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Ya know, Neil, you seem like a nice guy, and you have joined here in the hopes of learning and teaching. That's cool.
But what in bloody hell does your post have to do with the topic? PD 8 is not recent and you don't mention any NEW FEATURES from a recent version (i.e. since, hmm, maybe PD 11 at the very earliest).
The good news is, according to my new drinking game, which rules state any time you (Neil) veer off-topic or post irrelevant information, I get to do a shot. More good news is every time you post your undying love for PD8, I get to chug a beer. Looks like today I am gettin' WASTED!
Hey, Barry(hic)!
It'shhh a won(hic)der yer sober enough to(hic, hic) write this! LOL.(just my bit of fun). Okay, now I've sobered up, I'll explain. I did not take the usual progressive route through the various versions of Power Director. I started out with PD5, a very basic programme which had only the one PiP track that did not allow video content, only stills, which I found a bit restrictive. Then I saw PD7 on a friend's computer and sought it out for myself because of its PiP feature, 6 PiP tracks allowing full video, not just stills. Then came PD8, acquired after another participant on this forum from Melbourne, Australia sent me his now-surplus-to-requirements copy. I used that for quite a while, first on Windows XP, then on Windows 7(my current computer). PD8 featured 9 video PiP tracks. Then I made the quantum jump, bypassing PD9 through 13, and landing at PD14(I have the "Ultra" version, PD8 is also "Ultra). I found that, in spite of its features(99 PiP tracks, which no-one would ever use that many in one project), PD14 had several shortcomings, not least of which was the inability to author discs in DVD-SP.
The other shortcoming in PD14 concerns the transitions. Yes, it's great that "cross" transitions will retain the overall length of a video but the sticking point is that some of the transitions, when used in "cross" setting will cause a momentary freeze on entering, and again on exiting the transition. That issue should've been sorted
before PD14 was realeased to the public. Another issue concerning the transitions is that if you set the "behaviour" of transitions to "cross" as your default in preferences, then the audio component is not inserted along with the video component. This is time-wasting as you then have to go back and manually insert the audio components of all the transitions used in the clip. So they're the shortcomings. The "plusses" I've already mentioned(the ability to use transitions on the PiP tracks, the ability to use a PiP track as an extra title track, being two of them) Another "plus" is in editing. Of late I've adopted the practice of hovering the cursor over a clip in the media library before pulling it into the timeline. This is to check the length of the clip and how many extra frames beyond a full minute-seconds count, When I pull the clip onto the timeline, I split off and delete those "spare" frames. If I have a clip that is 2 minutes, 10 seconds and 1 frame, I can excise that one frame with ease, where in PD8 I could only get within 3 frames. If the legth was 2 minutes, 10 seconds and 2 frames, I'd have to count back to 2 minutes, 9 seconds and split there, losing a full second in the process. So that's PD8's shortcoming.
The fact that I can have both PD8 and PD14 together on one computer has proven very useful to me. When I acquired PD8, I would've liked to retain PD7, but in the installation, PD8 wanted to overwrite PD7(likewise PD7 would overwrite PD5, meaning one would uninstall, or require uninstallation of the earlier version), but PD1 loaded onto my computer
without disturbing PD8.
One other thing PD8(ans subsequent versions) offered was video in reverse with all its comic potential, which I'll leave to your imagination how it could be used. I first had this in Corel Video Studio but that programme failed to open a while back and has since been uninstalled. I've found though, that in PD, if a reversing effect is to be used in a video, the sequence featuring the reversing effect needs to be produced separately, then dropped into the overall video where required. If the effect is applied in the normal run of editing a clip, Corel would simply take it in its stride as it renders the video, and two, or even three such instances could be added but PD would maybe get through the first, but "hang" on any subsequent uses of video in reverse. I found that in PD14.
Well, there you have it, Barry!
Cheers!
Neil.
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