|
|
|
Thank you for the detailed explanation. I will give it a try and get back...
|
|
|
Hi folks, long time since I've been on here. I hope I can get some pointers. I've volunteered myself to create a video like this for a few local familes using clips from their kids: https://youtu.be/uI6zz2R3rAY?t=49
I asked the parents to record the whole track for their kid in one go so I have 8 x 2-minute clips (plus an audio and background track). What I want to do is chop and change them into the 3 PiP areas on the screen as in this example.
I'd like to be able to nominate, at any given time, which clip shows in which frame and mix-up that order; ideally in a considered and planned way rather than having to do it on the fly in multi-cam.
- If I use PiP, it applies the PiP formatting to the whole clip; so I think I'd have to slice-up all the clips into 10-second portions anddo separate PiPs for each section, dragging the clips up and down the timeline to get the right ones showing on top
- If I use Collage Designer, I'd have to do the same; somehow chop all clips into tiny saved video files (potentially giving me 160 little clips) to then import 3 at a time into a short collage clip and then repeat with the next 3
- If I use multicam, I can other have only one shot at a time in a single video or it only helps by audio syncing the Collage videos as above
What I seem to need is a mash-up of the PiP, multicam and collage features: 1) define the frames on a project basis, 2) sync the audio on the long clips and 3) allocate each video to a frame at any given time. I cannot work out if this is possible. Can anyone help me with a sensible way forward here please?
It strikes me that doing this kind of repeated multicam cut from a set of single long source files should be a common thing for people want to do... There are loads of new pieces of software out there that promise easy montages, etc so I'm really hoing that the PD product has kept-up so i can stick with what I am familar with.
The fly in the oitment could be that I have PD13! but I am willing to upgrade once and if I know the features I would be investing in can achieve this outcome.
Any ideas appreciated.
Regards, Rob
|
|
|
Dafydd: is this the same thing please?
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/22596.page
I tried this and the chapter is, indeed set for the single project but this is not inherited into the menu designer:
|
|
|
|
Are there any example videos from a previous competition like this so I can see the benchmark standard please; on youtube, vimeo, etc?
|
|
|
Great thread; very needed. Agree with all above. Here are some ideas:
1. Sometimes I don't want a Play / Scenes screen, I just want to show my chapters straight away.
2. Be able to set the thumbnail (or start of the clip) when the disk is multiple imported PD projects (currently ignores chapter thumbnails
3. Allow more than six items on one screen
4. Show thumbnails/clips in widescreen in DVD menu builder if they are widescreen in the movie to avoid the current need for manual unmasking and resizing
5. Allow resizing of thumbnails in proportion, perhaps by holding down SHIFT (windows convention)
6. Alter the length of clips that can be shown
7. Have better compression options. For example if my video clocks in at 4800Mb I have only one option to get it down below 4700Mb for the disk; Smart Fit but that over compresses it down to 4100Mb and the result is bad. I want more flexibility; either a scalable compression or a choice of which bits I compress more or less
8. An option to make all the thumbnails the same size. At present can only align top bottom etc and guess the sizes
9. Menu editor window should be scalable (like any other window) so I can work full screen if needs be)
10. Currently, dragging an item in the menu designer or on the menu in edit is jerky; on grabbing the item, it does not come willingly; there's an element of review needed about how responsive the elements are to the controls applied to them by the user that needs improving
11. Allow the music of the background to play independently of the clip on any given DVD menu screen
I'll post some more if I come up against them.
|
|
|
|
Jim, indeed, I have set the chapter thumbnails but they are ignored when the chapters of the disk are actually different PD projects. It seems there are no options to set the project thumbnail... Have I found something else to moan about the menu creator lol?
|
|
|
|
Great, thankyou. Trouble is that added 200Mb to my DVD! How rubbish; looks like it extends the menu as a video rather than repeating the same bit over and over. So I had to knock that idea on the head. The issues with that crappy disk maker continue to mount lol
|
|
|
When I added music to the background of a DVD menu, I set it to play the whole track through. But when I try the menu, it restarts the music when the menu animation loops which is every 15 seconds. Also, it means the preview video barely gets going before it restarts making the whole thing look very amateur.
How do I specify the loop interval of the DVD menu itself (presumably in the menu designer?) or, at least of the music?
Thank you,
Rob
|
|
|
I started a new project, went straight to the Create Disk and added five PowerDirector project files that I want to make up my disk. After adding them, the program seems to pick a random image from the first 10 seconds of each as the thumbnail preview for the disk menu. Each of the projects themselves are short and have single chapters with nominated thumbnails but PD10 seems to ignore the chapter thumbnail images when importing these videos.
Can anyone please help me understand how I change these thumbnails? I have attached a screenshot with my cursor over the thumbnail I want to change and the chapter thumbnail expanded below that I want it to be.
Many thanks,
Rob
|
|
|
|
LOL. Best option, PD menu builder is absolutely shockingly poor. I get to the end of my editing and then my heart drops when I have to do battle with the menu designer!
|
|
|
|
How about using Format Factory to convert it after rendering? It's fast, free and I think it does the formats you want?
|
|
|
|
Mike, yes, I get you with that last comment; very annoying that it jumps automatically to the start of the move if it gets to the end! I want it to just stop where it is!!
|
|
|
|
There is a noticeable difference in rendering speed between v8 and v10 (in 64-bit particularly) but v10 has significant delay in GUI functions when editing which is annoying. For example, just clicking the focus from one object to another in the timeline takes about 1 to 1.5 seconds, right clicking to get the context menu takes the same before the menu appears. It's a clear software delay (I'm running 6 cores and an SSD drive so it's not hardware) and it means you can't edit at the speed of your brain because you're always ahead of the computer and waiting for it to catch up with you... I hope they fix this in future releases.
|
|
|
|
Thank you; that is what I was after. Rob
|
|
|
|
Thinking more of a batch kind of rendering. When I do a movie I do it in chunks and I like to render all the chunks out in separate files before I render the whole thing together. I'd like to set it to render outputs for pds files a, b, c, and d one after the other. At present I have to do one, load teh next project, do that, etc. I think actual background rendering would use too many system resources to allow me to continue editing on another project.
|
|
|
Hi folks,
I thought I remembered that PDU10 was able to perform background rendering. Is that right? If so, how do I do it? Thanks,
Rob
|
|
|
|
There is almost no difference between v9 and v10 as far as I can see except 3D. I think Cyberlink were wrong to take this angle, especially after their genius in pursuing higher performance in the v8 to v9 migration. Most amateurs can't make a decent 2D movie, let alone a 3D one and 3D is still in very early days in the consumer marketplace. Far better would have been for them to professionalise some of the effects, transitions, menus, particles and text styles. At present most of them are cheap-looking and only good for cheesy home-baked childish movies and not for those looking to create moderately stylish serious output. Having said that, I have stayed with PD and purchased v10 because it's relatively cheap, fast at processing, stable, has a great array of features for the price and I have got used to using it. We are all on a journey here and in this market its better the devil you know. What is for sure, Cyberlink are on a mission to make this a great package and in a few versions nothing will be able to touch it. If you do upgrade, I suggest you sell v9 on eBay and then buy v10 afresh (using Google shopping to get the best price). This means you get a full new retail version of the new software and it'll probably cost you less than the upgrade from Cyberlink. When the next version comes out later this year considering ordering it in advance from Amazon; this time around their pre-sales price was only £45 delivered. The moment it was released it went up to £59.99.
|
|
|
|
So you are saying the resultant video take less time but it still plays at the same (real-time) speed? Odd...
|
|
|
|
Good grief that was annoying! Why would anyone in their right mind have that set default on? Fixd thanks!
|
|
|
Fred.
It's fixed. Thank you.
1. and 5.
I cleared down a massive bunch of stuff on the SSD drive which now has 20GB free. Surely this is enough? Does it make a difference which drive it is installed on? All my movie files are on another drive (2TB of space). My theory being that the application itself gets its won application files from the fast SSD so that never slows down my editing.
2. I switched OFF the enable hardware decoding button in preferences and that is what did it. I had not realised how poor my graphics card actually was but it makes complete sense now you say it. I had assumed that a quadro card MUST have been good enough for HD... However, the NVIDIA control panel says it has over 4000MB of RAM...
3. Thank you for alerting me to the new drivers. I have installed those also.
4. In future I shall consider disabling the dual-screen set-up on the basis of the graphics card struggling. Presumably this might give the GPU enough headroom to run the full HD on one screen if it's not trying to run two screens. I am currently looking for the option to disable hardware acceleration for movie playback...
Thanks again,
Rob
|
