Hi everyone. I am using PowerDirector 16.

My problem is that I want two independent video windows. This is similar to a split screen, but I want the windows to be at any arbitrary location and any arbitrary size. Everything outside of the window needs to be transparent. Then I want to superimpose two or more such windows.

I had thought I could do this with masks, but the problem is that the mask resizes with the video (or picture) that it is associated with. I don't want this. I want the mask to stay at the same location and size all the time, whilst the video (or picture) changes location and size. The mask/window is acting like a sort of real time crop of the video.

My next thought is simply to use another layer with a transparent hole in it, through which you can see the layer underneath it. This works, but when you come to superimpose two of these on top of each other you run into problems. This is because there needs to be one holey layer for each windowed video (or picture). And the topmost holey layer will cover up everything beneath it, except where the hole is, so the bottommost holey layer won't work. You can get around this by cutting more holes in the topmosy holey layer. Note that the topmost layer (track 4) does have a mask applied to it so that you can see through it on the left hand half of the screen.

Not sure I'm explaining this very well, so I have attached a screenshot which might clarify. What is meant to happen is that the two rectangles act like independent monitors, and, on each monitor, the picture zooms in on the womens' faces. What actually happens is that as you zoom in, the picture on the right eventually spills over into the left side of the screen, covering up what is underneath. If I could somehow set the opacity for the left half of the top most two layers to zero, then it would work. I had a go using blend modes, and yet another layer, but no joy.

I have also attached the resultant video so you can see the problem.

I should say I did find a solution which involved generating two separate videos and then using the results in another video, using chroma key to combine them together, but it is a rather tedious process.