Workflow - A comment

SeptimusFry

Senior Member Location: Brittany, France Joined: Feb 02, 2008 12:43 Messages: 243 Offline

Solved by

Mar 17, 2010 07:18

I have searched for useful postings on Workflow, not finding, but not sure that they are not there...

As a very irregular user, I find when I return to use PowerDirector, I get error messages where PDR cannot find something. Reason: I have moved it by changing my directory structures, or put onto another drive when tidying up. It can be quite annoying, and time-wasting to sort out. If I have accidentally removed an mp3 track or such, it may be irredemable.

My new rules for workflow, at the cost of duplication, dictate that EVERYTHING related to a video project must be contained in one folder sub-tree. In what follows, directory BabyTalk in my case is actually MyVideos/PDR/BabyTalk

• When importing the clips for the project, create the top-level subdirectory, let’s call it ..BabyTalk and a child subdirectory called ..BabyTalk/resources - the clips go in there
• When adding some other data, music tracks, jpg images... they also go into the ..resources directory.
• Creating the first or a different version of the video (say, shorter for YouTube), always create a new version of the project in ..BabyTalk , BabyTalk Vn.pds
• New versions of the project will result in ..BabyTalk/DVD Vn

As long as nothing is relocated, you should never accidentally delete an unused clip, or a referenced mp3 track…

There is one fly in the ointment though. If you relocate your top level directory, say onto another drive, the project (.pds) file will lose all your resources. If the pds file were in XML or plain text, one could edit it to reflect the changes, but PowerDirector will do it for you.
When you access a ‘displaced’ project, PDR will let you know it cannot find the first of your resources. If you then ‘find’ it for PDR, it will relocate the resources for you. You must save the project back then, and the .pds file will reflect the new structure.

With these few simple rules above, you are unlikely to end up with loose ends in the way that I have as time has gone by.

If someone wiser than I were to improve on these notes, I would be more than pleased.
i7 980x; W7 Pro; 12GB; Nvidia GTX 285; 2x300G Velociraptors in Raid 0; 2x1.5TB Barracuda in Raid 1; 2TB WD Studio Ed.II (eSATA); NEC SpectraView Reference 2690 + MultiSync EA232

Dafydd B

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 26, 2006 08:20 Messages: 11973 Offline

Mar 17, 2010 07:56

Denbigh, nothing wrong with your structured approach - it's what I've done for years.

Here's the bit you are missing though:

Open your project
Go to the Director's chair icon, top left and Click
select
File > Export > Pack Project Materials > browse for a location and .....
ALL your timeline project material can be saved, even to a removeable drive.

Now the "ALL" has to be qualified as customised Titles and other data can be lost.

Go to:
C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents\CyberLink\Custom Menus

Go to:
C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\My Documents\CyberLink\PowerDirector\8.0

And save the items for your project.

Dafydd
[Moderator]

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Mar 17. 2010 07:59

Dafydd B

Senior Contributor Joined: Aug 26, 2006 08:20 Messages: 11973 Offline

Mar 17, 2010 08:12

I also recommend editors to save project files regularly and to use the "Save Project as" option over "save" which I never use.

Open PD
Select Keyboard shortcut, Alt+C
In Preferences select your "Export Folder"
Click OK

With your project in the timeline and you want to save quickly use:
Select Keyboard shortcut, Ctrl+Shift+S
Save your project file in numerical order - each time you save you make a new project file.

Example, I made 30 saved project files (.pds) when I was editing a short 3 minute video. Yes, really.

Save regularly, save to have a back up!

Dafydd
[Moderator]

Andrew - Wales, UK

Contributor Location: Wales, UK Joined: Jan 27, 2009 19:16 Messages: 545 Offline

Mar 18, 2010 05:22

Hi,

Interesting thread this.

I keep all my raw video files on an external Raid 1 (two 1TB hard drives, one backs up the other within one external unit) hard drive. If I create a new project, I create a new directory containing the project file on my system hardrive, but tell PD8 to look on the external hardrive for the video files.

That way, very little space is being taken up on the system drive and my raw video files can be used and backed up in the same place, and are unlikely to be moved.

My music and photos are also on this Raid 1 drive so the same rule applies.

We all have our own preferences. Staying organised for me has been learnt from past blunders!

Cheers,

Andrew Alienware Aurora ALX R4 - Intel i7-4820 4.2 GHz - 32GB DDR3 RAM - Crucial 512GB SSD - 1TB Seagate HDD - 3TB WD Green HDD - 4TB WD Green HDD - MSI NVIDIA GTX 1070 8GB

Sony HDR-PJ810 and HDR-PJ530

SeptimusFry

Senior Member Location: Brittany, France Joined: Feb 02, 2008 12:43 Messages: 243 Offline

Mar 18, 2010 10:55

Actually ALL my data exists on 2 Raid 1's. For me, keeping the videos in a video area, music in a music area and still photos in a photo area is fine, but as time goes by, I sometimes have to rejig my directory structures. Since the Raid drives are so big, I am prepared to duplicate the music and photos into the project area, but since the videos are too big to waste space on duplilcation, I put them into project-oriented space rather than all separated off. No Data for anything goes onto the system disc, which is a 10000 rpm SCSI drive. I DO backup my system disc, but never the Raids. MyDocuments is redefined onto one of the Raids.

Incidentally, my 2 Raid drives are on pairs of 512GB, using Freecom for the first one I added and WD MyBook Studio 2 for the second I added. The Freecom is NOT user serviceable, which is why I switched to the WD, which IS user serviceable. Both are on FireWire and are very fast (as fast as my system drive) and can easily be added to. I tried the Freecom on USB2 and it was less than half the speed. Theoretical relative speeds are not a true indication of what one gets in practice, Firewire is more efficient. A big plus is that these drives are always coming down in cost with time!!

I mention this as there are plenty of cheap external hard drives available but the cheap ones are very slow. I used a freeware tool called HDTach, which is not very fancy, but does the job. i7 980x; W7 Pro; 12GB; Nvidia GTX 285; 2x300G Velociraptors in Raid 0; 2x1.5TB Barracuda in Raid 1; 2TB WD Studio Ed.II (eSATA); NEC SpectraView Reference 2690 + MultiSync EA232