Hi Pontus,

Is there a particular reason for wanting them to be "one" PD project?

I often edit and produce several small sub-projects (saves processing power, time, crashes etc) and then combine the finished 'sub-project' videos into one final production for authoring, burning etc.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/4200.page

Editing pds files is possible (I think) but seems like a lot of work unless absolutely necessary.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/3701.page

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Hi Adrian,

Thanks for your reply, much appreciated.

I'm not sure I understand how you combine several projects (or sub-projects) into one final production? Can you advice? Working with several projects as such would work great for me. In fact I already do have several projects that I want to combine. What I'm aiming for is to create one DVD movie (with VOB files, IFO files etc) readable by an ordinary DVD player.

Regards Pontus

hi Pontus,

It's worth noting (and a read through the forum) that PD7, whilst being a great editing and producing program, is not the most sophisticated authoring and burning program, and many people opt to use other programs at that stage of the process.

To combine projects is a 2 (or maybe more) stage process. Firstly, decide on your sub-project, say 1 event/party/trip whatever out of several and then edit and produce this as a 'finished' video say as an mpeg2/avi or whatever. That is one pds file and can be kept as such, re-edited, archived etc.

Edit and produce to file your other sub-projects in a similar way. You now have several separate pds files and several 'finished' sub-project videos.

Your final pds project is to import the sub-project videos into a new pds project, do your final editing etc on the compilation and then either produce a final video to file or burn a DVD to a folder (for using another burning program)or direct to disc.

Personally, I use another DVD authoring program at this stage but that's often because I want a more spohisticated menu handling system that copes with different videos rather than just chapters in one video as in PD.

Hope that helps.
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Hi Adrian,

Now I understand, many thanks for explaining. It really helps, because I hadn't thought of the idea to import produced movies as building blocks for a new project.

Best regards,
Pontus

Hi Pontus,

It a very useful technique, particularly when you are dealing with clips that need a lot of edits, fixes, effects etc that might start to stretch the processing of your system - particularly with HD video.

You will find that (in general) working with smaller projects makes it more efficient and a more stable process less liable to crashes/slowdowns etc.

I shoot a lot of small clips when scuba diving but it would work equally by breaking down large lengthy clips into smaller sections.

It also means that if only one section, say the end credits, needs to be altered you only need to re-edit and re-produce that section, then incorporate the changed section into the final video, rather than having to make sure, if you only had one big project, that all the final version is still as you want it and no other errors have crept in.

If you join seemyworldonvideo.com (mainly for PD editors to cooperate and show their work) the extras for editors page has lots of resources that might also be useful.

Cheers
Adrian Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. (see below)
Confucius
AMD Phenom IIX6 1055T, win10, 5 internal drives, 7 usb drives, struggling power supply.

Adrian

I too am disappointed with PD's final stages. I tried Power Producer but it too is limited. I would be grateful if you could advise which product you use to author and burn your DVDs.

I am especially keen to be able to create my own multi-layered menus and, as I indicated in an earlier post, I would like to have the option to select a chapter and then return to the main menu.

Regards

Robert

I am not Adrian but I use DVD Lab - very powerful programme with extreme flexibility.

pjc

Thanks

I downloaded DVD Lab but it seems to not work with .avi files.

Robert