Combine only works with clips that you split, made no changes and later change your mind and want them to be as one clip again.

You could try a transition between two clips if you think the change is abrupt.

Quote ...And secondly is there a way to make some sort of effect of a second or so to show bridge the gaps, rather than the abrupt change my produced video

The first thing you should consider for simplicity are the canned transitions in PD-15. However, I dislike most of the transitions that are available with PD-15. This is not so much a knock at PowerDirector, but my general distaste for things that are supposed to look flashy and end up more gawdy than anything else. A few are nice and you should experiment with them.

I prefer to build transitions from more rudimentary tools so I'll have transitions that aren't over-used. Here are a couple things you might try:

Dissolve: Just drag the second clip onto the first clip by about 20 frames or however long you want the transition to be. When it asks if you want to overwrite, select Crossfade. If that does not show up in the context menu, you did something wrong or the other end of the clip is stuck in a crossfade. Too simple? Try a....

Fade to and from black: This is SO basic that many people forget that it often looks nice. There are several ways to do this but you can do it just like the white flash except with 20-30 frame dissolves on the ends and about 20-30 frames of black in between. Speaking of....

White Flash: In the media room the pulldown media type menu lets you pick a matte ("colorboard" in PD parlance). Drag a white one (or whatever color you like) to the timeline after your first clip. Now create a dissolve between the two by dragging the matte into the first clip (about 3 to 10 frames depending on how soft you want the flash to look... shorter for a flashier effect). Now adjust the length of the matte to about 10 to 25 frames. Make that longer if you have the shorter dissolve on the front end to enhance the off-symmetry effect. Now drag your second clip onto the exposed part of the matte, creating a dissolve. When you play it, you get a white flash. Still too boring?

Flare: Create about an 8 frame dissolve between your two clips on one track. Now on the next track place a "cover" effect. In one of the rooms (I want to say Particle but I'm not sure) there is a selection of flares. I like the one that travels horizontally, flaring up to almost fill the frame when it reaches the center and then retreats. Put this on the next track and place it over the dissolve. It's a long slow flare but if you hold CTRL and drag one side in to make the whole thing around a second long, you get a nice flare effect with a dissolve in the back to hide what didn't cover. There are neat ways of hiding the dissolve too, but that's more than I want to describe here (hint: Think about changing the backlight compensation over the span of a few frames via timeline during your dissolve). What I really like about this approach is that you can build alpha channeled animations to look like anything you want and use it to cover your clip change. The sky is the limit! This is how we do most transitions in live television.

Some of these effects take a bit more work than just picking a canned transition but if you want a more unique look, PowerDirector is flexible enough to create your own.

Len