This page covers how a cue arrives on screen, and how the picture leaves when you stop. Three kinds, four standard durations, one default, and two settings that decide the edges. Small subject, but it is the difference between a show that looks assembled and one that looks thrown together.
The three kinds
| Kind | What it does |
|---|---|
| None | A hard cut. The new picture is simply there. |
| Fade | The new cue fades in over the old one. |
| Dip to black | First to black, then up into the new cue — half the entered time for each half. |
Standard durations are 0.5, 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 seconds. The Transition column shows a cross for a cut, and otherwise the length in seconds.
Setting one, or thirty
Click the cell in the Transition column for a single cue.
For a block, select it and use right-click → Transition. This is the normal way to work: build the list first, then give a whole section the same handling in one action.
The default for new cues
Settings → Cue list holds the transition a newly added cue starts with. If your house style is a one-second fade, set it there once and stop thinking about it.
A duration of zero means a cut, whatever kind is selected — which is why a cue can say “fade” and still show a cross in the column if the duration was never set.
Where the transition sits relative to the out point
Settings → Cue list has transition ends on the out point. It decides whether the fade runs before or after the moment you trimmed to:
- On — the fade finishes exactly at the out point, so the transition eats the last second of the cue. Right when you trimmed to a specific frame.
- Off — the cue plays to its out point in full and the fade starts there.
There is no correct answer; there is a house style. Pick one and leave it, so that trims mean the same thing in every list you make.
How the picture leaves
Stopping is its own setting: exit transition, also under Settings → Cue list. That is the fade used when you press STOP or when a cue with follow Stop reaches its end.
Keep it short — half a second reads as intentional, two seconds reads as a fault.
What a transition costs
A fade renders both cues at once for its duration. On a machine that is already close to its limit, a list full of two-second fades is measurably more work than the same list with cuts. If the status bar starts reporting dropped frames during transitions, that is where to look first.