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Three comments. All probably due to Windows image subsystems , memory and CPU especially when working on large files.
!. when watching the viewer window you may not see the PIP and Video appear in sync. Even when playing both in the project window (I mean upper right view window of the workspace)
2. I find for critical work I edit a five or ten second segment of the main video as a sub-video export as avi and do any PIP overlay on that - save it as a new AVI and patch the result back into the main movie.
With a five second clip the CPU processor, image processor and other Windows software can better handle the live action in realtime.
3. No disrespect but I had to learn to use the PIP motion contols as an artform using the yellow and blue sliders and the points of data along the motion line (humps in your example) until you are able to get the motion doing what you want. but it is an artform and not really explained in PD7 user guides.
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I believe he has a foreign language movie with 430 subtitles spaced along the movie but when imported his PDS file did not get more tha 50-60% reporoduced in the loaded workspace.
He might try saving the original PD6 movie as a number of smaller AVI files and then make a new PD7 movie by appending each of the avi files to restore to the original
For future movies with so many subtitles it would be prudent to break the movie into sub-projects so each individual project has fewer numbers of subtitles.
A pragmatic approach, but it will work. The loading error may be the way the PDS is handled and I have noticed on PDS files greater than say 300KB and a small ram pc (VISTA with 1.5Gbytes) I have lost information so that may be a hint.
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Great answer Robert...
Of course some of us on the V7 Beta test in USA were a little concerned that the throbbibg middle finger Genie sported was likely to convey to users a certain "comment a dits - Casse Toi"
I think the middle digit plus other digits was meant say 7th edition and it throbbed cuz it had bugs but it got lost in the animation.
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BTW, - I videotape bands in nightclubs, and artwork in art galleries where i pan zoom on the subjects. Sometimes use 2 cameras in theatres, one as a wide-angle rostrum
Can I edit a 2 camera shoot with power director 7 the way I am doing it with Studio 9? Yes and all down the timeline you can flip between cameras by cutting the PIP and removing a segment. You will probably finish with the main camera as say 80% and the 20% of the PIP scattered down the timeline if you edit like me, using the PIP for interest cuts.
Studio 9 has a lot of wedding specific transitions that I like to use. What does power director have?
Yes, pleny of nice transitions Fade, page peel like a book page, left or right corner to peel. Full page fips left to right, right to left, and evry other axis. Lots of dissolves and some that are not really pertinent to marriages.
Are there 3rd party plug-ins for extra wedding transitions and maybe video overlays? Not that I am aware of.
Can audio only be placed on the 6 overlay tracks?
Yes, all tracks have individual mute, fader and volume controls.
Can power director 7 do backwards video play? NO
Is slow motion smooth or does it strobe?
Its good. I do a lot of slow pan by hand on a fluid tripod head and then use the PD7 speed control to slow even more. You get from Half-speed to 2X in a slider bar.
I record in stereo. Could I mute the right track and make the left track play on both right and left tracks?
Not sure, but you can split the audio from camera #1 and split the audio from camera #2 tracks and put them on the music and voice tracks.
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I am calling Patey Hats in London to get the donkey ears fitted as soon as I get over the shame of not reading the Help file on PIP.
Many thanks. - Great instructional video too.
Now where did I leave my keys...?
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I am digging in to the latest PD7 and Effects but I dont see one which will do what I want.
I would like to take the uppermost PIP layer (or layers) and make them have a specific level of transparency so that the underlayer (another PIP or Video) bleeds through just like you would do with Photoshop layers.
It seems an obvious proposition but I cant seem to get it done.
I tried reducing the brightness of a PIP and saving it and then using a gray chroma-key to make the Video layer bleed thru but its klutzy and not at all what I wanted.
Any help out there?
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When i transfer say 5 minutes of video from camera to WMM I get about 2Gbytes of .AVI file created.
If I import the .AVI to PD and Produce without any further editing that could create anything from 2Mb to 60Mbytes depending on the quality I save with.
So I guess the original quality is the same as the camera. I use firewire and Vista sees the camera. I need to test it too with the trial copy of Video Edit Magic wich is also loaded.
I general, PD is functioning properly with exception of Capture and one other detail. When I try to modify the font size of Titles it does not accept a font-size change. Changing font changes the appearance and default size depending on the font chosen, but I cant make it bigger or smaller/ Color Shadow etc actions on the text works OK.
I will PM Dafydd with more details later.
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Sorry about the delay in replying.
Here is a snapshot of my pc when using PD.
see capture.gif image
In the PD menu Capture, there are no devices, everything is greyed out.
But the Windows Vista OS sees the JVC camera and I can use Windows Movie Maker to grab live video or read the DV tape to a file.
Then I can use PD to import a file to the timeline.
Its always been this way and if it were not for WMM I would probably have troubleshooted the problem.
When I plug in the camera firewire, Vista pings audibly and shows this second image asking where I want to save video.
See choicemenu.jpg image
It does not matter what option I choose, PD never sees the camera, but WMM does.
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Copy the file to your hard drive and rename it to .mpg or .mpeg and try importing it into PD.
The files on a DVD are actually Mpegs with different names and additional files used in chapters I think.
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Have you tried using Microsoft Movie Maker which is included in Vista?
I have the same problem as you but rather than fight it I used MMM and it worked, and never bothered to troubleshoot it further. I then import the AVI file that MMM creates into the PD project.
Its probably a simple fix but lets see what others say...
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I'm reading the PDF User Manual for a Sony VX2000 and it says you can use its internal Luminance Key for superimposing images.
If you have used PD PIP-Green Screen effects, you know how powerfull this is.
Has anyone in the PD community used the VX1000, VX2000 , VX21000 cameras superimpose?
How does it compare ?
Can it be used to complement the PD PIP technique and How ?
Please PM if not reply here. I nervously await the arrival of a used VX2000 and wonder what it will do.
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This will seem obvious when you read it but here is a tip for when you are taking a shot of a zoom-in or zoom-out of any subject.
Make your camera shot and use the zoom control on the camera as normal.
When you get into PD and are doing your editing, cut the track at the beginning and end of your zoom from points where there is no motion.
By this I mean e.g
Stattic image - Static image - CUT HERE Static image - ZOOMING - CUT HERE - ZOOMING - ZOOMING - ZOOMING -
So that the begin of the zooming is removed (and then do it for the end of the zooming too)
That way the jerky start to zooming and any camera shake are removed.
But wait - that loses part of my zoom time , you say.
NOW - go to Video (or PIP) Edit Time in PD
and for the zoom portion of the track , set the time to 0.5 speed
Now when you run the video what you will get is the static subject video followed by elegant half-speed zooming over and above whatever zoom rate you were using.
Obviously this only works for zooming in on people standing still or images of Oil Paintings or zooming in on a house. But what you will get is really smooth zoom and excellent jitter-free start and stop.
You can also try the 0.5 speed on panning across a house or other static subject and the pan is so much better than panning by hand even with fluid tripod heads.
Try it - You will like it.
Best Regards for the Holiday Season
WWW.VideoCentricity.Net Where you see yourself on the web
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Ok , I just went back to PD and tested again.
By the way I have PD version 6.00.1604a What do you have?
Go into Create Disc.
Click on the Spanner Icon at the foot of the page
In Create Disc Preferences - Menu
Uncheck Enable Video Thumbnail and then click OK
Goto Preview
There should be no animated preview (this might be what you want)
Go back to Author
Click again on the Spanner
In Create Disc Preferences - Menu
Check Enable Video Thumbnail and
Set the time user-defined menyu to 40 seconds
and then click OK
Goto Preview
It should run the animated menu for 40 seconds and then re-cycle
In the Actual DVD when burned I bet it runs for 40 secs and then runs the Fisrst Chapter of your video
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When I set it to 99 it did run for over a minute in the preview, but I did not create a DVD
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On mine the preferences (bottom center spanner icon)
the menu motion is settable from 10 secs. to 99 secs.
Set it to 99
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See Auto Menu Timeout as per Dafydd elsewhere
Sets how long before auto-play
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I get the same, it starts just as the intro finishes (the cute multi-media display on the right)
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I welcome any comments on this topic. I have searched the forums and there was a brief mention in Power Producer but anyway my notes are for Power Director.
Why use audio tracks ?
I currently make interviews which use one or two cheap JVC camcorders which have no external mic input and they unfortunately pick up all unwanted background noise, so I record a supplemental sound track on an iKey solid-state recorder with an ATR55 shotgun mic which produces an mp3 audio track.
The Problem:
I found that when trying to match the sound to the video in PD I kept getting lip-sync problems. The reason is that sound tracks when imported to PD do not seem to match the total time length of the video. I proved this by shooting a video of a metronome, and now think I have the technique down smoothly.
The Fix:
Two things to always do
1.Use a clapper board at the beginning and end (or a hand clap)
2. Do NOT attempt to stretch the audio timeline by dragging the edge with your mouse, It just does not seem to work and will mess up your sync.
Dont know why technically - its just been my expoerience.
First place your video on the video line and edit (cut it ) at the lead-in at the clapperboard point but do not edit any remaining video after the ending clapperboard point. Leave it there. In fact the video must be longer than the audio for this editing. If it is shorter, the audio track gets truncated.
Place the mouse on the instant in time where the final clapperboard sound happens and make a note of the total run time at this frame by noting the figures just under the display in PD e.g 20 mins 12 secs 11 frames [20:12:11]
Now place your audio track or sound track on the PD and edit (cut) it at the starting lead-in clapper board point. Drag the whole audio track back to 00:00:00 if necessary.
Now go to the end of the audio track and edit (cut) out any audio after the final clapperboard pont.
What you have now is clean starting points for your audio and video, a clean ending point for the audio and you know the exact ending time in [mins:secs:frames] for the video up to the final clapperboard noise.
Now, right-click on the audio track and choose Edit Audio - Speed
On the lower right side of the pop-up you will see the current length of the audo track [Modified Audio Length].
Click into those digits and change them to match the length of the video
(20:12:11 in my example).
Close that pop-up window and your audio track will now be adjusted to the same length.
Check by playing both video and audo track sounds together and the clapperboard should sound in sync. (I use three claps)
Check at other points along the whole video and the lip-sync should be correct.
Edit (cut) the final remaining video after the clapperboard and mute the video track.
Finally, Produce the video at as high resolution as you like and use this video as your new working video with its new high quality sound track.
You can now edit this video track as normal, dropping in PIP tracks and effects.
Regards,
VideoCentricity - Where you see yourself on the web
http://www.VideoCentricity.Net
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I use two cameras when I make videos and cut between them (Video/PIP) during post-production.
What would be a real bonus is to have both Video and PIP screens running side by side instead of just the one clip viewer display. Maybe with a check box in the drop-down menues to enable/disable.
This would allow me to step into the exact frame to cut from PIP to Video and back.
It probably is not a big development task either, more a duplication of existing code and it would put PD ahead of its competitors in this price range.
Thanks for reading,
http://www.VideoCentricity.Net
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Glad you were able to do the import.
By the way, for any other folks who read this...
When looking at a pre-recorded DVD you will find .VOB files which as far as I know cannot be imported because it says "Unknown file type". Instead, copy them to your computer C: drive and rename them to be .MPG files
Then you can import them into PD.
Of course there are copyright issues here, but for example, scenes on DVD that you might not be able to do yourself, like planes landing, ships in harbors etc - the stuff that gets interspersed between action scenes with actors, can be co-opted into your own home movies of your mother-in-law arriving for a long stay etc.
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How are you using it? Do you dump the recorded file to your pc? What is the file type .MPG or .AVI or what
I would try that first. Then doulble click on the file in your pc and it will open with Microsoft Media Viewer.
If that views OK then you should be able to import it into PD.
VideoCentricity
http://www.VideoCentricity.Net
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