Lock Clip Positionally on Timeline?

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1

Question: Is there a way to lock the position of clips on the timeline so that they cannot be moved, yet can still be edited in all other respects?

My Use Case: Let’s say that I have a 20 minute video with a single audio track and three different camera angles, so each camera is put on its own track. Let’s further say that I have fiddled with all the tracks to get everything in perfect alignment so that all four tracks are in sync with each other on the timeline, and especially with the audio track. Now I’m going to make cuts on all the video tracks to get the angles and transitions and different scenes that I want in my video. Whenever I do this it seems that I inevitably, somehow inadvertently, cause one or more of my now chopped up video clips to move in the timeline such that they get out of alignment. And now I’ve got a problem that is extremely tedious to fix up.

If I could get all the tracks in alignment and then lock them in place positionally but still be able to do all the other edits that would be a huge benefit to me.

From what I’m saying I think it should be clear that neither locking the entire track nor the use of grouping helps here. Grouping, in particular, doesn’t help because any time I make a cut it would cut across all tracks. And all the extra mouse clicks to lock-unlock, group-on / group-off, would probably exacerbate the probability of inadvertently causing a clip to get moved.

Any thoughts? Do others have this problem?

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Short answer: No, it’s not (yet) possible.

Are there other video editor programs that can do that? If so, it may warrant a [Feature Request] in bugs.kde.org

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When I’m worried about something like that, judiciously dropping some markers on the clips and guides on the timeline gives you the datum points you need to both see if things got accidentally moved, and to quickly realign them correctly if they have.

That also gives you the alignment points you need to preserve if for some reason you later do decide you want to move something up or down the timeline.

Also, in your particular case, it helps that the clip markers are “global”, so even if you didn’t put one in a place you need it before you need it, so long as you have at least one aligning all tracks, you can always add more in the clip monitor (or on a separate temporary sequence that has them all aligned and uncut) because you know the offset they need to be aligned to add more where you need them.