Video Clips No Longer Linked(?) to Project

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Christavski

Newbie Joined: Jun 14, 2018 21:20 Messages: 1 Offline

Solved by

Jun 14, 2018 21:32

Any help on this issue would be tremendously appreciated...

I recently opened a PD15 project I haven't worked on for awhile. Once the timeline was loaded I noticed that thumbnails for every clip in my project had become just black. When I play my project I am able to see my titles, transitions, text, etc., but the videos themselves are not visible. After experiencing a similar issue with a DAW I want to believe that perhaps the video clips in my project are no longer linked, however I have never deleted or moved the video clips from where they've always been.

I don't know how to look for them, or how to restore them. I've tried loading all the original clips back into the project, but this action does not remedy the issue...

Any suggestions?

Thank you in advance for your assistance!

-Christopher

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at Jun 14. 2018 21:36

PowerDirector Moderator

Senior Contributor Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan Joined: Oct 18, 2016 00:25 Messages: 2104 Offline

Jun 15, 2018 03:56

Hi,

The filenames and paths are hard coded into the project .pds file. This means that if the files are moved, renamed or deleted PDR cannot find them and a dialogue box gives the user the option to ignore or browse for the files manually.

If the original project was started using files located on an external USB drive, Windows will have allocated a drive letter to that USB drive. This drive letter may or may not be retained when the drive is removed - depends on how the system is set up - so when it is reconnected it may have a different drive letter.

If, in your case, you have not moved or deleted the files, have they been renamed or has the drive letter changed for any reason?

If you have no idea of exactly what files or file paths were in the original project, you should make a copy of the project .pds file with a specific name (so that the original does not get corrupted) and open the copy file in Notepad or a plain text editor.

Scroll through the coding bits until you get to a plain english section and buried in there are the file paths and names - something like this :

SRC="C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDirector16\SampleClips\beach 360.mp4" NAME="beach 360.mp4" MUTE="FALSE" PACKSUBFOLDER="" STEREOMODE="1" MEDIATYPE="1" MEDIASUBTYPE="5" VIDEOSUBTYPE="4" AUDIOSUBTYPE="13"><SUBFOLDER/></VIDEOOBJECT><VIDEOOBJECT ID="11"
SRC="C:\Program Files\CyberLink\PowerDirector16\SampleClips\ntsc\Kite Surfing.wmv" NAME="Kite Surfing.wmv" MUTE="FALSE" PACKSUBFOLDER="" STEREOMODE="1" MEDIATYPE="1" MEDIASUBTYPE="11" VIDEOSUBTYPE="9"

This would give you the names and locations of the files in the original project - if it is a large project with lots of files in lots of different locations, you will have your work cut out, but it may help get started!

If you find that the drive letter has been changed for any reason, the easiest way is to re-allocate the original drive letter to the drive and your project should load. If that is not possible, for whatever reason, it may be that you can edit the copy .pds file and change the original drive letter to the new drive letter, but again this is potentially some work!!

The Pack function [File>Pack Project Materials] in PDR goes a long way to minimising this sort of issue. It "packs" the project into a more portable format for trransfer or archiving.

Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator