier. By electronically mixing two video signals
together, you could watch a dissolve immediately and decide if you liked it. The more
quickly you can see how an effect will look, the more quickly you can refine it to suit
your needs. Film editors had to anticipate how transitions would look and how long
they should last without actually being able to preview them; there was never the time
or budget to try transitions during editing. It’s much easier to preview cross dissolves,
fades, and other transitions in a video system, and particularly in a digital nonlinear
editing system. In Final Cut Express HD, you can continue to adjust a transition and
preview it until you get it just right.
Common Types of Transitions
A cut, the most basic type of transition, is a transition with no duration; when one shot
ends, another one immediately begins, without any overlap. All other transitions
gradually replace one shot with another; when one shot ends, another one gradually
replaces it. There are three very common transitions used that occur over time: fades,
cross dissolves, and wipes.
 A fade out begins with a shot at full intensity and reduces until it is gone. A fade in
begins with a shot at no intensity and increases until it is full. These are the common
“fade to black” and “fade up (from black)” transitions.
 A cross dissolve involves two shots. The first shot fades out while the second shot
simultaneously fades in. During the cross dissolve, the two shots are superimposed
as they fade.
 A wipe is where the screen splits, moving from one side of the image to the other to
gradually reveal the next shot. It is more obvious than a fade or cross dissolve.
Final Cut Express HD also comes with two audio transitions: a +3 dB cross fade (the
default) and a 0 dB cross fade.
 Cross Fade (+3 dB): Performs the same operation as Cross Fade (0 dB), but applies an
equal-power ramp to the volume level, rather than a linear ramp.
Note: An equal-power ramp uses a quarter-cycle cosine fade-out curve and a
quarter-cycle sine fade-in curve. As a result, the volume is maintained at a constant
level throughout the cross fade.
 Cross Fade (0 dB): Fades the first clip out, while simultaneously fading the second clip
in. This effect applies a linear ramp to the volume level. As a result, the volume level
dips in the middle of the cross fade.
Each cross fade results in a different audio level change as the transition plays. Your
choice of cross fades depends on the clips you’re transitioning between. Try one, then
try the other to see which sounds better.