The Viewer panel in hitfilm pro

Introducing the Viewer

                                  The Viewer panel in hitfilm pro  is where you see the results of your editing and compositing. viewer panel also where you'll make many of your compositing decisions, adjusting layers and masks directly instead of using the Controls panel. The Viewer panel is linked to your currently active timeline. The Viewer's contents and available tools will vary depending on your chosen timeline.

Playback controls

Along the bottom of the Viewer are the playback controls.

Loop playback

When activated, playback will loop once the playhead reaches the end of the timeline or the end of the work area. The work area can be defined using the Set In and Out point buttons with the playhead at the desired frames. This can be particularly useful for looping playback around a specific cut or visual effects sequence.

Set In and Out points

The in and out points set the work area. This region of the timeline is used when looping playback and when exporting your project. This makes it easy to export specific sections of a project, rather than entire timelines.

Playhead control

The timeline playhead determines which frame is displayed in the viewer. The playhead can be controlled from the Viewer.Move playhead to start instantly jumps the playhead to the beginning of the timeline. You can also press the Home key.

Previous and Next frame buttons move the playhead by a single frame.

The Play button plays the timeline forwards. Realtime playback may not be possible,

depending on the complexity of the timeline. Realtime playback can be achieved using the RAM

preview or proxy features.

Playback can also be controlled using the standard keyboard shortcuts J, K and L.

J plays backwards. Pressing J repeatedly will double the playback speed.

K stops playback.

L plays forwards. Pressing L repeatedly will double the playback speed.

RAM preview

System memory can be used to preview a section of your timeline in realtime, even if there are

complex effects.

Clicking the preview button will begin rendering from the playhead's position and will carry on until

the RAM allocation is filled or you click elsewhere in the interface to stop the previewing.

You can then playback the previewed frames or scrub the playhead in realtime.

The memory allocated for RAM previewing can be adjusted in Options.

Time Displays

To either side of the Viewer are time displays.

On the left the current time is shown, based on the position of your playhead.

On the right the total duration of your current timeline is shown.

You can set each separately to display as a timecode (in the format Hours:Minutes:Seconds:

Frames) or as a framecount by right clicking and selecting from the menu.

Viewer playhead & duration bar

The duration bar represents the total duration of your currently selected timeline.

The lighter gray area shows your work area, which you can change using the In and Out controls.

When a RAM Preview has been rendered, the area that is currently stored in RAM will be

represented in blue.

By dragging the vertical white bar you can move the playhead around your timeline. This is

particularly useful if your timeline is currently zoomed in to a specific area, as you can watch

another part of the timeline without having to move or scale your track or layer view.