I have a Texting and Title Problem with PD

Happy Holidays everyone!

I am a Movie Edit Pro 12 user and seriously am looking at moving over to cyberlink and PD8Ultra. I have a problem though...

Titles.

When in MEP I would make videos, and narrate with text using the title effects. MEP 12 has 16 tracks just like PD8 does however MEP's tracks are undedicated which allowed me to use all 16 track lines for titles if I wished. Now I don't need that many for titles, but when I saw that Power Director only had ONE track line for titles, it put a damper on my decision to buy. I am hoping the support family here can take a few min to possibly help explain to me how to work around this 1 track limit. Allow me to give you an example of how I use multiple tracks for titles.

Example: Let's say I want to put in Delayed, multiple effect text on the screen that says...

CYBERLINK'S
POWER DIRECTOR
RULES!

In MEP12 I would use 3 track lines having "CYBERLINK'S" in the first one using a Spiral entry and stretching its length of life to 12 seconds with a fade out.
On the second Track line below I would position "POWER DIRECTOR" 4 seconds past the start of CYBERLINK'S and its entry would be slammed in from the left side with a life length of 8 seconds. On the third track I would put "RULES!" 4 seconds into the POWER DIRECTOR with a length of 4 seconds.

All 3 titles would have a fade out at the end of their length which all would end together due to my timeline positioning.

So my question is ... How is this possible in Power Director 8 with only 1 track line available to titles?

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hi Will -

I agree, absolutely. Having only one track for Titles is a serious limitation (at times). Even poor little PowerPoint has a line-by-line transitions feature (without using 3 tracks too!).

The bad news... what you've discovered is correct. The only way around it is to use graphic versions of the text in the PIP tracks, which involves:

1. Type text & format as desired.
2. Export as graphic (eg. screen shot or copy/paste
3. In graphics software, apply transparency and save as .png
4. Import to PD & place in PiP track (transition limited to fade only)

I like the idea of non-dedicated tracks that could be used for different purposes but, for all the other positives about PD, I'll live with that. It would be more of an issue if I needed it more than very occasionally.

Cheers - Tony

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 23/04/2010 14:46:06

Hi Will,

Here is another workaround.
Following your suggested text and motion, I made this little example here, using only the one Title track.
(EDIT: Example video has been replaced with full tutorial here...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOwtIcWrmUY

You just have to assemble all the text, using the Insert New Title tool, to create multiple titles in one pass. Then just copy & paste it two times, and go to each sequence and eliminate the text that shouldn’t appear in that particular sequence.
(see attached screen shot of the timeline)

Cranston wrote:Hi Will,

Here is another workaround.
Following your suggested text and motion, I made this little example here, using only the one Title track.

http://seemyworldonvideo.com/view/787/tust/

You just have to assemble all the text, using the Insert New Title tool, to create multiple titles in one pass. Then just copy & paste it two times, and go to each sequence and eliminate the text that shouldn’t appear in that particular sequence.
(see attached screen shot of the timeline)

I'm sold! It's obviously my lacking brain and not the product limitations

Gonna get PD8 Ultra today thanks!

Hi Will,

I hope PD8 works out as good for you, as it has for me.

If you need any "more specific" details, on the multiple text workaround thing, just let me know. But I'm sure once you start exploring it a little and get the routine down, you'll see how the copy/paste, and then deleting text in some sequences, and the adjusting durations to suit, is really a pretty quick and easy thing to do.

Good Luck!

I thought I was alone (and a little nutty) when I asked for another title track.

When I have overlapping titles, I have been known to produce the video with one, then add the next and produce that using SRVT to help maintain quality. There have been a couple of better solutions offered here that I will be trying out next time.

Gee guys... didn't you know that

Dafydd
[Troublemaker]

Happy new year everyone