Type a clip's timing

The Timing section is for when you know the number. Type where a clip starts and ends on the timeline, and read how long it is, without dragging an edge.

Where: Clip tab ▸ Clip ▸ Timing
Agent tools: trim_starttrim_end

Type In and Out

Select one clip.
In the inspector’s Clip tab, choose the Clip sub-tab, the last one. Timing is its first section, and it starts shut. Click its header to open it, and it stays open until you shut it. Shut, the header still shows the clip’s length.
Click In or Out and type a time. 1:23, 83.5 and 1:23:04 all work, as they do in the toolbar’s time field. See Inspector fields.
Press Return or Tab.

Field	What it is	What typing does
In	Where the clip starts on the timeline	Trims its front edge. The rest of the clip stays where it is.
Out	Where the clip ends on the timeline	Trims its back edge.

Both are positions on the timeline, not positions in the file. A later In hides the start of the footage, and an earlier one brings it back. To move the whole clip without trimming it, drag it instead.

Each change is one undo step, named Trim Start or Trim End. The time lands on the project’s frame grid.

How far an edge can go

A number out of range doesn’t beep. The edge goes as far as it can, and the field shows where it landed.

Field	Earliest	Latest
In	The start of the timeline, or as far back as the file has footage	One frame before the clip’s end
Out	One frame after the clip’s start	As far as the file has footage

Only a clip that plays a video or audio file has a footage limit. Text, shapes, pictures and graphics have no file length to run out of.

Three things leave the clip as it was:

If you type a new value but it puts the edge where it already is, Frame Job beeps.
If the text can’t be read as a time, Frame Job beeps and the field goes back to the old value.
If the new edge would break the overlap rule, Frame Job beeps and gives the reason at the foot of the inspector.

An overlap the rule allows goes through, and the clip that now overlaps the one before it gets a Cross Dissolve.

Read the duration

Duration shows the clip’s length, in the project’s timecode style. You can’t type in it: change the length through In and Out.

With several clips selected

In, Out and Duration each describe one clip, so they go away when you select more than one.

If every selected clip plays a video or audio file, Timing stays and holds only the Reverse rows, which apply to all of them as one undo step. Its header shows the lengths of the selected clips added together, followed by “total”.

If the selection also holds anything else, such as text, a shape, a picture or a freeze frame, there’s no Timing section.

Good to know

With one clip selected, the Reverse rows appear under Duration only for a clip that plays a video or audio file.
Typing an edge also moves the same edge of a linked clip when the two line up and its track isn’t locked. That holds even when you type on the sound half. To move a sound’s edge without its picture, use a drag, W or E.
A locked track stops drags, not these fields. If a clip on a locked track is selected, typing still trims it.
Inside a nest, the times count from the nest’s own start.
Actions keep their place measured from the clip’s start, so trimming the front edge moves them along the timeline with it.

With an agent

trim_start and trim_end move the same two edges to a time on the timeline, and stop at the same limits. With alone, the edge moves without its linked partner’s. See Tools: moving and trimming.