Hi -

Not to my knowledge - for media of 10 seconds+ duration, the default fade in/out time is 2 seconds. For images shorter than 10 seconds, the default fade time is proportionate to the duration (20%).

As you've worked out, this is unrelated to the transition time set in preferences.

I agree that 2 seconds is too much, but I know of no way to reset that within the GUI. Fortunately, fixing it is usually only a few clicks away.

Copy/paste keyframes may save time if you're resetting a large number of images/clips. It will replicate the fade time you set for the "parent" clip.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote: Copy/paste keyframes may save time if you're resetting a large number of images/clips. It will replicate the fade time you set for the "parent" clip.

Can you please explain what you mean by "copy/paste keyframes"?

I have been unable to find any way to adjust the fade-in/out time in Title Designer.

Oh - sorry - I thought you were talking about PiP Designer. Nothing I posted up there relates to Title Designer

In Title Designer, you can adjust the fade/effect duration by using the sliders (they're effectively keyframes). Little screenshot attached.

Copy/paste keyframes doesn't apply at all to titles, but it's one of the best time savers in PDR! Here's a basic explanation - https://youtu.be/RnOrIdfUVSA?t=3m18s

Cheers - Tony
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Ah, I see. Great, thank you!
Those little sliders are unlabeled and I was curious as to what they were.

Sorry about the confusion; I was talking about both, actually. To me, these two features - PIP Designer and Title Designer - are essentially the same thing. Both are added to a second track and both give you an overlay on top of your base footage. Both are accessed the same way (by double-clicking the image) and both perform essentially the same functions; One could easily design a "title" in another program, save as PNG, and apply as a PiP, for example. In fact these two features could quite easily be combined into one.

Listen, I love this program, but applying fades is an examble of seemingly disjointed functionality. Here we have three different ways to add a fade, and three different ways to adjust it. In Transitions we can add a cross-fade and the fade-in/out time is changed by right-clicking and adjusting the Transition Settings (with little up/down arrows to change duration), or changing the default Editing settings. In PiP Designer the fade-in/out times are adjusted by moving little yellow diamond-shaped markers, which are unlabeled aside from the vague "Opacity" field. In Title Designer the fade-in/out is adjusted by moving little white bracket sliders, which also are unlabed except for a cryptic capital letter "T".

Would it be possible to unify or simplify these settings? At the least I think the PiP Designer and the Title Designer settings should function the same way, if not be combined into the same feature altogether. This will add uniformity to the program and make it more user friendly. Just a suggestion...

Quote: EDIT: This appears to be a feature request since PD6

For as long as I can remember, the duration of fades has been completely adjustable - just not the default time in PiP & Title Designer.

A simple way around that in Title Designer is to make a new "default" template that meets your needs. I have some that I use consistently that have a 00:00:00:12 fade in/out (with a 6 second title duration) = the defaults PDR sets for me are completely irrelevant.

(shadow) http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/135971864 (border) http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/detail/135971865


The default start/end effect durations in Title Designer are a whopping 33.3% of the total duration, so for a 10 second title the default effect duration is 00:00:03:10.

Since PDR 12, & more so with PDR 13, Title Designer has become more like PiP Designer. Both can keyframe opacitiy/transparency, position, rotation & scale. Title Designer needs different features to be able to format text. PiP Designer needs different features like masking & chroma key. That's probably why they remain as distinct tools. I see what you mean about simplicity & uniformity, but can't see the point of opening a title to modify & be confronted with superfluous features.

Cheers - Tony
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Quote: I see what you mean about simplicity & uniformity, but can't see the point of opening a title to modify & be confronted with superfluous features.

I agree. Combining the features was just an idea; the crux of the suggestion is that the controls to adjust the fades in PiP Designer and Title Designer should appear and behave the same way.

The key take-away from my post was the diversity of controls to perform these functions. A basic principal of software design is control uniformity. The fades ideally should be adjusted the same way in all aspects of the program.

Here's another idea: Rather than housing the fades within the clip controls, perhaps a "Fade Room" or an "Ending Effect Room" (or something similar) could be added to the program. In this way an ending effect could be dragged down to a clip in the same way a transition is currently applied. This would really simplify the process of applying fades and give a visual representation of both the length and position of the fade. Also, then the same ending effects could be added to the base video and to titles and overlays.

Again these are all just suggestions. I'm just brainstorming ideas here that you can take back to the lab and help determine what the best solution should be. Companies pay good money for customer feedback; here it is free of charge from a highly educated and tech-savvy consumer. Please feel free to internalize and apply as you see fit, but do take these suggestion into consideration for patches and later editions.

Now for another issue. Why are the fade times applied in an absolute manner (to the timeline) rather than relative to the clip? In my mind the fade-in/out times should always be relative to the clip. I cannot imagine a situation where you would want to move a clip and suddenly have the fade in the middle of the clip! In other words, a "Fade-in" should always do just that - fade into the clip. Similarly a fade-out should always be at the end of a clip. Please fix these settings so that they are stored relative to the clips themselves. Adjusting keyframes, aside from the control uniformity issues mentiond above, is confusing and often does not behave as desired.