The editor timeline consists of several tracks. At first you will only have two tracks, one for video and one for audio. You can add additional tracks as you work, if necessary.
How Tracks Work
Tracks are only found on the editor timeline (composite shots use layers, which are covered in the Compositing section).
A track can only contain video or audio content, not both. In this context, ‘video’ can mean videos, images, planes or composite shots.
All video tracks are displayed in the top area of the timeline, while audio tracks are displayed in the bottom area. The amount of interface dedicated to each can be adjusted by dragging the splitter up or down.
A single track can hold as many clips as you want. Clips are placed sequentially one after the other, either end-to-end or with gaps in-between.
Linked Clips ![]()
Some media assets include both an audio and a video track. In this case the media asset is represented as two separate clips on the timeline, one on a video track and one on a audio track.
Linked clips are marked with the chain icon.
Any editing changes you make to one will also be applied to the other. Clips can be linked and unlinked by selecting them and choosing Link or Unlink from the right click menu.
Creating and Deleting Tracks
You can create a new track by right clicking anywhere in the track listing and choosing Insert track.
A track can be deleted by right clicking a track in the track listing and choosing Delete track. If the track contains any clips you will be warned before the track is removed.
Re-ordering and Renaming Tracks
Tracks by default are called Video 1, Video 2 or Audio 1, Audio 2 etc. If you want to change these names to be more descriptive you can do so.
Right click the track name and click Rename to choose a new name for the track.
You can drag tracks up and down in the list to re-order them. This will move the entire track’s contents.
Muting Tracks ![]()
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Video and audio tracks can be turned on and off using the mute icons to the left of the track names.
Changing the Appearance of Tracks
HitFilm can dynamically fit timelines of any length into the available space. At times you will need to zoom in on a specific area of time, to fine tune the timing of an edit or of effects to a finer degree of accuracy. At the bottom left of the timeline is the Zoom slider, which controls the zoom level of your timeline.
The height of tracks and other aspects of their appearance can be customized using the Track Appearance Menu. This menu is contained within the small right-pointing triangle 
just to the right of the timeline Zoom Slider. This menu contains three submenus, which give you control over the height of your video and audio tracks, as well as how the previews on these tracks are rendered. This allows you to assign your timeline space to where it is needed most. For example, while working on your soundtrack, you can reduce the size of the video tracks to make more room for the audio tracks, and enlarge the audio tracks to see their waveforms more clearly.
Video Size
Video tracks can be assigned one of four heights. Medium is the default size. Larger heights make the thumbnails larger, so it is easier to see the contents of the video files contained in the tracks. Note that when Small is selected, no thumbnails will be rendered for the video tracks. In this image, the Video Tracks have been set to Extra Large, while the Audio tracks have been set to Small.
Audio Size
Audio tracks can be assigned one of four heights. Medium is the default size. Larger heights make the waveforms larger, which can be useful during audio editing. Note that when Small is selected, waveforms will not be drawn for the audio tracks.
Preview Mode
Preview mode controls how the preview thumbnails are rendered for your video clips.
- None – removes all thumbnails from the timeline, using only the clip names to identify the individual clips that are present. This can speed up performance, since the thumbnails do not need to be calculated. The following image shows medium sized tracks with the preview mode set to None.
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- Start/End – Shows only two thumbnails for each clip, one at the start and one at the end. This speeds up performance, while still providing images to help identify the clips at the edit points, where most adjustments are going to be made. This image shows medium sized tracks with the preview mode set to Start/End
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- Full – Full is the default mode, and shows thumbnails across the entire duration of each video clip. This makes it very easy to identify your clips, regardless of where you are on the timeline. This image shows medium sized tracks with the preview mode set to Full.
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