Problem With the Title Designer - Improper Argument Encountered

garioch7

Senior Contributor Location: Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Canada Joined: Feb 07, 2011 06:45 Messages: 852 Offline

Solved by

Nov 11, 2012 16:03

Good day all. I have enountered a problem with the Title Designer in PD11. Haven't done any titles with it since I upgraded from PD10 to PD11, current build (2215). I tried using one of the Custom Scrolling Title templates that I had created in PD10 for a 16:9 project, which is what the current project is (same video camera) that I am working on. When I tried to modify my PD10 custom title template, I got the captionally noted error message about an improper argument being encountered.

I can't say as I really like the new PD11 Title Designer, though it did do away with a lot of unnecessary templates. What I don't like is not being able to see what I am typing once I exceed a screen length. Then I have to follow Carl's advice and pull and yank the title sides up or down to see what I am typing - real pain when you have lengthy closing credits and over 100 attendees, plus other info, to include.

But that's OK, I decided, right, I will create a new custom scrolling closing credits title template from the PD11 default title, set motion for scroll up and start from scratch. The title duration is 4:58, that is followed by a short 10 second stationary "The End", fade beginning and end, custom title that I did use from a PD10 16:9 project. The music track has a song of over 5 minutes duration. Video Track 1 has three .jpg images, with overlapping fade transitions for half of the five minutes plus, that were snapshoted from the video, and then the last half as color boards on Track 1, with three smaller .jpg images on track 2 with similar simple fade transition between each. The color board is on Track 1 so that the screen is filled for the smaller three .jpg images.

Nothing else major going on. I have done probably over 100 projects using this technique and never encountered this error before in PD9 or PD10. No major changes to my PC other than I did recently install ColorDirector, but I have not used that on this project since it is my video, shot a month ago in HD .mt2s format and it wouldn't benefit from ColorDirector.

I was getting along great, editing away in the Title Designer with the new title, adding credits, when the same error occurred again. I sent the auto report to Cyberlink and am now saving after every few minutes. I still have most of the credits to do.

Has anyone else encountered this behavior, this error? If so, any advice would be GREATLY appreciated. I really think CL should have another go at the Title Designer. I concur that getting rid of a hundred or so templates was an improvement, but it really is now much more difficult, at least for me, to do lengthy scrolling credits, and I certainly don't like the error.

I am sending along my dxdiag if that might help, and I can send along an image of my workspace but so far as I know, and I sit to be corrected, my computer is not the issue. How often have we heard that before?

Any assistance would be appreciated. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil

Filename	MGDxDiagx64.txt	Download
Description
Filesize	43 Kbytes
Downloaded:	474 time(s)

Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

garioch7

Senior Contributor Location: Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Canada Joined: Feb 07, 2011 06:45 Messages: 852 Offline

Nov 12, 2012 11:14

Good day again. I have tracked the problem down to what appears to be a memory buffer overflow. When I reach a certain point in the title, trying to add text to the end, it reliably hangs when I try to enter the next letter of a name at the same point.

I have checked the "My Titles" folder and can see the templates that I worked on yesterday, some shorter than the point at which the error occurs and which appear to work fine. I also can see the one that causes the error when I attempt to add one more letter.

The "My Title" folder are each full of thumb.png s and a few other files. Not sure how to attach the files in the title folders unless I zip them and attach them that way. If that would be of assistance, I would do that so that others might experiment on their computer configurations to see if they can reproduce the error.

Any help appreciated. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

Dafydd B

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

Nov 12, 2012 12:39

Hi Phil,
Please zip them (the titles you're referring to) and attach.

I can't say as I really like the new PD11 Title Designer, though it did do away with a lot of unnecessary templates. What I don't like is not being able to see what I am typing once I exceed a screen length. Then I have to follow Carl's advice and pull and yank the title sides up or down to see what I am typing - real pain when you have lengthy closing credits and over 100 attendees, plus other info, to include.

Suggestion:
Lengthy credits,
1. I would use Word or some other text editor and write the full content out in that.
2. I would then use copy'n'paste and place the whole lot into Title Designer.
3. The added advantage with using Word is you can introduce additional characters into the Title.

Dafydd

garioch7

Senior Contributor Location: Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Canada Joined: Feb 07, 2011 06:45 Messages: 852 Offline

Nov 12, 2012 14:52

Dafydd:

Thank you for your interest. The first file (pac-01.zip) contains titles that are working, as is, but once you add as much text as in the second file (pac-02.zip), the error is encountered when you try to add additional text (the name "Martin Marin". Dies on adding the "r" in Martin."

I can try using WordPerfect to create the titles and paste as you suggested, but I am not sure that will work, if it is a character memory limitation of this Build of PD11. I won't get a chance to try your suggestion until tomorrow afternoon.

Please make sure that when you add my Titles folders to your "My Titles" folder, that you check your numbers and rename my folder names so that they don't overwrite your possible existing folder names with the same number.

I will be interested in your findings and will report back after I have tried your external editor suggestion. I usually put in the special characters using Charmap, but agree that your solution is probably the better way to go.

Thanks again, Dafydd. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil

Filename	pac-01.zip	Download
Description	Working Shorter Credits Title
Filesize	269 Kbytes
Downloaded:	548 time(s)

Filename	pac-02.zip	Download
Description	Longer Credits Title that will not accept more text
Filesize	279 Kbytes
Downloaded:	539 time(s)

Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Nov 12, 2012 18:11

Hi Phil -

After extraction, I renamed the folders to "title020" & "title021" (so they were consistent with the other titles) and dropped them in C:\Users\Tony\Documents\CyberLink\PowerDirector\11.0\MyTitles - they showed up correctly as "dwhcc2" & "dwhcc3"

Testing each title in PD11 caused it to become less-than-responsive (!). At times PD would take up to 20 seconds to display buttons correctly or make changes (e.g. duration). The whole time, it "felt" like PD was just going to fall over! When I put both titles in the timeline, PD11 just stopped working. No improper argument. Just stopped. PD10 wasn't much better... insert tile (wait) - set duration (wait) - click play (wait again).

My short attention span would lead me to conclude that long scrolling titles are just a bad idea!

Quote: I really think CL should have another go at the Title Designer.

... and when it (CL) does, I hope they reactivate the ability to select all (Ctrl+A) in Title Designer. Silly thing to leave out! Every other version I've used has has that simple & useful feature. Why it has been omitted is beyond me.

Back to your question - I carried out some tests comparing PD11's behaviour in Title Designer with PD10 & 9.

The test involved copying 10 lines of simple text from Notepad and pasting it into a title repeatedly. In PD9 & 10, I was able to paste 300+ lines of text (not that you'd ever want to). In PD11, pasting more than 30 lines caused Title Designer to just close without saving any modifications... & that was without applying any text formatting or motion.

In so many ways, PD11 offers so much more flexibility over previous versions... yet such simple things are lacking.

Not trying to shift the focus of the thread - just adding extra information.

Cheers - Tony

Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

garioch7

Senior Contributor Location: Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Canada Joined: Feb 07, 2011 06:45 Messages: 852 Offline

Nov 13, 2012 06:46

Tony:

Thanks for your time to explore my problem with the Title Designer. Glad it is not just my configuration. And, I do agree with you - the lack of a Ctrl-A to select all, particularly when you have to yank and pull to see what you are typing or trying to select is a royal pain!

I think my only solution until CL is able to address this possible "enhanced feature" is to make a series of short scrolling credits and butt them together to mimic one long scrolling credit, although I will repeat your test - what Dafydd suggested, composing the credits in Notepad and trying the paste thing, to see if that works. I am not optimistic if it did not work for you.

There does seem to be a limitation, which shouldn't be there, of the amount of text you can include in an up-scrolling title. I suspect that not enough memory was allocated for title designer strings from what I can figure and a memory overflow is occurring.

I had hoped to get to test that today, but have car problems so am off to the dealer and have company tonight. Tomorrow, a new water treatment unit is being installed, so it could be Thursday before I can spend the necessary time to fully test the suggestions and report back.

Thanks again for your time and expertise, Tony. FIVE STARS! I will report further when I get the time to test this more fully. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Nov 13, 2012 08:53

The same basic issue has been a reoccurring theme for a long time. http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/1000.page It will probably be fixed again, and again, and again. On off issue since PD5 with how many lines and/or characters can be in a title.

Jeff

Dafydd B

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

Nov 13, 2012 10:49

Thanks Phil for the titles. I have reported the issue to CL for them to fix.
Dafydd

edited out an error

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Nov 13. 2012 13:57

garioch7

Senior Contributor Location: Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Canada Joined: Feb 07, 2011 06:45 Messages: 852 Offline

Nov 13, 2012 13:13

Dafydd:

Thank you for reporting the issue with titles. I must have a poor memory, and I do plead gulity, because Jeff mentioned this has been an issue with previous versions. I personally never encountered the problem in PD9 and PD10, and obviously Tony, when he tested on my behalf, didn't encounter the same behavior with those two versions, or the last builds thereof. Of course, I never had so much text before, so that might be an explanation.

I will still experiment, as Tony did, with using Notepad, to insert lengthy scrolling credits. I suspect that to meet my deadline, I will have to use multiple titles because I suspect it doesn't matter how the credits are inserted (typing or pasting), there appears to be a memory limitation and it should, in all likelihood, just lock up regardless of text insertion technique. I am not sure how fast CL will be to issue a patch that addresses this glitch and I do have to deliver.

Hopefully, while CL are "under the hood" of the Titles Room, they will restore the Ctrl-A to select all, as Tony suggested, and they might also make it easier to see what you are typing so that you don't have to drag the titles up and down when you exceed a screen's worth of text.

Thanks to all of you, and I will let you know how I make out with my further testing. This forum is a tremendous resource, and I commend you all for all of the time, expertise, and energy you devote to helping your fellow users. I am proud to be associated with all you on this forum Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

garioch7

Senior Contributor Location: Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Canada Joined: Feb 07, 2011 06:45 Messages: 852 Offline

Nov 13, 2012 15:30

Good day again. I found the time to try Dafydd's suggestion. I prepared the credits in Notepad, so that there would be no danger of extraneous formatting characters muddling up the picture.

As expected, PD11 up and "encountered an improper argument" and locked up when I attempted to paste the Notepad file into a new and blank Title.

I really don't want to butt multiple scrolling up title files end to end to achieve the result I want. My personal preference, for major credit groupings of information is to have the last line of a group just about scrolled off the top of the screen while the title for the next group is just appearing at the bottom of the screen. I don't think that there is an easy way to achieve that with multiple title files.

I do have a copy of PD9 on my laptop. Two thoughts occur to me. I might be able to create the scrolling credits in PD9, and then either copy the resulting Title folder, with all its thumbnails and other files to my main computer in the My Titles folder and try it that way so see if PD11 would read it. If PD11 can read it, then I am GUESSING that the glitch is isolated to the Title Composer in Build 2215.

The other option would be to produce the ending credits, assuming that PD9 won't choke on the Notepad file, into an H.264 AVC file on my laptop and transfer and append that file to the end of the actual video on my main computer. I have attached a MediaInfo report of the source video. Any advice on which PRODUCE profile I should use on the laptop if I go that route would be appreciated.

In fact, any advice as to other options, or what I am proposing, would be most welcome.

As always, your time and expertise is much appreciated. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil

Filename	dwhvideo.txt	Download
Description
Filesize	3 Kbytes
Downloaded:	416 time(s)

Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

ynotfish

Senior Contributor Location: N.S.W. Australia Joined: May 08, 2009 02:06 Messages: 9977 Offline

Nov 13, 2012 16:57

G'day Phil -

Pre-producing your long scrolling title might be the only way around the issue.

Another possibility is to make a series of shorter titles & overlap them. In the screenshot below, I took a poem of 62 lines (a favourite recitation piece of mine) and did just that. Overlapping each title gave the illusion of one continuous scrolling title.

Cheers - Tony


Filename	Scroll Overlap.png	Download
Description
Filesize	305 Kbytes
Downloaded:	1727 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Nov 13. 2012 16:57

Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

JL_JL

Senior Contributor Location: Arizona, USA Joined: Oct 01, 2006 20:01 Messages: 6091 Offline

Nov 13, 2012 18:29

Just retested PD6 as that's what I had experience with previously on this issue and 64 lines okay, 65 caused the crash, PD8 300+. Based on Tony's work PD9/PD10 300+, PD11 30, as I indicated, a on off issue. Just hard to believe things are that erratic in some source code management.

Jeff

garioch7

Senior Contributor Location: Port Hood, Nova Scotia, Canada Joined: Feb 07, 2011 06:45 Messages: 852 Offline

Nov 14, 2012 13:25

Tony & Jeff:

Thanks for your replies. Great idea, Tony, about overlapping titles - I hadn't thought of that angle.

I think that I will try to pre-produce the ending scrolling credits with my laptop on PD9 and then insert the file into my PD11 media room on my main computer and go from there, assuming, of course, that PD9 doesn't choke, but it never has before and I have done some pretty long titles with it on previous occasions.

Thanks again, everyone. Have a great day.

Regards,
-Phil Windows 10 Pro x64
Dell XPS 8930
Intel CoreT i7 (4.6 GHz)
32 GB DDR4-2666 RAM
1 TB PCIe -x4 SSD
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060
PD14 Ultimate x64, 4207
CD4 Ultra and AD6 Ultra
Bleeping Computer Malware Response Instructor

Heddybelle

Newbie Joined: Jun 03, 2010 09:17 Messages: 47 Offline

Feb 10, 2013 07:57

Thanks all - your suggestion Tony was most helpful to me as I too have had this problem since updating to PD11. Enjoyed the poem also!