Hi Edward,
Though what I'm offering here is nothing new, and has been expounded in many other post by several other members, for what it’s worth, here is the workflow I employ. And since using this method, I have not had a blank/black missing file in a project for over 2 years.
(Note: this is a re-write of a past post I submitted, that I’ve edited to be more precise)
- Upon starting a project, say...
“Billy’s Birthday Bash”. The first thing I do is to create a new folder and name it…
“BBB Master”.
Then I locate all the images, clips, and audio (scattered across my computer), that I envision I might use in this BBB project, and I place a copy of these images and clips into the
“BBB M” folder.
- Then I open PD7 and immediately go to > Directors Chair > Edit > Preferences > File > and I click on Browse at the Export Folder box, and locate and choose
BBB Master, as the save location for all my saved assets (e.g. Produce saves, PDS saves, Snapshots, etc,)
- I then click on the Import Media tab > Import Media Folder > choose the
BBB Master folder > and let PD load all my clips, images, and audio into the Library.
- Before I make my first edit, I do a… “save as” to create my first pds save and name it
BBB-1. Now this, and subsequent pds saves
(BBB-2, BBB-3, BBB-4, etc) will all go to the
BBB Master folder and reside along with my project’s clips, images, and audio files.
- As I’m editing, and I think of other new elements that I want to add to this “Billy’s Birthday Bash” project, before I import any new or additional files into PD7, I first Minimize the running PD. Then I locate and place a copy of any new file I want to use, into the
BBB Master folder. I then maximize (or re-open) PD7, and import these new assets into PD from the
BBB Master folder, and NOT from where they are in their original folder.
- Finally, when my project is for all intents and purposes completed, and I have Produced a Master video file, or burned to DVD, as a Fail Safe step, I go to my Aux Storage Drive and find my
“Packed Projects” folder. Within this
Packed Projects folder, I create a new folder named
“BBB Packed”.
Then, in my open BBB project in PD7, I go > Director’s Chair > File > Export > Pack Project Materials > And on the Browse for Folder page, I locate and choose that
“BBB Packed” folder I just created as the Save destination > OK.
This packed file has now archived your project. It can now be copied and moved, and should always, into perpetuity, open your project just as you left it, should you ever wish to re-visit it in the future.
And now one can safely do some post-project maintenance and cleanup and delete stuff that is no longer needed, as the
BBB Packed folder now contains everything you need.
(Note: If one should want to re-visit a project at some future date, to create a new edit. I would suggest making a copy of Packed folder, and working from the copy, thus retaining the original in case something should go wrong)
By using the methods described above, everything (e.g. Images, Video, Audio, PDS saves, Produced saves, Snapshots, Etc.), will always be in the same folder. And any time I re-open and continuing working on the “Billy’s Birthday Bash Project” (from the last saved pds file), PowerDirector won’t have too far to go to find all the assets and edits, as the pds files are rubbing shoulders with all the assets in the very same folder.
Good Luck.
This message was edited 10 times. Last update was at Nov 04. 2009 15:51
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