# Possible to use Qlab to cross fade video cues?



## lionjill

Hi Everyone,
I have what I feel like is a very easy problem, but can't seem to find the answer anywhere out there, manuals or forums. So I reach out to you and your expertise!

We are doing a school production of the Wizard of Oz and we have created separate video clips of the Wizard's intimidating Giant Head for each of his lines in the scenes where he is The Great and Powerful Oz. We wanted to project these on screen while our actors react in the scene to it. I thought it would be easy to line up the video clips in order of the dialogue lines, and then when the live actors finish their response, hit GO and the next video clip would FADE in and over the one already playing, while the previous one would FADE out, essentially crossfading the two clips. Somehow, I can't find how to do this in Qlab. 

Any suggestions?

It's only one computer, one projector. Simple?

Thanks for any help you can offer!


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## Amishplumber

Not hard to do, just a little counter intuitive. Folks often get confused doing fade-ins in QLab since you have to start the video first, at an opacity of zero and then apply an animation cue to it that brings the opacity up. Basically this involves 3 cues all set to auto-continue; you play video 2 @ 0 opacity, you fade video 1 down and fade video 2 up. I would try and explain this more in words, but I think pictures are easier. Please see attached screenshots showing how I would go from having video 1 playing to crossfading to video 2 in 5 seconds. None of the cues have targets, hence the red everywhere, please ignore that bit.


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## Joshualangman

Even easier, and nicer looking:

Start first video on layer 10.

To cross-fade:
Start second video on layer 9 [AUTOFOLLOW]
Fade OUT video 1 and [stop target when done.]

You now only have one fade cue instead of two, and no "dip through black" effect.


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## Wozok

Joshualangman said:


> Even easier, and nicer looking:
> 
> Start first video on layer 10.
> 
> To cross-fade:
> Start second video on layer 9 [AUTOFOLLOW]
> Fade OUT video 1 and [stop target when done.]
> 
> You now only have one fade cue instead of two, and no "dip through black" effect.



I know this is old, but I'm experimenting with this too. I like the solution with only a single Fade cue - but didn't like having to keep track of the layer numbers.

So another option is to simply set all videos on layer "bottom". That way, when a new video is started it gets placed below the existing video and then the fader can simply fade out the previous one.

Eg:
Video 1 on bottom layer 
Video 2 on bottom layer with auto-follow
Fade out and stop on video 1 with opacity 0%
Video 3 on bottom layer with auto-follow
Fade out and stop on video 2 with opacity 0%
[etc]

Note that this doesn't work so well if the videos do not cover the entire screen!


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## Joshualangman

This is true. The "bottom" layer didn't exist when I wrote that up three years ago.

See also attached.


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