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Whenever I can, I use a program that is mostly for still images (but works quite well with video) called Downloader Pro by Breeze Systems. This renames the files AS IT'S DOWNLOADING them from the SD (or CF) card onto the computer. And in most cases, even with two identical cameras, it's able to tell which camera is which (from the internal camera serial number) and renames the files appropriately.
If your files are already on the computer and you want to rename them, I use the batch rename capability of BreezeBrowser Pro (also by Breeze Systems). It works very well.
If you don't have those programs and don't want to buy them, just do a Google search for "batch rename files" and you'll find several options out there, ranging from free to very low cost, and from very easy and inflexible, to more complicated and very flexible.
But really the bottom line is to have your files renamed appropriately BEFORE you try to bring them into PDR.
Good luck!
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Why don't you rename one of the clips before you bring it into PDR?
I have several cameras, and even more than one of the same make/model and with some of those cameras there's nothing I can do about it. So I have to take extra care when I off-load the files from the SD cards from those cameras so that I never overwrite an image from one camera with an image from the other (if it has the same name).
I would never import DIRECTLY into PDR from an SD card. First I bring those files onto the computer, rename them as needed, and THEN bring the files into PDR.
And because I archive EVERYTHING (thank goodness for multi-TB NAS servers) it becomes very important to keep a good naming convention going, otherwise (not even talking about PDR here) there's a real good chance of loosing something.
Hope this helps.
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John, I'm a new-comer to PDR13 (and have never used earlier versions) but I really like this behavior. Having the video pause when I press the mark in/out (on-screen button OR via the keyboard) allows me to fine-tune my selection, particularly if my reflexes weren't as good as they should have been. I use the [ and ] keyboard shortcut with my right hand and my left is on the spacebar so it's really easy to start/stop.
There is no preference setting for this as far as I can see.
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Thank you very much for the clarification, Jeff. Fantastic stuff!
I understand everything you said, and since I maintain the exact same directory structure on my home and office computer (and on the external transport drive I use), the fixed locations that are stored in the .PDS file work for me. But I didn't know that Pack Project Materials removed the fixed location info, making it work with whatever local folder it's re-placed into. That's good info!
(There's a lot of BS in your directory structures there, Jeff! ![]() )
Anyway, what I was wishing for would be an enhancement to what is contained within the .PDS file so that the import/export folder names FOR THAT PROJECT could be stored with the project. Having them as a global setting has already gotten me in trouble when I'd forgotten to change them to match the project I was opening and working on.
Your post is making me change (slightly) my method of working with projects. Until the project is FINISHED, I'm going to continue as I was, by copying the entire project directory from one computer to my transport drive and then from the transport drive to the second computer. Reversing the process when I want to bring the work back to my office. (I use a comparison program called Vice-Versa Pro to compare and copy files... works terrifically!) And once the project is completely finished and the final video rendered, THEN I'll use Pack Project Materials to produce something I'll archive on my NAS drives. And now that you've told me what PPM does, I'll be able to restore the project to ANY folder name or structure I want and have it work.
Cheers!
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I think you might be misunderstanding the PD pds file, just mentioning so you don't get burned later.
The PDS file stores reference to source content as fixed locations, open a pds file with notepad and look for text SRC=. You will see a line like this for each source file in your project:
SRC="D:\100G_BS\BS\More_BS\Final_BS\00000.m2ts" NAME="00000.m2ts"
No matter where one puts the pds file, it will always load timeline content from the fixed address that is saved in the pds file. It does not matter what import/export folder you have defined when loading a pds file. It looks for the files at that fixed address, if that address changes or the file is not there, you will get the warning shown in the attached pic. Here I moved the 00000.m2ts video file shown above so now when the pds project file is loaded, PD will have issues as it can’t find the source files at the fixed address that was saved in the pds file. I need to manually navigate to the new spot I put them.
If for some reason you select any version of "Ignore" and then save the project, you better have a backup as you just damaged your entire project, you will have black boxes for any content in the timeline that PD could not find at the fixed address.
The "Pack Project Materials" rewrites the pds file fixed file references to just the current pack folder, so the new location in the packed pds file would be SRC="00000.m2ts" so when the pds file is loaded it simply pulls content from the local folder.
Jeff
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Syncing audio to video or another sound track, so much fun!
NOT!!
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It takes trial and error to get an audio track in sync with another audio or video. Side the audio track forward or backward depending on when the sync point is.
You're not kidding!
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If you need to slide the audio track to the left, you put a color board in front of the Video Track to move the video track to the right. (once the tracks are in sync, you can split both tracks to remove the color board). Of course when the tracks are in sync, Produce a video to make the sync permanent.
I'm afraid I don't understand the "color board" thing. Could you please run that by me again?
You know how in the Multicam Editor you can set "markers" on the clips and then have it align the clips to the markers? Well, that's what I was hoping to be able to do with this, but unles I'm missing something, you can't add a marker to an audio clip in the ME. So the ME doesn't work for aligning a separate audio clip to an audio/video clip if the audio in that audio/video clip is of poor quality or too low volume.
I was trying to move the clips back and forth on the PDR timeline to synchronize them, but gee, that's really tough. Too bad we can't select a clip (audio/video or just audio) and then move it incrementally with the arrow keys. That would make a nice improvement I think. But being able to add markers to audio clips in the ME would be best.
Cheers!
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Thank you for your comments, Fabbian.
What you call a "penalty" (the possibility of saving unused assets) others may call a "benefit". ![]()
I do think I understand it all now and am comfortable with it.
Would be nice though, if PDR would store WITH THE PROJECT .PDS file the import/export folders used by that project. Then all we'd have to do is open a particular project file and not have to worry about setting/resetting the import/export folders. In other words, those should NOT be global settings, but rather local per project settings.
Cheers!
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If you create a separate folder for each project and set it as your output folder then the only penalty to saving the project's folder is you may be saving unused assets. If you have plenty of disk space that won't have much impact.
If you are switching back and forth between projects and you forget to update the output folder you might wind up with some assets in the wrong folder. Pack Project Materials will insure those assets don't get left out of your archive (provided they were used on the time line).
A new user who hasn't thought much about project management is likely to let Power Director accumulate assets in the same media library. Pack Project Materials will help him a lot by archiving only the assets needed for the project. It's less important for the user who works out a good project management strategy ahead of time.
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Here's the deal... I shot some video with a GoPro camera in the usual waterproof housing. And also recorded separate audio on my iPhone. At the start, when both video and audio were being recorded, I clapped my hands loudly. If I listen to the video (which has audio) I can hear the audio and can hear the hand clap. The separate audio recording is much better - clearer and louder.
When I try to get PDR13 to synch the video (with audio) to the separate audio, it fails, either through the timeline or MultiCam Editor. Yet I can hear where the hand clap is quite clearly on either.
My question is how I can possibly sync that separate audio to the video/audio. It's almost impossible to move either the audio/video track or the audio track so incrementally as to line them up. I can't find a way to add a mark to either to get DPR to sync based on that.
What should I be doing?
(This is a learning exercise for me, just to get all my tools in proper working order.)
Thanks for any help...
Eldor
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This may or may not be of help to you, but at least in still photography (which I have a lot of experience with) it's very important which direction you hold the iPhone/iPad in when shooting. While it doesn't matter to the iPhone/iPad or Apple gear in general, many (most?) other apps depend on the orientation being a certain way.
We see that a lot on various Internet forums I belong to. When someone takes a landscape-orientation photo with their iPhone and uploads it to the forum, unless they were holding the iPhone properly (generally with the thumb button towards the right) the image will display upside down for anyone NOT using an Apple computer to view it. Anyone with a PC would have to stand on their heads to see it properly.
You will never see this problem if you and your viewers are all in the Apple world.
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PIX thanks for your reply.
For you and anyone else interested, after looking at a bunch of apps and reading reviews, I settled on "Voice Record Pro".
And my initial tests have surpassed my hopes. The app itself is great and offers a lot of options both for the audio format and what you do with it afterwards. The free version works just as well as the pro version but has ads that I wanted to get rid of.
This is REALLY cool!
I set up three cameras for a test, used the Rode SmartLav+ mic on my lapel connected to the iPhone in my back pocket and started filming. I first gave a sound clap.
I then added my three video clips to the Multicam Editor in PDR13, added my separate audio track and told the ME to sync all the clips. It did a fantastic job!
And the audio I got was WAY better than from any of the three cameras but the audio from the cameras was enough to allow the synchronization of everything.
Oh, and PIX, about ADR supporting AIFF files, you're probably correct. But I didn't try that. What I'd tried was to bring the AIFF audio file into the Media Room of PDR13 and it gave me an unsupported format message. I guess I should have just done it all through ADR instead.
I'm now a happy camper. (Or I would be if the darn snow would leave!)
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I'm trying to do tutorial-type videos and as a beginner with video, my results suck, particularly the audio. It was suggested that I get a lapel mic and use that instead of relying on one of the cameras to record the audio.
What I ended up buying (rightly or wrongly) is a Rode SmartLav+ microphone with the idea of using my iPhone with that mic to record the speaker's audio. Then sync it all up together.
Is anyone here using an iPhone to do this? If so, what app are you using on the iPhone and what format do you suggest saving the audio in?
For starting off I have the free Rode Rec LE app, and so far I'm not terribly impressed with it. Should I upgrade to the $6.99 (here in Canada) Rode Rec app? The LE version only offers AIFF (which I found PDR13 doesn't understand), WAVE and CAF. The full app adds several other formats including MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless, FLAC "and more".
But I also see there are audio recording apps from other developers which appear to do the same or similar. Almost all of them cost money (granted, not a lot, but it would be time-consuming to test them all) so there are certainly other choices out there.
Do any of you kind folks have any suggestions?
Thanks!
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As I've said, I'm a beginner with video editing, but it's been said here in your thread several times that it's very likely a codec problem. That means you may be missing the right codec or you have one that's outdated. Since I have not knowingly installed any codecs and your clip is working fine on my system, it's just a guess here, but it's possible that since I have VLC player installed on my system that it might have installed better codecs that are the reason your clip works on my system. Since it's a free program and highly regarded as a video viewer, it might be worth installing it to see if then PDR13 works better on your system with whatever codecs VLC might install.
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Eldor,
Thx for the heads uo about VLC. My question is even if VLC had codecs, how will that change my viewing problem in PD13?
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Skibum, you're not from NFLD, are you? And hang out on the Advrider board?
Mtl_Biker
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Ynotfish just said, in another thread, that various media players also install codecs, so even though I did not KNOWINGLY install any codecs, I do have VLC player installed. I wonder if it installed codecs, and is the reason that I didn't have any trouble.
Perhaps JDE77 might install VLC (it's free, and considered to be an excellent all-purpose video viewer) to see if that changes anything for the better on his system. What do you think?
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While it might seem helpful to understand why Tony's and Eldor's systems work when they "didn't do anything special," ...
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Bingo! That must be it! The reason I didn't have any problem with that other user's video (from another thread) even though I hadn't KNOWINGLY installed any other codecs.
But I do have VLC player installed, and from what you say, it may have installed codecs that have somehow benefited PDR13.
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Various media players install codecs on your system so they can interpret a variety of video formats. So - they may be unnecessary for you.
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But I have NOT installed anything other than PDR13! I didn't install any other elements (codecs or whatever) and I had no previous "stuff" installed for video editing. So my system was "pure". You certainly, and maybe JDE77 have "baggage". ![]()
The challenge is going to be to figure out what it is though. I don't have or even know anything about "K-lite and MultiAVCHD", and if it works for me without that stuff, why would you and JDE77 need to get additional (are they?) codecs?
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Just to be clear, Eldor and Tony had no trouble working with your videos because their systems had suitable codecs. They didn't do (or have to do) anything other than what you've already done.
You and I have trouble with the clips because the codecs intalled on our systems aren't fully compatible. You can search the forum for posts on K-lite and MultiAVCHD if you want to see if either of those options will solve the problem, but there's no guarantee.
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A week ago I couldn't find Produce Range either! Until you know where it is and how to find it, you can pull all your hair out!
In the timeline, at the time marker (whatever that is really called) tucked up right under and next to it, are two yellow markers. You drag those out (left and right) to SELECT a range. Once you have done that, the menu options change and you will see Produce Range.
Hope this helps.
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Eldor,
Well said and thanks again for your input. I think you might be onto something with the install. I am trying to contact CL to see about a clean install. Thanks again for you time.
I don't see "produce range" It's driving me crazy now! LOL
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I really didn't do anything! Simply added your .MTS file to my media library and clicked on the button to preview it. Previewed perfectly, without any flicker. Then I added it to the Timeline and selected it, and clicked Produce Range. I selected the options I stated above, and when done I played the result. Both through the media library using preview and externally. No flicker or color shift at all.
I am a newbie with this, but have lots of graphic editing experience (still photos) for many years and a fair bit of computer experience, and my guess is that there's something not quite right in your installation of PDR13. It could be a wayward remnant of an earlier version (I think you said you'd upgraded) or some bad interaction with something other software installed. In terms of video editing, my own system is as clean as new-fallen snow... no remnants of anything and no additional codecs or goodies installed.
Unfortunately, (a little knowledge is a dangerous thing) I don't know enough to help you diagnose this. But I think it should be possible to solve this without having to resort to converting all your video to MP4.
Good luck!
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Eldor,
Thanks for chiming in! So can you explain exactly what you did so that I can duplicate it and see if it fixes my problem? I hate to sound so ignorant but am literally a newbie!! Maybe some 1,2,3 steps?
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This is strange... Neither of those clips cause my PDR 13 to crash and the video preview (even without adding the video to the timeline) proceeds smoothly. The .M2TS file does show some flicker (the unmodified MTS file doesn't) but until I looked at the original, I suspected the lights in the arena to be the culprit, but I guess that's not the case.
Just for fun, I added the MTS file to my timeline and rendered the range and produced an M2TS file at 1920x1080 @ 30fps and 40Mbps. No flicker at all. And much better than what JDE77 uploaded.
For what it's worth.
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Fabbian, thanks very much for your comments.
Besides using Pack Project Materials (which I don't think is all that great a tool) it also works to simply COPY the project folder and everything in it, to somewhere else. That way you not only get the project and what's on the timeline, but everything else you've dumped into that folder. And PDR doesn't seem to have any problem at all in opening the result if it's copied/moved to another computer. At least that's what my testing is showing me.
(Helps that I've got oodles of disk space, both on the local machine and on a 7.5TB RAID NAS.)
Cheers!
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Eldor: When you use Pack Project Materials everything that is on your projects time line--and nothing else--is saved to the directory you specify. That's enough to reconstitute your project later. There are parts of your project that aren't saved. For example, if you produced (rendered) a movie it will appear in your media library but it won't be saved in the Pack Project Materials directory because it isn't on the time line. So you might lose a little time when you revisit your project and have to render the movie again.
Original clips that you imported into your media library but didn't use in your video won't be saved, either. That means if you want to revisit your project and modify it you may need to import the original clips again.
That implies that you need to keep your original clips in one folder which you will archive separately from your completed projects. Pack Project Materials is useful for archiving completed projects. It's a little more tricky to use for moving projects between computers before they are finished. One thing I learned the hard way: never pack project materials into the same folder you used to pack them before. Everything on the time line will be written anew to the folder, resulting in duplicate files. A sequence number will be added to give you unique file names but the files will now take twice the space they did before. If this happens to you, reload the project from the pack folder, select Pack Project Materials, and make a new folder. Only the copies of the files on the time line will be saved. The sequence numbers will be preserved but at least you'll get rid of the duplicates.
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Sorry Tony, I didn't see your reply until just now. The problem has by now solved itself, as I've upgraded the video card in my computer, turned off Shadow Edit Files and deleted all the ShadowEditFiles folder and *_0.MPG files. Now of course they're no longer being created. But there WERE *_0.MPG files in BOTH the project's folder and the ShadowEditFiles sub-folder, with different dates.
As everyone pointed out, life is easier if you have a fast enough computer and don't need to futz with them.
Cheers!
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Hi Eldor -
If those *_0.MPG files aren't needed, what are they used for in the project directory? I suspect they are not the shadow files, because in the project directory there are sub-directories for shadow and preview cache files.
I'm a little intrigued about those *_0.MPG that you didn't put there! These would typically be shadow files and be stored in the ShadowEditFiles folder (as you've noted)
Do you have shadow files enabled?
If so, are the .MPG files landing in that ShadowEditFiles folder?
Are the *_0.MPG files low res versions of your original .MP4s?
Could you please attach a screenshot of your output folder contents?
I can understand your slight confusion if those files are generating themselves and not being stored correctly.
When you pack project materials, the shadow files are NOT included in the packed folder because they're unnecessary. They're only used to make your editing easier... less stressful on the PC.
Cheers - Tony
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As far as I know, you can add a transition effect to the end of a clip, to the beginning of a clip or right between two clips. Have you tried putting it right onto the end of your last clip?
How about this... Add a black slide at the end of your video. Then put the fade transition on the middle between your last clip and the black slide. That should work.
Good luck!
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