Basic default settings you may want to change

Cinelerra is a very complex program, sometimes even complicated. It is so configurable that sometimes she makes the very beginner uncomfortable.

Prepare yourself to spend some time fixing settings. Alternatively I’ve prepared for you a Grandma configuration file you can put directly in your home folder so to open a Cinelerra ready for beginners.

The default standard for Cinelerra projects is NTSC. To change standard go to File→New… or to Settings→Format and choose PAL among the Presets listed in the drop-down menu. All projects will now start in the newly set standard.

The default colour model for Cinelerra projects is RGBA-8 Bit. But if your footage comes from a DV video camera you want to use YUV, that is the native colour model of most video cameras. To change colour model go to File→New… or to Settings→Format and choose YUVA-8bit among the Color models listed in the drop-down menu. You have changed the colour model for all your new projects.

Go to Settings→Preferences→Interface and select your favourite Time format. My favourite one is Hours:Minutes:Seconds:Frames.

By deafult the timeline show a time of more than 4 hours. To shorten the duration represented on the timeline use the arrow down key (the focus must be on the Program window). To lengthen it use arrow up. You can use also the Sample Zoom, that is the first zoom in the Zoom Panel at the bottom of the Program window.

Note that the duration setting will reflect any resizing of the Program window. That is if you extend the Program window you are automatically increasing the value of the duration. For a fixed reference of time look at the time steps of the timebar ruler.

My favourite duration is around 15 seconds, with the timebar ruler counting by two seconds.

The left panel of the Resources window contains 7 folders (Audio/Video Effects, Audio/Video Transitions, Clips and Media). They are so big that you can’t see them all (unless you have a divine screen resolution).
Right click on the left panel and select Display text to view all the folders with human screen resolution.

By default still images in Cinelerra are one frame long. This is rarely an usable lenght. To set a longer duration, go to Settings → Preferences → Recording - Images. Check the option Import images with a duration of … seconds and enter the desired length. This will affect the image duration during the load onto the timeline both from the Load dialog or from the Resources window.

By default Cinelerra Audio fade range is set to -80.0 to 6.0 (dB). Nevertheless, due to a bug (queued for fix), the silence is reached at 40.0 dB and the curve that represents the volume of the audio tracks (Audio fade) doesn’t go below 40.0 dB. To make use of the whole vertical space of the audio tracks for easier manipulation of the audio curve, change the Audio fade setting in the panel at the bottom of the Program window to -40.0 to 6.0 either by using the left tumblers or replacing the number directly in the text box.

By default the Compositor displays the video in real size. For PAL is 720x576 pixels. Thus when you open Cinelerra the compositor windows is too small to show the whole frame. To watch your video in full size you can maximize the Compositor window. A better solution is to make the Compositor automatically scale your video to fit the window size. Click on the zoom button 100% at the bottom of the Compositor to open a drop-down menu. Change the setting from 100% to Auto.

By default Cinelerra plays every single frame of the video. That can cause the video playback to slow down a little. It can even fall behind audio. To avoid that, go to Settings → Preferences → Playback. Deselect Play every frame. During playback some frames will be dropped (not played) and the motion will appear a bit jerky but the video will be in synch with the audio. The motion will be jerky only in the Compositor preview and not in the final file since every single frame will be rendered.

By default Cinelerra uses OSS as audio driver. You may want to use ALSA audio driver. Go to Settings → Preferences… → Playback. Select ALSA among the driver listed in the Audio driver dropdown menu.

Now, read on.

At this point on most computers Cinelerra gets mad. The most common odd behaviour is the playback of audio tracks: once stopped, the playback is stuck or you may find that it’s impossible to stop the playback and the insertion point keeps running beyond the end of the media. Cinelerra becomes unusable.
To get out of this mess go to Settings → Preferences… → Playback and check the Stop playback locks up option. Translated from the Cinelerra language it means: "Stopping the playback makes the software to lock up".

Everytime you load a source file in Cinelerra, she builds an index file for it, stored (by default) in the .bcast hidden directory.
After closing your project, by default Cinelerra keeps only 100 index files. So if you open a project that has more than 100 source files or if you open a different project, you’ll have to wait for the indexes to be rebuilt.

If you are working with animations or on several projects at the same time, this can be very annoying.
To increase the number of index files kept go to Settings→Preferences→Interface - Index Files and enter a bigger value in the Number of index files to keep field. Usually I use at least 500 for video and 2000 or more for animation, but you can count your source files and adapt the number to your case.