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Gents,
I think the Question was "Do you think it is worth the investment to move up to Blu-Ray burner for my PC? ".
My answer is yes. If you make BD disks you won't have to worry much about the ability of the Blue Ray Players to play BD format. I'm nervous making AVCHD disks even though my PS3 plays them marvelously. But if I take them to the Cabin I doubt the Samsung HT-BD1250 will do the same?
So if you want to share your masterpieces with Grandma, or you nephew, I'd go for the Blue Ray Burner.
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Thanks for the Post JL.
I know how to add buttons, but I vaguely remember their was some sort of 4 button limit in PD8. When I tried to put 6 moving video Buttons on my Chapter Page (in PD9) everything looked great when I saved it. But when I put it into the Video before rendering, and test it, it showed only 4 buttons.
Is there any limit on how many Buttons for Chapters you can have? In my case I've got 11 Chapters and would like to have only 2 pages of them and not 3. This time it was a DVD I am making, but I plan to use my next iteration of it on a BD-R as I've got a Blue Ray Burner in my Box.
Thanks for the assist. 
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Folks,
No worries, I sorted it out myself, after watchimg a PD7 tutorial on Menus. The instructor in the video casually mentions "Frames" around the Buttons, and that's what the Menu I downloaded didn't have, so when I changed the Highlite to a yellow box when active there was nothing for it to highlite.
I just had to put a Frame around the buttons and I was good to go.
This time the hour long HQ DVD took only 35 minutes to render into Folders. That's very impressive! The Buttons looked great 
Now if I only knew how to get more than 4 Chapter Buttons on the screen at one time...
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Folks,
I've reviewed the Tutorial on line, and read the manual, but I still can't figure out how to make the Scene Buttons more pronounced when they are the "active" button.
I started with the Menu downloaded here:
I edited the chapters /scenes page and put on 4 buttons per page as per the good tutorial. But I can't tell which one is active when I test the menu, so it will be a real crapshoot when I burn it to DVD.
I've tried various settings with no results. Is there a page where more detailed menus button editing is shown?
Thanks for the assist.
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Quote:
Try highlighting your entire project using your mouse (left click holding and lasso the clips). Once they are all highlighted right click and "group objects". They should all then move at once.
ps don't forget to check the box in preferences>editing to "link all tracks...."
Thanks for the tip. It was definitely related to the "link all tracks..." in Preferences. Boy I was scratching my head on that one...
I got my first test DVD completed and I'm impressed with PD9. I did this manual slide show that took me an hour or so for the Wedding and put it at the front of the video. At the end of the video I did a much larger 200+ photo slide show, and used the Slideshow function (after checking out the instructional vide on line), and it took 10 minutes tops!
Editing the video stuff in the middle was about the same as PD8 but I used half a dozen PIP in various spots just for effect. I had never done a PIP before. It was very straightforward. Topping it all off I decided to process the whole DVD (except the pre-processed wedding slideshow) at one time. I know the claim that 64 bit processing would dramatically shorten the Rendering time but I felt it was typical hype for a new version. (I've been through the Pinnacle Studio 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, wars with lots of promises and few results, etc.)
I had PD9 freeze a few times  (I waited it out) and a couple times I had to shut it down via Windows as it it hung. (And yes I updated to the latest patch, and all my drivers are also current) I did push it with hundreds of photos, 40 or so video files, and a dozen tunes in this project. And I was usually moving things about the timeline, doing things quite quickly when it hung.
(I still manually save the project with various names as I increase the Project's complexity just in case of a crash. I also exit and re-start the program any time it hangs. Sometimes i reboot the Box as well. This may be just an old habit I don't need anymore, but it was a case of survival with Studio in days gone by... Old habits die hard.)
But overall PD9 delivered. My video portions were mostly HD quality from my Sony HDR-SR12 with a couple minutes of SD clips from Digital Cameras on Video capture mode. It rendered the whole 1 Hour and 6 minutes to HQ DVD with 5.1 Dolby Digital Sound (to folders) in 38 minutes! I went and had a quick shower after starting the rendering and came back and it was done. I was expecting 8=>10 hours not 38 Minutes => That's insane!
Now I wish I was a lot quicker at editing the video, and deciding on what tunes for background and where they all should go.
Thanks again for the tip pj3!
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Quote:
Quote:
I thought I was the first and only Jim here... 
Nope .... according to the member list you are one of over 600 Jims. Sorry to deflate your illusions of grandeur 
I, on the other-hand, am the one and only pjc
What's the "3" for in pjc3?
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Folks,
I haven't done much Video Editing in the last year, and it seems I'm forgetting some of the simpler things. (Sorry...I must be getting old...)
I'm just starting with PD9 64 on my Quad core Box with an nVidia 260 video card, and 4 Gigs of DDR2 Ram running Win7 64 on it's own drive. (Right now it's just about the only thing on the drive.)
I made a 40 minute slide show of my God Daughter's wedding (my niece) complete with transitions and audio. I rendered it into a mpeg video so I could "plug it in" as a complete chapter after I finsihed up the "main" video portion. It was quite routine but I was impressed with the quick rendering time. I want the slide show video to be before the begining of the main video which now has all the background music in the right places (fades, edits, etc.), as well as my frst PIP (I actually put 2 in).
But I can't figure out how to lock the main video sound to the video track so they remain "in sync" when I paste the slide show video in front of them. This is so elementary I'm embarrassed to post about it.
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I know this is a free Board but it's the first time I've ever had to change my username long after becoming a member.
Most boards screen usernames when someone first becomes a member => not years later.
I thought I was the first and only Jim here...
I certainly hope PD9 is coded better than the Board 
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When I finally produce my dvd project, choosing dvd as output (versus Blue-Ray), will PowerDirector 8 produce a playable dvd for me?
Yes no problem at all. (I don't think the response above answered this question)
You can use you source files and generate many different outputs with varying quality levels.
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Gents,
Is this true for other resolutions ? (Particularly HD?)
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I had to install the Microsoft Silver light plug in just to view the files.
I doubt PD8 will handle it. 
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Folks,
I'm trying to convince a Buddy of mine to move from Studio 12 to PD8.
He just asked me if PD8 can capture / import a web based video and if so "How would you capture this video...? In HD or AVI or MKV or MP4...?"
Here's the link to the clip in question:
http://www.ctvolympics.ca/video/index.html?assetid=435d8466-34db-485e-84e5-64d8ac5c7558
I haven't a clue. Maybe I need more coffee this morning. 
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Gents,
My take is there is a huge upswing in Win 7 64 bit platforms being sold. (I don't know anyone buying the 32 bit version of Win 7. Even on Laptops!)
The first consumer (or prosumer) video editing platform (Cyberlink, Pinnacle, Adobe, etc.,) that can utilise the extra power to nullify crashes and the like, while dropping rendering time, will get a lot of sales /market share.
I'd expect all OEMs are rewriting their software to make use of Win 7 64 bit and we won't see it until the "new" software is released in the Fall or early 2011. They don't make $$ on patches
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AVCHD on the PS3 works great although I didn't used PD8 to make the 2 disks I tested it with .
(I used a Sony app that came with the camera.)
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Tony,
Thanks for the image. When I looked at it something went off and I remembered I was looking at my install of PD8 on my main Drive were I didn't install the content .
I have the full install on a separate drive that I keep just for video editing to avoid conflicts. It has the appropriate files in the folders.
Sorry for being so dense.
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Gents,
This may seem like a very stupid question but I was poking around in PD8 (actually I was using Windows Explorer looking for something else) and I came across a Menus Folder with very large sub folders tree that i don't understand.
The pathway is C=>Program Files(x86)=>Cyberlink=>PowerDirector=>Menus
In this folder are the following sub folders: 3D Album, Balloon, Draw, DVD Cover, Gallery, Global Tour, Love Memory, Ocean and Sparkle. Each one of these has the following folders inside: Audio, Background, Button, Effect, First Play, fontstyle, frame, highlight, Layer Template, layout, MMotion, Motion, pcbg, TemplateThumb, and text. But when I open up these folders there is nothing inside??
I ran PD8 and tried to figure out what these do but I'm stumped. Can you enlighten me?
Thanks for the assist
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JL,
Thanks for the info. I may be calling on you about some of those techniques and work arounds you've mastered for BD authoring.
I noticed you said you used ImgBurn to burn the BD folder to BD disc. From this am I to assume the Burning App in PD8 is not significantly improved? I don't have an issue if it is not suitable, as I've been comfortable burning with Nero for DVDs in PD7 so I can learn how for BDs.
The info just saves me burning a coaster or two in PD8 before moving to Nero. Thanks.
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Bob,
I know there are limitations in going to HD but I'm committed so I'll either have to live with them, find workarounds (like the Reg Edit so you can render the Blu-Ray Disk to a Folder instead of burning it to disk to test), or move onto a higher level software package.
One of the previous work arounds was using Nero to Burn so I'll see how many folks still use it for PD8, before I decide which way to go.
Tony,
Nice comment on the Olympics. I'm going to take my wife (she plays in a "beer" league) to the opening game for women's hockey on Saturday. Canada Vs. Slovakia.
I'll check out Xerox'S Post. Thx.
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Folks,
I just made the move to PD8 so I'm still learning it's capabilities. As I remember, the burning app in previous versions weren't quite up to speed so I used Nero to burn my Videos once completed and rendered to a File Folder.
I've just bought a Blu-Ray urner and think it will be 99% used for my movies from here forward.
Is the Burning app in PD8 better now so I can use it instead?
Thanks for the assist. Sorry for the newbie question.
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Gents,
I find this not only annoying for PD8 but a lot of Windows Apps you install. I would have hoped by now the Microsoft would have figured out a way to purge the OS of all unwanted bits of all apps upon uninstall. (Or have a check that doesn't allow install if the app can't do this.)
I know you can use Registry editors, scrubbers, and the like, but even then sometimes their are remnants hanging about. I too have had to re-install a complete operating system partition from scratch because an app did not clean itself up when uninstalled. Painful 
I moved to a separate Hard Drive for just Video Editing (on a Startech Mobile Rack that allows you to slide in /out the drive on an as needed basis). Even though I've got lots of resources and horsepower, it's better to avoid conflicts with Antivirus programs, updaters, and all the automatic stuff that occurs these days.
I actually use two slide in drives most of the time when video editing. One is strickly for the media files as once transferred from the Camera as they don't get fragmented. And the other has (now) Win 7, PD8 (I just moved to this version from PD7 so I'm still learning it and haven't made a Movie in it yet), Nero 9 (which I typically use for burning the movies) and Alcohol 120% in case I want to copy a disk I make for someone else in the family.
There is no email, web surfing, or Anti-Virus. Once I get the Video Drive to where I want it, I use Ghost 15 to back it up to a file (usually on another slide in drive just for Ghosts.) I used to burn these images onto DVD but now they are getting too large, and I'm too cheap to waste a BD-R on it (I just bought a Blu-Ray Burner  )
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I would love to be able to use all 12 GB of memory in my i7 system.
Ouch! You are spoiled
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