Installing and first run
Unblock, unzip, run. What AVPrep2 is for, and what it deliberately is not.
AVPrep2 Help
Every button, panel and shortcut named here was read out of the shipped application, so the labels match what is on your screen. If something in the program disagrees with something here, the program is right and this page is out of date. For what the words mean, see the glossary. For why any of it works the way it does, see craft and theory.
Download AVPrep2, or open the
same articles offline from docs\AV-Reference.html inside the
program's folder.
The parts of the window
Menu bar, toolbar, media bin, preview, timeline, properties, status bar, and how to rearrange them.
Audio mode, Video mode, and the three views
Why there are two modes, what each of Clip, Combine and Convert does, and where the tools live.
Loading media and reading the bin
Open Media, what the bin tells you, and the two numbers worth checking every time.
Clipping: cutting a section out
Set In and Set Out, frame stepping, zero crossings, Preview Selection and Undo Cut.
Splitting a file, and dropping what you do not want
There is no razor tool. Here is how to get two pieces out of one file, and how to remove sound.
Combining pieces into one file
The Combine list, ordering with Move Up and Move Down, and crossfades at the joins.
Converting, and which format to pick
Format, quality, rate control, sample rate, dimensions and fit or fill.
Hitting an exact file size
Target file size, and the arithmetic no setting can beat.
Composite: photographs, clips and music
Segments, transitions, pan and zoom, ducking, duration mode and the freeze rule.
Captions and transcription
Offline transcription, fixing the result, the 42 character wrap, and burned in against a file.
Text overlays, cards and variants
Hook text, end cards, background boxes, platform presets and generating many versions at once.
Effects: silence, loops, speed and freeze
Detect Gaps and auto-cut, Find Loop Points, playback speed with pitch, freezes and watermarks.
Metadata and cover art
Stripping what the camera wrote, setting your own fields, and adding a cover frame.
Batch, presets and the job queue
Running one operation across many files, saving export settings, and watching work run.
Keyboard reference
Every shortcut, including the panel resizing most people never find.
When something goes wrong
Reading an error, the failures people actually hit, and how to start clean.