Voiceover takes over 2 minutes to show up on the track after hitting STOP

Watercolorwilly

Senior Member Location: Phoenix Joined: Mar 13, 2011 11:35 Messages: 211 Offline

Solved by

Sep 27, 2011 22:31

I had such good FORUM help in solving my freeze-and-crash troubles with MOV clips that I decided to try another topic that I have struggled with for months. (I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH FOR THIS MOV clip SOLUTION AS IT HAS MADE MY DVD show LIFE SO MUCH BETTER!)

My 30-minute projects typically use about 200 or more still photos and perhaps 20 MOV video clips with transitions between most of all. There are usually no other additional tracks except for what appear when opening a new project.

MY PROBLEM is that at the end of the project when I start adding voiceovers, it takes AT LEAST 2 minutes for each voiceover (from the very first one I add to the project) to appear on the track after hitting STOP. The audio voiceover clip can be short or long, but it always has the same time elapse before appearing during which all is frozen - no way to escape, even in case you realize there was a mistake. If I have, say, 100 short voiceovers to add to the project, it would take me AT LEAST 200 minutes to finish my project, not including re-running the clip to be sure each is acceptable. That means it would take me like about 10 times the length of the show just to finish narrating it!

What is amazing is that if I use WE, I can import it instantly, except for the fiddling around from tab to tab and searching for the current audio clip to import. I've used a half-dozen other products in the past and in each, the voiceover appeared instantly. What is going on in PD to take over 2 minutes? My method is to give an ad-lib air to the show and that requires that I see the video running as I do a voiceover. Scripting it and recording it with WE without seeing the video is not an option!

My solution at this time is to create an mpeg-2 video of the whole project, import it to a new project, and add voiceovers. When I do this, the first voiceovers appear almost instantly and at over 50% into the show, they take about 10 seconds to appear. This is quite a relief, but why would powerful software like PD take so long? (It also does it when I stretch a transition, say, from 2 seconds to 3).

Is there a PC, Win7, or PD parameter(s) that needs to change to help this along? More memory?

PD is the best ever software for this photo show work! I LOVE it! I promote it at my photo clubs and anyone else who asks about the photo shows of mine. I work at making work-arounds just so that I don't conclude that I have go looking for better software. I just need it to work faster in places that it should, like in any other competing software.

Bill Bill Seifert
HP Pavilion Desktop TP01-2022
8 core
AMD Radeon
Windows 11, 16 GB RAM

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Sep 28, 2011 10:38

How about breaking your project up into smaller pieces.

Do your voice over on a small section, produce each section before moving on to the next section.

Once all your pieces have been produced, you can then bring all of the produced pieces to the time line and produce the whole project.

Fixed Typos.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Sep 28. 2011 10:40

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Watercolorwilly

Senior Member Location: Phoenix Joined: Mar 13, 2011 11:35 Messages: 211 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 15:25

Thanks. That works for me.

But this is such a backward work-around. Shouldn't software work for us, not against us? Is there any explanation for this when other competitors handle this without any delay? Breaking apart a show and piecing it together again to work around this problem is so un-pro.

Does Cyberlink know about this? When I presented it to tech support, they said they could not reproduce it. Perhaps they didn't use 200 photos, video clips and transitions to investigate it.

Bill Bill Seifert
HP Pavilion Desktop TP01-2022
8 core
AMD Radeon
Windows 11, 16 GB RAM

Rocket-Scientist

Senior Member Location: HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA Joined: Apr 23, 2010 10:14 Messages: 288 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 16:33

There is a scary option in voice over to REPLACE the existing audio track in the file itself. (I believe they copy original and do actual replace in that copy). but could that process be the long delay? RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GDDR6
(2 NVME 2TB, 1 SSD 2TB, 3SATA 18TB )
PD18 ULTIMATE 64bit
WINDOWS 10 PRO 64 BIT
GIGABYTE X570 AORUS PRO WIFI MB
RYZEN 7 3700X 8-CORE , 64 GB DDR4
ORSAIR HX1050 watts PSU

Watercolorwilly

Senior Member Location: Phoenix Joined: Mar 13, 2011 11:35 Messages: 211 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 17:21

I thought of that one time, but it seems like neither of the options seem to be causing this problem. I have spent hours trying to unlock the secrets in the voiceover function.

I also discovered that if I pick fade-out in recording, the recording won't stop when I click stop. I won't do that again. Fade-in works, but I have to wait so long before the volume level to be high enough to hear me. I tried using it to overcome the auto gain control that causes background noise until my voice starts. So now I click and drag the volume down after the recording to just before my voice starts. I didn't have that problem with VideoStudio (that I am glad I had to leave due to other intolerable situations.) I really LOVE PowerDirector, but there are some things that work in some ways that just don't make sense to me.

Also, it is really irritating to set the parameters for my recording needs only to have to reset it each time I begin a voiceover session. It reverts back to a low rate that I don't think anybody today would ever pick, like mono 8000 Hz. Grrrr.
Bill Seifert
HP Pavilion Desktop TP01-2022
8 core
AMD Radeon
Windows 11, 16 GB RAM

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 19:38

This is one of those cases where a third party application might work better for you.

Nothing in PowerDirector would prevent you from bringing the finished recording to the Music or Voice track after voice overs are done.

We work with whatever tools that work for us. Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Watercolorwilly

Senior Member Location: Phoenix Joined: Mar 13, 2011 11:35 Messages: 211 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 19:51

So I'd have two applications running, one to display the PowerDirector video and the other to record my voiceover which I import to a track? It seems like my PC, as "powerful" as it is, would have a problem doing both. And then I don't know what third party product would do this.

(I'll be gone for a week or so starting Sunday, in case there are messages and I don't respond for a while.) Bill Seifert
HP Pavilion Desktop TP01-2022
8 core
AMD Radeon
Windows 11, 16 GB RAM

rbowser

Contributor Joined: Aug 08, 2011 16:48 Messages: 515 Offline

Sep 30, 2011 20:35

I hear your pain, Watercolorwilly - In an earlier thread, I discussed how the VO in PD takes forever to show up.

And then if you decide you don't like the take, and use the standard Windows keybinding of CTRL+Z, it takes the clip out of the time line, but it's still in your media bin, so you have to go back and hand delete the takes you don't want.

The only solution offered was to use the Wave Editor - which is to record blind, no way to ad-lib to footage as it plays.

Some of us have this long delay while waiting for a new VO clip to show up, others don't. I have no idea why our results are so different.

RB

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at Oct 01. 2011 13:36

Watercolorwilly

Senior Member Location: Phoenix Joined: Mar 13, 2011 11:35 Messages: 211 Offline

Oct 01, 2011 01:37

I tried that. It's like walking and trying to chew gum - I can't do that.

Segmenting into 10-minute parts and adding voiceover works best. What a pain - all the competitors already are beyond this simple problem.

Thanks.

Bill Bill Seifert
HP Pavilion Desktop TP01-2022
8 core
AMD Radeon
Windows 11, 16 GB RAM

Watercolorwilly

Senior Member Location: Phoenix Joined: Mar 13, 2011 11:35 Messages: 211 Offline

Oct 01, 2011 01:38

You're right. They need to step up into the 20th century in this regard.

Bill Bill Seifert
HP Pavilion Desktop TP01-2022
8 core
AMD Radeon
Windows 11, 16 GB RAM

rbowser

Contributor Joined: Aug 08, 2011 16:48 Messages: 515 Offline

Oct 01, 2011 01:47

Message deleted - I was writing while angry and frustrated. It wasn't a useful post.

RB

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Oct 01. 2011 13:34