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Boy Tony, you got that right! Thanks for forwarding the menu. I'll take a look. As I mentioned to Jim in earlier post after troubleshooting all day, I actually do think I've got something that will work for me. I still want to see if I can get the end result I'm looking for in Power Director using a menu without thumbnails...I'll let you know.(After this disc I have 3 more recital discs to go) Worse case scenero, I will again scan the program and just use the skip points between each dance as I did last year. I know I've taken alot of your time these last weeks and I'm greatful you're so willing to help. Once I can get a handle on this project maybe I can slow down and digest some of these things I'm trying to learn in such a crunch....and I promise I'll be quite. Thanks again! This forum REALLY IS GREAT!!
Barb
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Jim, you are right......... being in business as long as I have you would THINK I'd have equipment for about anything and plenty of workarounds which I do and have been at it all day long. I'm from the "old school" and if I can't pay cash I don't buy (which is probably why I'm still in business)so I don't have all the toys, bells & whistles and just upgrad when I have too....like again now with this new PC and software. LIke many of you, I started years ago insert editing analog footage with my S-VHS & Hi-8 cameras and my panasonic 1980's and MX30. Anyway, for whatever reason the program on my laptop won't recognize my dvd burner so couldn't burn disc there but did transfer the .iso into the authoring program on my old desktop. I actually have burned a sample disc with 2 chapter pages so now I'll go back and see if I can get that third page on there. Thanks for your help Jim and sorry if I'm a bother. Barb
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Hey Jim, I don't have a double layer burner and I already have it a two-disc set because the total dances for the night were 40. In past years, I just split it up and didn't have a problem burning 20-25 dances on a disc in Standard Quality but all I did was have text titles for the menu and that program (dvd workshop) doesn't work with my new Windows 7 PC.
Thus....why I'm trying to just work with text titles. Someone told me that dvd architect did really well with authoring but I hate to learn another program too. Any other suggestions to get this burned??
Barb
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This time I have a Problem I really need help with. ..(Was debating about starting a new topic on this "dance recital" topic but wasn't sure if I should or not)
I decided to go ahead and Import dance recital footage and try to produce dvd without reinstalling my PD and actually it seems to be working ok right now. BUT, I have more data than can fit on a DVD and not sure what to do. I've tried this in both HQ quality and in SD quality but just too much data for the disc by the time I add thumbnail buttons. My total video footage time is about 70 minutes. This first try, I just made chapters of the different dances (22 dances) which means I have thumbnail button of the dance team and a dance title. Do this 22 times and you can see why even in SD it won't fit on a disc. Jerry, you mentioned making thumbnails transparent so I'll work in that direction too but when I started researching I realized that the "still frame" shot of the dance team I grabbed from the video is a .jpg and not in .png format. If I were to go back and change all that would that help with the size? Is there a way to look at the downloadable Templates and determine if they use thumbnails or chapter text links? Is there anyone out that who uses Just Chapter Text Links on their DVD. I think that's what I need to be doing. Tony, before I try your method, I'm just wondering if I'm going to run into the same thing with having too much data on the disc? Anyone else care to share how they're handling putting their dance recitals onto a single layer dvd? Many Thanks Barb
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Thanks Dafydd, Sounds more complicated but I'll look into that. I haven't done anything yet still using as is.
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Hopefully, if I do reinstall I won't get any additional issues to deal with
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Oh boy, I get to learn something else new. Thanks Jerry for pointing me in the right direction. Barb
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Just an update(for those who have walked me thru the recital editing process) and a couple of questions. I decided to go ahead and edit the first half of night 1 on my old equipment and plan to import the edited footage into my PC and then into Power Director for menu authoring and burning. I'll probably try both methods suggested. I do have a few more questions though.....
1. Is there a menu template or way to have chapter titles only without the thumbnail images?
2. Tony...If I use your method can you still choose to "play all" or "scenes" on the root menu page? Do you have a
menu template suggest or share?
3. I have altered one template I downloaded which works pretty well for some of my projects but it has cheesy looking numbers (1,2,3) in addition to the thumbnail and chapter title and the numbers aren't even close to the image and I can't seem to move them. ?????
As always, many thanks!
Barb
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Is it pretty straight forward to uninstall and reinstall Power Director 10? My program still freezes & crashes a good bit so I thought before I take the time to try editing and burning these dance recitals, I would start with a "freshly installed" program. Anything I need to know or watch out for? Is there a way I can save the few custom menus I've made?
Thanking you in advance for any advice.
Barb
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Tony & Jerry, thanks for your speedy reply. I know it takes time to walk someone thru a series of steps and I know you've saved me Hours up front with sharing your experiences. Tony, you are right, I probably ought to just do this recital with my old system and I might for some of it but I have 2 nights of recital, 2 halfs each night so basically I 'll have 4 separate recital DVDs with 22to26 different dances on each. I figured I would try to sync up on the fly and a/b roll straight into my PC.
Making any corrections I may have to mKe and at least try to Produce my disc in PD. If it does get to cumbersome, I'll just switch back to the old Kron to get the job complete. Think I may have to try both ways to see what works best, fastest for me. Might have to import both, sync up And a/b ???? Jerry, Im wondering how those Menus would look if you could just write dance # and name, 6 to 8 to a page and on the root menu they could choose PLAY or Scenes????? I still havent figured out how to have the written chapter titles without the pic too. Thanks again you guys. Not working today but will be at it first thing in am. Thanks again, you guys are Great!!! Barb
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Tony, Jim, Jerry & others who have been so helpful..... I'm ready to start editing these dance recitals and was reviewing all the notes from our forum conversation. Jerry, I understand that you handle each dance routine as an individual title (but wouldn't that mean that's the only dance you have on the timeline at the time you're editing & producing it?) Don't you import your hour of footage from the different cameras at one time? Seems like you would want to sync up footage from both cameras "one time" before you start editing the a/b roll? How would that be done? The way I'm thinking through this, if I import all into PD and put on timeline and synch up footage from the 2 cameras. Then what? Do you split up the footage by dance (title) before you a/b edit each dance routine? I feel So Dumb asking these questions but I'm trying to think thru it so I can avoid hours of trial & error.
In my way of thinking, I would import footage from my 2 cameras into my PC and then into PD (.avi format).
Would sync up the two cameras and then split the footage into the different dance routines. This is where I'm confused. I'm not sure how to save and get back to that saved synced up and split footage since you only want 1 dance at a time on the timeline to edit, produce and save as it's own title. I think I understand making the disc with all the individual dance titles but stumped up to that point. Also, I liked in the final disc having title names and no icons... how do you make that happen (everything I've tried has the video icon as well)
Hope to get started on this first thing tomorrow morning so appreciate any help sent my way.Oh.... and a Happy Father's Day to All you dad's out there!
Barb
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Jim, finally got a chance to view your tutorial on custom menus. I kept trying to change templates but actually hadn't tried the icon to create from scratch so I do thank you very much!!!!! I'll be on it the first of the week.
Beautiful weekend here in North Carolina and sure hope everyone can get away from the computer and enjoy this beautiful outdoors!!
Barb
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Tony, Thank you So Much for that tutorial. I can't believe you took the time to do that for me and so quickly. I am so amazed at all the knowledgable people who are readily there to share, help and guide. That in inself makes this software product AWESOME! About the only other question I have right this moment is.... did you choose a menu that used text and no icons for your chapters or is there a way to keep the numbering, use text chapter titles and delete the picture icons from the menu pages? Looks like you guys have got me back on track for a bit so thanks again and hopefully, I can get some projects finished up before I'm shouting that s.o.s again! Barb
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Thanks Jim, I think that will be a great help. Before I leave the recital edit and return to the wedding recept edit, I have a few more questions for Tony or someone about putting 20+ dance routines on a menu. Here's some of my thoughts, questions.....(remember, I'm importing SD footage via firewire from my Sony Z5U)
1)Would you import footage on harddrive (which is .avi) and then import into PD as an .avi file or would you encode to mpeg2 before importing into PD? 2) If you import as .avi after editing and when producing would you choose the mpeg2 SP so all of the dances will fit on one disc (this actually changes the quality, size & bitrate doesn't it?)
3)If I produce and save each dance clip individually and then import all these clips into a Master Project file, couldn't I use the "auto chapter" where you insert a chapter at the start of each clip for my menu and chapters? If it all sounds confusing....I am!!
Thanks again to any and all for your time and help walking me thru this.
Barb
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Hey Jerry! I'm just now learning this software but I thought I read several places that you should import into PD the closest format to your final output....for me that's mpeg2 DVD. Did I misunderstand that? Would it be better to import as .avi? As for using the Wave Editor...and someone just shared this with me last week. When I shoot weddings, or events, I use two cameras and have both audio tracks on both cameras capturing audio....thus, probably overkill but I have 4 different audio inputs I can choose from. So...if external mic on channel 2, camera 2 is the audio source I want to use, I can go into the Wave Editor and duplicate that channel 2 (L) audio to channel 1 (R) as well. I didn't choose to record the external mic on both channels in case something screwed up, at least I had the ambient sound. Anyway, that's the use of the Audio Editor. I also have been going into the editor to adjust the volume so I thank you kindly for the tip of how to do it there in the timeline.
You know, I have always tried to "custom" my menus and haven't used what's in the program so I guess that's why I've gotten so confused with the wedding video I was working on (and still haven't finished).
As for the this dance recital and having 5-6 chapter menu, I don't think I'm going to like that very much. SURELY, there's another way. This software has been a real challenge for me. I've edited for years but coming from a standalone editor (MacroSystems, Casablanca) and without keeping up with "updates" for editing and using DVD Workshop2 (now obsolete) for easy, on the fly authoring, this is a huge learning curve. Hopefully, there will be others out there who are producing dance recital dvd's that might have some suggestions or directions for me.
As I said, I just imported two dances so I could experiment with the a/b roll, audio and menuing before importing ALL That Footage... Thanks so much Jerry for your input and I'll try that timeline audio editing tomorrow.
Barb
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Hey guys! It's me again. Just finished filming the dance recital this week and need to make decisions about the most productive way to handle. Anyone out there editing 2-camera dance recitals that can take the time to share? I've gotten to a point but not sure how to continue. I actually imputted two songs into my PC via firewire. Since they were imported as .avi files, I used Any Video Converter to convert to mpeg2 files and then imported into PD10. Using tips previously shared, I was able to sync up the footage from both cameras pretty easily using the Opacity. I took the good audio track went into Wave Editor and made both tracks the same. I locked that audio track, muted the other camera audio, minimized my screens and did my A/B roll cuts with the split. I put the main camera on the bottom timeline and used some transitions. I then went back and made a chapter mark for dance 2. That's as far as I got, and here's what I still need and what I hope the final results will be......
I need to go back and lower audio in places (applause too loud) and need to add another 20 dances to this dis.
All I'm wanting as the final product is a dvd with a Title Page and with a "Play" button. When it starts playing, I'd like for viewers to use the remote and skip 21 times so they can quickly jump to the different songs. Any way to make that happen?
If no, and I do need to have a title page and menu page so they can choose the dance they want, can someone walk me thru that? ...any suggestions so it won't look so cluttered?
Thanking in advance for your help here.
Barb
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Okay Tony, Thanks. I've been shooting this recital about 14 years and they're happy with their product as is so want to keep it easy...I'll check out the other. Also We sell about 230 sets of discs.... hard work but worth it!
Off to rehearsal.
Tks again
Barb
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Tony, I'm confused. If I have 80 mins of footage I want to import but it's basically 25 different dance groups each a 2-4 mins long. Wouldn't you import the whole thing and then split it into dance groups? You mind walking me thru the steps because I don't understand what you're doing and how you're titling each group but not using chapters? Does your disc end up having just a root menu with icons for each dance group showing and you use choose click on which one you want to play? That sounds involved. The last authoring program I was using (old but great) was DVD Workshop (which will not work with new pc, Windows7). Anyway, it would let me import the edited mpeg2 file and I could quickly scroll thru the footage and make an index mark at each dance but not a chapter. I then made a title page where you just hit "Play". It would start playing in total but you could hit the "skip button" on remote and jump to the beginning of each dance.......was hoping PD10 could be that easy. Since I'm using a/b roll, once I sync up those cameras I want to edit thru the whole project at one time, split by dance and burn to disc. Can you elaborate on how you do your project?
Tks
Barb
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I will be shooting and editing a two-disc dance recital this week and decided to ask my questions UP FRONT so I don't spend a zillion hours trying to make something work and then going back and having to change it. Everyone is So Helpful I'm hoping I can get assistance from you again. This is a two-camera shoot. Would it be better to a/b roll while importing onto my hard drive? Or go ahead and import each camera footage separately and a/b edit once in PD? Each disc will have about 22 different dances. I don't think this program will let you do 22 chapters, nor do I want too. I thought I would scroll the program as part of the intro (which listed names & numbers of the songs). I would make a menu with just a "Play" button but while playing, you could hit "skip" and jump to the next dance. So I would need 22 "index" or "skip" marks. I'm not sure how to do that. Can anyone help advise me here?
Also, I again thank everyone for their help in getting my first wedding menu produced. I had one problem that I didn't know how to fix.... When I went to the "Scenes" menu and choose the chapter to play, if I stopped it, I wanted to automatically go back to the "Scenes" Menu so I could choose another chapter, not back to the original root menu which is what's happening to mine. Can anyone tell me how to make this change so it works properly?
Thank you, thank you thank you!!
Barb
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Just a note to say thanks to everyone who helped me get this Wedding menu completed and yes, Jerrys, your download was a help. Many Thanks.
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