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Tony,
Thanks very much. That does help a lot, to know that the "Items" or labels can overlap into the button area. That means I can place the video chapter names directly underneath the video preview windows.
Appreciate the good info.
Clark
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Tony,
Thanks.... I guess I was lazy, thinking that PD13 would keep my buttons from over-lapping when I re-sized them, with auto-align ON. But auto-align only helps with new buttons ?
So I carefully checked for each "frame" touching, corrected those that did, and the problem went away.
That "empty" space below each button is actually quite a lot. I had wanted to put my Chapter names (the Items) much closer to each preview video window, but PD13 apparently won't let me use that "empty space".
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I had actually never considered that some of my USB ports may be USB2 and some USB3.
So, I got out my manual for my Dell XPS One 2710. All 6 USB ports are clearly marked USB3.0. Two are on the left-side, facing, and four are in the rear. I am plugged into one of the side USB ports.
Thanks for the question. It was definitely worth checking out.
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Is there a good tutorial, or just plain good advice, to prevent this ... ?
"Either a menu thumbnail (menu caption) or the navigation buttons are
currently overlapping. Try adjust them for this disc format."
Does this adjustment always have to be trial-and-error ?
I have this problem when I try to make the Menu's preview videos larger - as large as possible. I do have "Auto-Align" turned ON.
It's just that I would prefer having larger video preview windows, and there appears to be plenty of real estate on the menu screen for larger preview windows. But I guess I over-lap something, even though they don't look over-lapped.
Thanks,
Clark
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My external HD is ....
WD My Passport Ultra 2TB Portable External USB 3.0 Hard Drive with Auto Backup
My computer is a one-year old Dell desktop, with USB 3.0. It has 16 GB of RAM.
I did see a very major difference when I copied the PDS file to my internal hard drive, and launched it from there.
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Thanks for the replies and information.
HDedit and CubbyHouseFilms,
Do you believe it is OK to keep the source image and video files on an external USB hard drive, but the PDS file should always be on the internal hard drive ??
Clark
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Just reporting what I found out today...
I go back and forth, from work office to home. I try to take my PD13 video projects with me. I am a consulting chemical engineer, and sometimes have opportunity to work on my PD13 projects at my refinery office.
I have a new Western Digital USB hard drive, and use it to take my PD projects back and forth. I found out today, that its performance is very poor, even though it's a USB 3.0 device.
I have a PDS project file that I created at work, and saved to my USB external drive. I brought the drive home, launched the PDS file from it. PowerDirector was very, very, very, slow. So, I saved the PDS file to my computer hard drive, launched it from there, and the performance gain was amazing.
Just curious if others had experienced the same.
Clark
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PDToots also told me that there is a Time Code effect in the Effects room. So, I tried it (TimeStamp). I think it does every thing I was looking to do.
It can be set up to count backwards, throughout the video. It can be keyframed to fade in/out. Here's my example...
http://bit.ly/1JulI8o
The reason I wanted a countdown was that I noticed how often someone would stop a video before the end. Frankly, people have extremely short attention spans. Also, will often say "I'm just too busy". (Worse trite expression of this decade, IMO.)
I felt if they knew the time remaining, they would stay to the end. Yes, I know that possibly a great video will keep them engaged till the end. But, also, possibly not.
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Thanks, Guys....
All of your answers are very helpful. I've done a bit of experimenting this morning. I need to get to the day job, but will be able to work/play on this today.
Clark
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I've searched a fair amount, and found a few leads that turned out not to work for me.
Is there a template/clip/whatever that I can put on my timeline, so that the final video has a visible countdown to zero, in a corner of the final video display ?
A 3-minute-video, for example, would have a visible "3:00" (or another suitable time format) in a corner of the display, when the video begins playing, would probably blink slightly, and show a new remaining amount after every second, or maybe every 10 seconds, or maybe 30 seconds.
This is NOT a countdown prior to the beginning of the video, but instead a countdown for the length of the video.
Thanks,
Clark
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PlaySound and WartHawg75,
Thanks for the replies.
I really don't think I have a clip gap, but I'll double-check. That's one of the things I did check when two adjacent images would not crossfade.
Also, I've now read a good bit more, watched a couple of tutorial videos, and now approach the problem differently.
This is a good video about transitions, directly about crossfades.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhmUYIBcx1I
And borgus1 made a very good post about Crossfades here...
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/30786.page#168970
I now use his technique for many of my crossfades. So, I am not now using the Drop or Alt-Drop technique as much. The built-in "fade" transition is more reliable, more repeatable, and more exact.
I appreciate all the help.
Clark
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Tony,
Thanks much...
Yes, I do have Timeline Order set.
After your explanation, I went back and tried the Slideshow templates again. I see now how to set a different template for different groupings of photos.
And I can now create a finished slideshow for each photo grouping and have that in the timeline instead of the photos themselves.
That does make for a better effect.
Clark
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I've read back in the past forum messages regarding crossfading, and did not see this mentioned.
Sometimes I can crossfade images, sometimes not.
I normally use Alt-Drop to crossfade two adjacent images on the same track. Works fine. Sometimes. Then later in the same Project, I try to crossfade other images, but I cannot. The images simply do not crossfade. I've tried to determine what is the difference, but don't see it.
There is probably something obvious to do, but not so far to me.
As I said, I do normally hold down the Alt key when trying to crossfade. But when I do not, the dropdown menu sometimes shows the crossfade function, sometimes not, when I drop one image partially over another. That would be the same images where Alt-Drop sometimes works, sometimes not.
Thanks much,
Clark
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"Batches" -- not a good term. But, here goes....
I am creating a video with both images and video clips. (Also, audio clips.) I have all the images on one track, all the videos on a separate track. I have the images placed on their track in "batches" -- maybe 10 together on the timeline, then I have a video inserted on its track, and then maybe 5 images back on the image track. This repeated several times.
I like the Slideshow function. And would like to use it for my images.
1. Can I select ALL of the images on the image track and apply a single, specific Slideshow ? Will they then play in the proper sequence ? Images, then video, then images, etc.. ?? I tried to do that earlier today, and items were not in the proper sequence.
2. Can I apply a separate Slideshow to each "batch" of images ? I doubt it, but I'm asking.
Thank you,
Clark
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Well, I replaced the original audio clip with an entirely new one.
And now the audio drops out, at a later point. And kills all following audio.
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It's a fairly complicated timeline. But not much is happening on the timeline when the audio (maybe) drops out. Only the video clip that I downloaded from YouTube is on the timeline then.
The audio of the video clip always plays fine, as a standalone play. It may or may not play, at a certain point, as part of a PowerDirector13 rendered movie.
Ultimately I was curious if something could be purposely inserted into an audio/video clip that would give PowerDirector13 a problem.
This is the YouTube video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0CGsw6h60k
The audio problem starts around 1:35 into the clip. But not always.
Attached is a snapshot of the timeline, at the time the problem may appear.
Thanks....
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I've researched this quite a bit. Looked at YouTube tutorials, read the manual (!!!), experimented.
But I don't have an answer yet.
Is there a way to specifically set the cross-fade attributes for clips, numerically, specifically ??? And then copy those settings for all clips ?
----
I often have a hundred or more clips ---- photos, videos, audios... And would like to cross-fade each of those. I know that I can Alt-Drop one on top of the preceding clip, to create a cross-fade between those two. I like that. It's good.
But, do I have to do that -- guess on the drop position for each and every clip ?
I would like to be able to numerically specify the amount of cross-over. In frames, seconds, whatever. And then paste that setting for the next 99 cross-fades that I would like to do. Is that possible ? Or do I need to guess on the amount of cross-fade for each and every following clip ??
Thanks...
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I create videos for personal enjoyment. And for friends. A friend asked me to create one that has 10 songs (YouTube videos) in it.
There is one specific point in one video clip, where sometimes, but not always, the audio simply stops. For that video clip, and all following video clips, there is no audio. I know the spot. But sometimes, the audio does not drop out.
I can preview the video. No problem. Audio is fine, throughout.
I can render the video. Maybe the audio stops at that point. Maybe not.
Any suggestions on what to look for ? Or just find a new audio ????
Thanks,
Clark
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Tony,
Thanks much for the explanation and the files. I just looked at your 16:9 file in PD13. It is very good and close to what I was looking for. I could likely change it, or start from scratch, to make the photos move as I had been thinking.
While I was doing that, I thought that I could not zoom and move at the same time. Is that true ? My "ideal" would be to move the photos across the screen in a continuous flow, which I can now likely do, after seeing yours. But, is it possible to zoom on each photo at a specific place on the screen? I do have this "perfect" photo display of one that zooms the center-most photo as it crosses the horizontal middle of the screen.
Is that possible -- to move those photos across the screen, and then zoom in, followed by a zoom out, when a photo gets to a specific point on my display ?
Clark
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Thank you, Jaime-esque and 1Nina, for your comments.
I will continue to explore and learn about PD13. It has much depth, and I am still looking down at the surface.
Honestly, I was also hoping that someone would say "Hey! I did that already. Here's the link !"
Clark
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I just recently switched to PowerDirector 13 from another video editor. I am very impressed with the flexibility and the very high amount of support material (effects, transitions, etc) for it. There may be some good way to look for a particular transition, but I don't know how yet. I'm just flipping through many transitions to see what I personally like.
Two questions, please...
1. Does anyone know of a transition that displays a continuous stream of images, flowing from right to left in the middle horizontal area of the screen, with the center-most image zooming in possibly 1.5 to 2.0 X ?? I hope I described that correctly. I think everyone has seen this effect, and I'm sure it's available somewhere, somehow.
2. Now for the opposite --- when I look at PowerDirector's built-in transitions, many(most ?) of them are bold, striking, over-the-top. Often I would like transitions that are more mild - gradients, fade in, fade out, cross-fade.
Thank you in advance for any and all answers.
Clark
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