Quote: Hey everyone,

I've been editing a pretty big project with multiple clips, and after I produced the project, I noticed something that has been infuriating. In only one instance of my video, there is a random black frame that flashes for just a millesecond in between two of the clips. I have done everything I can to try and fix this, including deleting and replacing the clips on the timeline. I have also zoomed in fully to ensure that both clips are placed directly next to each other. I have also checked the clips themselves and there is no black frames in them which could cause this problem; it only seems to show up after I render or produce the video as well. This is incredibly frustrating and any help anyone could give would be much appreciated. Thanks.

(fyi I have powerdirector 14)

Put your scrubber at the start of the clip that had the black flash. Expand the Timeline to the Maximum, you may see a gap between the clips.

Click in the gap, Right Click > Remove gap move all clips behind. 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.

"Click in the gap, Right Click > Remove gap move all clips behind. "

Can you explain...I don't understand. Thanks... Regards,
Dan
Power Director 21-Ultimate
v 21.0.3111.0
XPS-8940, Win-10 64-bit,
Intel Core i9-10900 processor
(10 core, 20M Cache),
32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB M.2 PCIe NVME SSD, 2TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD,
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GDDR6

Quote: "Click in the gap, Right Click > Remove gap move all clips behind. "

Can you explain...I don't understand. Thanks...

If there is a small gap between clips on the tmeline there will be a very brief flash of black. If you expand the timeline to frame level, you can see any gap that exists between clips. Right Clicking in the gap gives a option for removing the gap and closing up the timeline (two options (move all clips in all tracks or just move the clips on that track). 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.

Thanks for the reply. I already tried examining the timeline to make sure there were no gap in between the clips. It was showing that the clips were directly next to each other, even at the highest level of magnification. I was eventually able to sort it out by expanding one of the clips over that frame, but it was a hotfix. It just happened to work out better that way so I lucked out. However, I have seen other people talk about this issue and said they encountered it when they had removed an old clip and replaced it with a different one on the same spot of the timeline. Maybe a glitch of some sort?

Fyi, I just rendered the project again and a random black frame crept in between two entirely different clips that I hadn't even touched. It must be a rendering glitch of some sort.

Thanks, Carl. That "right click" is a very welcome shortcut. I've been linking everything to the right, sliding left by one frame, then unlinking. Big pain! Regards,
Dan
Power Director 21-Ultimate
v 21.0.3111.0
XPS-8940, Win-10 64-bit,
Intel Core i9-10900 processor
(10 core, 20M Cache),
32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB M.2 PCIe NVME SSD, 2TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD,
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GDDR6

Hi, all!

This might help. Put the scrubber at the very end of each inserted clip, before you add your next clip. If it shows black, count back a few frames(in PD14 you can split off, right down to 1-frame increments) until you see the last image frame, split there and you'll get rid of that momentary "black spot".

Cheers!

Neil

A shortcut I just discovered (probably not news to most of you): to get to the end of a clip or a movie (whichever you have selected in the preview window), just use the "end" key. Using "home" will get you to the beginning. No more searching for the last, or first, frame. Faster and more accurate than using the scrubber (at least for me). Regards,
Dan
Power Director 21-Ultimate
v 21.0.3111.0
XPS-8940, Win-10 64-bit,
Intel Core i9-10900 processor
(10 core, 20M Cache),
32GB DDR4 RAM, 2TB M.2 PCIe NVME SSD, 2TB 7200 RPM SATA HDD,
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER 8GB GDDR6

Random black frame is a very good description !

This has happen to me on seveal occasions where there are NO gaps inbetween clips. On one project, the dreaded black frames even appeared in the clips. I have even placed the clips on seperate tracks and made sure that they overlapped by more than 1 frame, still the black frames appeared! After several attempts of trying to rid the edit of this blight, I got fed up and just published it. You can see what I mean in this short video https://youtu.be/CY4p7QX1exM

Even since then, I've had very little bother and I haven't changed anything, might have been a full moon when I did the edit, I don't know.

Cheers I just want to edit and make pictures, walk my dog and go fishing.

Quote: Random black frame is a very good description !

This has happen to me on seveal occasions where there are NO gaps inbetween clips. On one project, the dreaded black frames even appeared in the clips. I have even placed the clips on seperate tracks and made sure that they overlapped by more than 1 frame, still the black frames appeared! After several attempts of trying to rid the edit of this blight, I got fed up and just published it. You can see what I mean in this short video https://youtu.be/CY4p7QX1exM

Even since then, I've had very little bother and I haven't changed anything, might have been a full moon when I did the edit, I don't know.

Cheers

Yep, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone replying just assumes there is a gap, but I'm pretty adept at editing and there is clearly no gap in between the clips on my timeline. It has to be some sort of glitch. Absolutely infuriating.

NIMRODofArnor, I recall other reports of this random black frames as well, one here http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/46378.page item 3, it appears PD may have another issue that needs further CL support attention.

All I can suggest is make sure both items in pref >Hardware Acceleration are unchecked and that during the encode process, only use CPU encoding (uncheck Fast video rendering technology: Hardware video encoder) for typically more robust encode operations.

Jeff

Quote: NIMRODofArnor, I recall other reports of this random black frames as well, one here http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/46378.page item 3, it appears PD may have another issue that needs further CL support attention.

All I can suggest is make sure both items in pref >Hardware Acceleration are unchecked and that during the encode process, only use CPU encoding (uncheck Fast video rendering technology: Hardware video encoder) for typically more robust encode operations.

Jeff

Thanks Jeff, will double check.

cheers I just want to edit and make pictures, walk my dog and go fishing.

The same issue here... Just tried to make some video...

Could somebody point just one thing that really works in Cyberlink's Suite? I don't know any.

One more thing. I unchecked hardware encoding and acceleration in preferences and the same for production and video renders two times faster. But it didn't fix the issue. I deleted all cache in preferences but it didn't fix the issue neither.
Sorry for saying that but this software is a kind of misunderstanding...

Hello all!

With the occurrence of random black frames, their duration is usually just one frame. If, like me, you apply transitions between all clips on the timeline, the transitions will effectively eliminate the random black frames, as well as provide a smooth segue between scenes.

Cheers!

Neil.

Hi All
I've encountered the dreaded black frame phenomenon too - time and time again. Drives me nuts. However, try this - render from the faulty project desktop to *.mp4, then burn the *.MP4 to a DvD. Hey, most of the time, yes there has been exceptions (!) no black frames. However, when you burn straight from the project desktop to DvD those peskie black frames are there! I tried overwriting with transitions, moving the start/end of clips. Didn't fix it. So annoying. Appears to be introduced when rendering to DvD from the project desktop. They don't show when playing the project on the desktop.

I was trying to fix a black frame last night and the program froze, maybe right on the invisible black frame. Restarted the program, and it played OK. Except I couldn't get rid of the black frame! Doh, doh, doh.

An update, or even a work-around would be much appreciated.

Have Fun! Please hold the Camera Steady!

Yes I just found after whole night of testing that changing the container from mkv to mp4 solves black frames issue but the audio was still out of sync.

What i did after was loading mp4, unlinked audio and scaled video length. I think problem may indirectly has something to do with framerate but first of all it has to be handled in PD not by silly workarounds.

I would sue cyberlink if I was professionals editor. PD lacks of some features but this can be forgiven but this program is unstable and full of bugs.

Neil is there a way to add empty transition? I made a video clip where are a lot of cuts. Is there also any way to add that transition for each cut automatically?

Edit

Oh I just see sj53 says transitions didn't help here...




Cheers
A.

Quote: Neil is there a way to add empty transition? I made a video clip where are a lot of cuts. Is there also any way to add that transition for each cut automatically?

Edit

Oh I just see sj53 says transitions didn't help here...




Cheers
A.

Hi, Karab44!

Empty transitions? Is there such a beast? I can maybe suggest the "no effect" option but I don't think that would suit your purpose. As to automatically adding transitions, earlier versions of Power Director(I think) offered such a facility, but the transitions would all be the same type(e.g., all "fade" or "wipe" or other choice), there was also the option in PD7 and 8 to "copy" the transition into clipboard and "paste" it where you wanted/needed it. I used that by setting my transition("fade") at say, 5 seconds, copied it and pastd it in as requred as a sort-of placeholder, I'd then go through and replace the fade with a more elaborate transition effect, as suggested by the previous/next scene. PD14 regrettably does not allow such cut-&-paste utility, such a shame, really, as such a utility is really useful and proved so in PD7 & 8. Automatic insertion of transitions might be an idea for PD16, seeing that PD15 is about to be unleashed!

Cheers!

Neil.