Caption Settings

Menu Command: Track | Add Caption or Options | Section Settings or right-click a caption section and choose Settings or choose the Settings button in the section's title bar.

A caption is any text shown in the video. It can be a single, stationary word or sentence or a long list of credits that scroll during the end of a movie.

Use Caption Settings to:

Use Video Effects to add shadows, glows, or fades to the text.

Caption text
Enter text into the large black window. Editing feature are similar to other text editing software. The font size, face, and justification can be changed. Before choosing a font size, it is important to set the resolution height first. The font size is scaled based on to the resolution. If the font size is 0.10, then the font will be 10% of the screen height. If the resolution is 540, the font will be 54 pixels high. Usually the resolution height should be set to the same height as the final video.

The controls on the right side set layouts, rows, columns, margins, background colour, and vertical alignment. The background colour is transparent initially. Vertical and horizontal alignment control the alignment of the text within the columns and rows. If one column contains more text than another, the vertical alignment controls how the text of the shorter column is aligned. Add a Position effect to the section if you need to adjust the position of all the text on the screen (such as a ticker along the bottom).

Display time
The display time specifies the length of time that the caption is shown on the video screen. It also controls how fast the text will scroll, if scrolling is enabled. The entire caption is scrolled over the given length of time.
Title bar colour
Sets the colour of the section's title bar. Use the font colour picker near the top to change the colour of the text.
Resolution
These set the level of detail used to draw the text. Use higher numbers for smoother text. For best quality, these should be set to the width and height of the final video. The values should be set before adding any caption text since the size of the text changes with these values.
Scrolling
This sets the scrolling direction for the text. If set to None, the text will not be scrolled. Up scrolling is useful for showing credits at the end of a movie. Left scrolling is useful for showing a "ticker" along the bottom of the screen. Use Video Effects to adjust the position of the caption to the bottom of the screen.
Zoom
Changes the zoom level of the text editor to make it easier to enter text or see the entire width of the caption. This setting does not change how the caption appears when played in VideoMeld. It only changes the area shown in the editor window. When working with HD captions that are 1920 pixels wide, setting the zoom to "Fit" or less than 100% allows the entire width of the caption to be displayed in the editor.
Background colour
Sets the background colour for the caption preview to make editing dark or light text easier. This setting is used only within the Caption editor and does not change the background colour of the text when the project is played or melded. Use the Background colour setting on the right side to change the actual background colour of the text.

See Also
Crossfade Video
Video Editing Basics
Video Effects