Messages posted by ExtraPD

Quote Hello,

As you noticed, the Sketch Designer does not currently include keyframe motion option.

Instead you can try this:

Create a new project.
Import a color board onto track one (green screen).
Add the circle sketch template to the overlay track.
Export the project to produce a video file.
Import the video file into your other project.
Open the video file in the PiP Designer.
Use chroma key to remove the color board.
Use the motion keyframes in the PiP Designer to produce the desired effect.

Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator

Thank you. Really appreciate your quick and concise response.

I've got a situation where I need to do a red circle sketch animation (like the hand drawn red circle that someone would circle something on a newspaper) and have that follow a house on a drone shot. So, as the drone moves over the house, the circle sketch remains on the house.
I have tried motion tracker however only spotlight works. And that is jittery despite selecting "Smooth" > "Smoother" in the motion designer.

It's a pretty simple/common affect where basically we are circling an object and having the circle stay constant on the object as the footage pans across.

PD21.

Thanks for any help

Not sure if this will help because, with this problem, there is no indication that you need to wait. Still, useful to know. Thanks

Quote At this point since something is still going on with your system I'd try resetting Windows. Here are the steps from Microsoft, and you should choose the Keep my files option.

You should also make a full backup of your current system so you can restore it or recover any items you might need later on.

A more drastic approach would be to reset Windows again and use the Remove everything option. You will obviously need to install all your apps from scratch but that will almost certainly clear up whatever's been happening on your PC this whole time.

Please keep us updated on your progress on this. Thank you.

Thanks for your reply but that does not help.
How do I delete all effects for the group? Or for an individual clip?

Is there a fast way to do this?
(As opposed to licking on the 'i' box, then the effect, then the minus sign...)

Also, anyone know of a link to v21 user guide?

Thanks

To get around the issue of a slow editing machine:

I used VLC batch convert to convert the files from H265, 5.4K to H264 720p (Ctrl-R in VLC).

I then imported the converted files into my video editing tool (PowerDirector 13).

Then performed all my editing tasks (trimming, color correction etc).

Saved project and closed PD 13.

Moved the 720p files into a proxy folder and replaced them with the original 5.4K files. Used command prompt rename to perform bulk rename so original file names exactly matched 720p names.

Launched PD 13, opened project, and rendered.

Excellent results. Happy to perform this step instead of spending much time and $$$ in order to get a new machine.

Thanks Jeff for the information in this thread.

Quote

One could use anything that suites them for conversion.

FF would work as it can create a H.265 in MOV container (similar to your source) with user defined bitrate and such, one might even consider PD13 in this case since you indicate it handles your file properly (other than proxy file generation) and it can create a QT MOV file. Both approaches create a MOV file that way it's an easy file swap in working directory to later produce with high resolution source files after editing. FF does offer more encode setting flexibility than PD for these manual proxy files.

Jeff

Thank you for your assistance on this.
PD13 does not have a viable batch produce function (only works with .pds files). Does FF have such?

Quote ExtraPD,
To get by, you could also use the manual proxy file creation and file name switch approach from years past. Mentioned here: https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/43102.page#post_box_222624 and contained links. Worked for many at the time, like Eugene with his 4k files.

Jeff

Now that is interesting! Thanks very much Jeff, look forward to trying that out and reporting.

Is Format Factory still a tool of choice for this type of conversion?

Quote The basic issue is that you're trying to edit highly complex clips (10-bit, 5.4K, 120Mbps video bitrate) on hardware and software that wasn't designed to handle them.

Many modern PCs would struggle with these clips, and IMO you're lucky to even see content in PD13. With that said, I don't think there's anything that can be done to force it to create those shadow files - and there certainly isn't a way to force it to do it more quickly.

If you need to stay with your current setup, you might want to try using an intermediate codec like MagicYUV to free your system from all the video decoding.

The downside is that you'll need to convert each clip ahead of time (which is usually pretty quick) and you'll also need tons of hard drive space to handle all the unencoded video. Spinning HDDs might not be able to keep up when previewing long stretches of the timeline but overall you should find projects much easier to work with.

See this discussion for more details.

Thanks for that info, will look into MagicYUV.

So, as an info point from this thread, I guess it is safe to assume that Shadow FIles cannot be created for H265 files, at least in the older (pre PD17?) versions of the software.

Quote Thanks for the attached clip. The online mediainfo indicates that this is a 10 bit depth video without audio. It is converted to 8 bit for editing in PD17 and PD365 as already indicated by optodata. Shadow files are generated in the earlier versions of PD too though a white screen on the timeline. That file is not usable in PD13 for editing in my pc while you claim it can be done in your pc.

That's the crux of the matter. Shadows are not generated on my PC on PD13. They are generated (as indicated by yellow clip turning green) on a H264 file.
But yes, the H265 can be edited (rather painfully) on the timeline. See attachment.

Quote The only other option besides transcoding is to lower the Preview Quality for the timeline. You might need to use High or Normal and you'll lose some detail, but the clip should be easier to edit.

I wouldn't recommend Render Preview as PD usually has trouble figuring out when to use the preview and when to revert to the live timeline content. Save yourself the headache and skip that until you've got that section ready to go.

Yes, I tried Render Preview of various qualities and it actually doesn't appear to make an appreciable difference. (Non Real Time Preview also turned off).
Apologies but what do you mean by "skip that until you have that section ready to go" Do you mean, (try to) make the clip edits without Render Preview, and then perform RP on just a section at a time?

I also resorted to Render Previews, in lieu of shadow files, in order to speed up the edit process.
But because the preview is decommisioned when any edits are made, I found this of limited worth.

As an aside, on a working system, when would one use Render Previews, and when would Shadow files be used?

Quote Thanks for sharing the clip. Do you see the actual content in the media library or if you drag the clip to the timeline? I only see a blank white screen in PD13 and PD14 while the clip works properly in PD17 and PD365.

If you're only seeing white then shadow files aren't the issue and you'd need to transcode your clip into a compatible format.

For what it's worth, turning on shadow files in PD17 took only 3 seconds for the icon to turn from yellow to green, but I have a very fast system.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, I do see the content when I drag this clip to the timeline. And I can perform all the usual operations on it.

But it is very slow to work with, which is why I wish to create a Shadow File. (I was still able to create a short video using a dozen or so similar clips, but it was a painfully slow process).

Quote Yes. PD13 supports the hevc codec for import/export as in this faq: https://www.cyberlink.com/support/faq-content.do?id=17746 . Do not know if 5.4k footage is supported in PD13 for generating shadow files. I only have 4k. Can you supply say a 5 second sample for users to test on their pc.

Quote How long have you waited for them to generate? With very large original files it might take some time.

They don't have to regenerate when you edit. They are just low-resolution copies of the original files and when you produce the final video your edit decisions are applied to the originals.

I have waited 26 minutes for a 30MB clip. (about 3 seconds of footage).
I believe the issue might be the H265 codec. Doesn't look like PD13 can create shadow files from H265.

Can the more recent versions do this?

Trying to edit 5.4k footage, and with an underpowered machine I'm needing to utilize proxy (shadow) files.
Have checked the box via Preferences > General > (Enable HD vid processing).

When I hover over the thumbnails for each clip it states "Shadow file generating..." - but the shadow files dont appear to ever get generated. Is 5.4K footage too high-res to generate shadow files?

If I can get them to generate, how do they handle edits? Do they have to re-generate every time you edit the clip in the timeline?

thanks

The crash would happen sporadically, with a typical message of PDR.exe has stopped working. Event Viewer indicated an ntdll.dll error.

Tried many things to fix, some of which included reinstalling PD, moving to various sys restore points, system diagnosis etc.

Looks like the prob may have been with the GPU driver (NVIDIA GTX580). Used the Device Manager's Roll Back driver feature numerous times in conjuntion with GPU driver uninstall.
Reinstalled the latest GPU driver minimally - haven't used PD extensively yet but looks very promising.

Wanted to post a quick note as I've been banging my head on this for days, and hopefully this helps others who may have the same/similar issue.