Vixia HF R400 Is There a Pause?

[thomasjohnm]

Hello,

I'm wondering if there is a pause on the Vixia HF R400. I would like to pause the recording at times between shooting so I can have one video instead of a few short ones. If there is no pause then I'm assuming I'll have to stitch the videos together, and if so is there software where I can do this?

[BobCob]

Hi John,

When you push the red button to stop recording, the icon switches to a pause symbol, but any subsequent recording you do will still be put into different clips. Why? Because that is a format most convenient for editing. When Canon made MiniDV cameras, the same thing happened when it came time to "capture" in software such as iMovie. Assuming you are using Windows, you can splice the clips together in a free program published by Microsoft called Windows Movie Maker. If you are using Windows Vista or older, the program is probably already on your computer. If you are using Windows 7 or 8, you can install what Microsoft calls "Windows Live Essentials" which includes Windows Movie Maker. There are other ways to stitch the videos together, but this is the simplest way that I know of.

Push the Start button and type the word " movie " into the search box. If you do not see something come up like "Windows Live Movie Maker", "Windows Movie Maker", or "Microsoft Movie Maker" then go here to install Windows Live Essentials.

[thomasjohnm]

Hello Bob,

Thanks so much for the reply. I looked and I do have movie maker. If you could guide me to the next step I would appreciate it. I see many different applications there but I don't see anything about stitching. So if you could tell me where to go there please.

thanks

thomas

[BobCob]

Hi John,

I assure you that you can stitch/splice the clips together and save the final movie. That is the nature of all non-linear video editing software, as it imitates the old editing systems that filmmakers used back when there was real film and no computers. When you save/export the final video, that's like running your taped-together film through an optical printer to produce one continuous reel of film.

If you would kindly tell me which version of Windows you are running (95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, Vista, 7, or 😎 and what your version of Movie Maker is called (Windows Movie Maker or Windows Live Movie Maker) I can guide you through the process of how to use it to put your clips together. In the meantime, the process is roughly as follows:

1. Copy the video files from your camera onto your computer.

2. Open up Windows (Live?) Movie Maker and import/open those video files.

3. Make sure that all of the videos play in sequence.

4. Export/"Save movie" as a new video file on your computer.

[thomasjohnm]

Hi again Bob, I currently use two laptops, one @ windows 7 and the other @ windows 8.

thomas

[BobCob · Accepted solution]

Alright. The versions of Movie Maker that are available for 7 and 8 work in more or less the same way, so these instructions should work with either computer (or whichever one has Movie Maker installed on it).

First, you want the video files from your camera on your computer. I assume that you already know how to get at them since you have recognized the clips as different files. You should make a folder on your hard drive to put the video clips in, which I will hereby refer to as the "clips" folder. Once you have the folder, you should move all of the video clips you want to put together into it. For example, if you have filled up your memory card or camera with clips of somebody's wedding and you want the whole thing to play as one continuous movie, you should move all of those clips into your "clips" folder.

After that, you should open up Movie Maker. Movie Maker's main window is sectioned into three parts (which you must understand in order to use the program correctly):

TOOL BAR

The top part is the tool bar. Most of the things in the tool bar you can ignore because they are rarely used. The leftmost tool in the bar is a shiny blue button. That button opens up the "File" menu you are used to such as in programs like Microsoft Word. To the right of the blue button are tabs with labels such as "Home", "Animations", "Visual Effects", "Project", and "View" (at least in the Windows 7 version). When you click on one of those tabs, the buttons immediately below it change to things that are related to the tab's label. For example, the "Home" tab contains some of the main functions which don't do a whole lot. The "Project" tab allows you to set the aspect ratio to either Widescreen or Standard (square screen). Your camera only records in Widescreen, so I would recommend using that setting by clicking on the "Widescreen" button.

VIEWING BOX

Below the tool bar, Movie Maker is divided in half by a vertical line. On the left is the viewing box. It starts off black and has some greyed-out buttons below it. All the buttons do is let you play and pause the movie, but when you are actually showing it to people, this is not the thing to use. It is just there to help you with editing. In the end, you will be saving or exporting the movie to be viewed in another program or on a TV. Until you do that, the viewing box is the main way to see what it will look like ahead of time. You won't have to use it much (or at all) since all you want to do is put the video clips together and not correct anything.

VIDEO CLIP BOX

To the right of the vertical line, taking up about half of the screen like the viewing box, is the video clip box. This is by far the most important part of the program. It lays out video clips like you would strips of film, and lets you put them in order. Everything that goes into the video clip box will be in the final movie unless you remove it. In my version of Movie Maker (and perhaps yours) it says "Click here to browse for videos and photos". You should definitely click there if you want to get anything done. A window will then pop up which allows you to... guess what... browse for videos and photos. Since it's only the clips from your camera that you want (which are videos), you should navigate to your "clips" folder and select all of the video clips. You can do this by pressing Ctrl-A. Then click "Open". Now, something strange happens. All of the video clips will appear (usually in chronological order) in the video clip box, one after another. After a couple of seconds, you might see a little message bubble pop up that says "Playback quality... Movie Maker is preparing video for improved playback performance." Don't touch anything while it does this. You will know when it is done because your computer will stop making funny noises with its fan and the little loading bar and clock pictures will go away. When that's done, you can see how your movie plays by clicking on the play button below the viewing box. A lot more advanced editing can be done here, but I think that it would be unrealistic to explain it all, so here are a few quick pointers:

•  You can remove a clip from your movie by clicking on it (to highlight it) and pressing the DEL key.
•  You can undo most actions by pressing Ctrl-Z.
•  You can cut a clip in half by dragging the little line-cursor-thing (you'll know it when you see it) then pressing the "M" key.
•  Cutting is only precise to about the nearest half-second, so don't sweat over it. There are other programs for more hardcore editing.
•  You can save your project (not to be confused with the movie itself) and come back to it later. To do this, click the shiny blue button in the tool bar and click "Save project".

WRAPPING IT ALL UP

When all of the video clips are in the video clip box and you want them to all be put together into one, you can save your movie as one video file. To do this, click the shiny blue button in the tool bar and hover your mouse over the words "Save movie", then click on where it says "Recommended for this project". A new window will pop up asking you where to save the file, so you can put it some place where you can find it. Click Save and wait for Movie Maker to finish doing its thing. You now have one video file which is composed of your video clips.

So, just to recap:

• Put all of your video clips some place.
• Open them all up at the same time in Movie Maker by clicking "browse" and selecting all of them.
• Save the final video with the "Save movie" option in the blue button's menu.

[thomasjohnm]

Bob, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to post all these instructions. I gave it a try and it worked perfectly. Now it's off to filming and editing, 🙂

Thanks again Bob

[BobCob]

Awesome. I'm glad I could help.