Loading media and reading the bin

Open Media

Open Media in the Media Bin, File → Open Media, or Ctrl+O. Pick one file or several. The dialog remembers the last folder you used, and so does every other file dialog in the program.

Nothing is copied or moved. The bin holds references, and your originals are never modified by anything in AVPrep2. Every operation writes a new file.

What the bin tells you

Duration, container, dimensions, frame rate, codec, sample rate and channels, depending on what the file is.

Two of those are worth reading before you start rather than after.

Frame rate. Joining 23.976 material with 30fps material produces something whose sound walks away from its picture over the length of the piece. It is not fixable by sliding. Convert one to match the other first. See Frames, time, and why the numbers are strange.

Codec. A file in a codec the preview cannot decode still clips, converts and exports correctly. It simply does not play in the window. If a file behaves oddly in the preview but the output is fine, this is why, and the bin is where you confirm it.

Selecting

The rest of the window acts on the selected file. Most of the moments where a button appears to do nothing come down to nothing being selected, or the wrong thing being selected.

The Clip, Combine and Convert buttons in the toolbar stay disabled until something is loaded.

Where exports go

File → Choose Output Folder, and there is a Choose Output Folder button in most of the editors too. The choice is remembered in your data folder between sessions.

Pick a folder that is not the one your sources are in. It makes it obvious what is original and what the program made, and it means you never overwrite something you needed.

Names

Outputs are named from the source with the operation appended, and the program does not overwrite. If a name is taken it adds a number rather than replacing what is there.