Messages posted by See2Dee

Point taken

Thanks again

Excellent, thanks. So simple, but the sequence in which I did things proved to be important, i.e. I had to ensure that the aspect ratio was set to 16:9 before dragging out the left and right edges. When I dragged the edges while the aspect ratio was set to 9:16, and then changed to 16:9, the image became highly magnified.

I would like to know if it is possible to crop out part of the top and bottom of a 9:16 cell phone video such that it become a 16:9 aspect ratio video (see first 2 attachments0?

Assuming this is possible, please can you take me step-by-step through the process. I have tried doing this using the Mask Designer tool, but when I produced the video, it played as a small image (see 3rd attachment).

Thanks

Quote

Quote Hi Naisu -

That's the puzzling thing for me.

When I did the uninstall/reinstall on my laptop, all good. Repeating the same process on 2 desktop PCs yielded a completely different result. i.e. After installing PDR15 (build 2026), animated GIFs play back correctly in the media library but, once inserted in the timeline will NOT display or play back correctly.

All 3 PCs are running Win 10, but there must be something about the system emvironment that's causing it.

Cheers - Tony

Hi Tony,

I see, probably it's with the system because I'm using Windows 7 64 bit and when I reinstalled the GIFs started working fine and I can put it on the timeline. Probably 2309 is optimized somewhat for Win10?

Hi Tony & Naisu,

Sorry for the delayed response. Been relocating, so connectivity was a bit disrupted.

Your inputs are much appreciated. Hopefully CyberLink will pick up on this and correct it in a future patch - thanks for alerting them to it, Naisu.

For now, my best option seems to be to reinstall 2026, since I know that GIFs work on my PC with that version.

Best regards,

Charles

Quote Hi Charles -

2309 is the most recent official patch - https://www.cyberlink.com/support/powerdirector-ultra/patches_en_GB.html

The 2509 patch is a beta listed near the top of the PDR15 forum.

Cheers - Tony

Ok, that's helpful, thanks!

I am loath to install the Beta, so I guess I'll just wait for the next official patch and see if it makes a difference. Unless there's a simple way to 'undo' the Beta and revert to 2309, without having to reinstall the entire program?

Best,

Charles

Quote This screen capture was done on the laptop mentioned above. The other desktop PCs tell a completely different story

Sorry - I am not trying to distract from your own concerns - just trying to work out what's making it the way it is.

Cheers - Tony

Hi Tony,

I appreciate your efforts tremendously, so no apologies required at all.

Your suggestion that GIF problems are most likely related to the system within which the program operates makes sense to me. I've had similar problems with my laptop before (e.g. my machine is an i5 with Windows 7, 64 bit, but is not compatible with Windows 10)

I have PD15 Ultimate installed, but I see that my version doesn't appear to be the same as that shown in your screen capture video. Yours shows 15.0.2509.0, whereas mine shows 15.0.2309.0. I've checked for updates, but there are apparently none availabe presently.

For now, I will stick with my solution of converting GIFs to MP4.

Many thanks,

Charles

Note: I see there have recently been some discussions regarding GIF problems, seemingly related to the 2309 update, but I'll submit this anyway, in case there's any new info.

A few weeks ago, before installing the latest PD15 update, I did a small project in which I strung together a series of GIFs then imported the sequence as a single MP4 file.

At that time, I found it was a simple matter to drag & drop the GIFs onto the timeline and sequence them as required. Each GIF appeared as a discreet clip on the timeline.

Now I find that it doesn't seem to work as before. The first 2 or 3 times I tried to drag & drop GIFs onto the timeline, they began to replicate endlessly, and the only way I could stop it was by closing the program. Since those first few attempts, however, something different has been happening, which I can't really explain. The first time I drop a GIF onto the timeline, a small bar appears - see image attachment 1. With subsequent drops, the option to overwrite/insert/etc appears and if I apply one of these options, the GIF appears on the timeline (see images 2 & 3), but it doesn't appear to work properly.

In the User Guide I find reference to 'GIFs' and 'Animated GIFs', but beyond that I can't find anything to explain what the difference is or how to work with them.

I'm not sure if I accidentally changed any settings, or whether the update has caused the program to operate differently from before, when placing GIFs onto the timeline was so simple and straightforward.

The only practical workaround I've come up with thus far is to convert the GIF files to MP4 format.

Any other suggestions?

Thank you. Much appreciated

Thanks. That was pretty much what I had decided to do. However, after I produced the MP4 file and then went back to the project in PD14, I was suddenly able to add the fade-in & fade-out. However, I notice it applies only to the video component and not the audio. As a matter of interest, is it possible to have a fade that applies to both video & audio, or is it always necessary to apply a separate fade to the audio component?

If possible, could you advise on another 'problem', please. Somehow I accidentally added a keyframe marker on the audio track, and now I can't figure out how to remove it. It's not causing any trouble presently, but it's unnecessary, and it seems crazy that I can't remove it

I am having a problem applying a simple fade at the beginning and end of a clip. It simply won’t work.

The source video I’m using for the project is a large (16GB) .mts file (merged from 9 smaller mts files). I am using a separately recorded audio track, which synced nicely with the camera audio. I deleted the camera audio then linked the separately recorded audio to the video track, to create a single video/audio track. However, the inability of the fades to ‘stick’ at either end of the video was evident even before I created the single track (i.e. before I removed the original camera audio, and while I still had the separately recorded audio on a different track).

As I see it, this is a really simply project. All I did was delete material at the beginning and end of the video. Now all I need to do, in order to provide a ‘draft’ for someone to view, is to apply a fade-in and a fade-out at the beginning and end, respectively.

Can someone help with this, please?

Hi Barry,

Thanks for the suggestions. So I uninstalled PD14 as well as the content packs (used IOBit Uninstaller), checked that there was no PD14 folder left under my CyberLink programs folder, then reinstalled all from scratch. But when I restarted PD14, the same message popped up.

For your interest, I've attached a screen capture of what happens when I deleting the temp files and deleting the clips used to create the problem project off my computer, i.e. so there is nothing visible in the media window.

Any other suggestions?

Regards,

Charles

Every time I start PowerDirector 14, I get a window that says " CyberLink PowerDirector found a temporary file that may be the project file automatically saved last time. Do you want to try and recover the project and open it?" (see attachment)

I have tried all manner of ways to get rid of this - saying 'yes' and saving the project under a new name, deleting all the source files that the project used (it still opens a project with something in the timeline), manually deleting all temp files via Preferences - all to no avail.

Can anyone provide a solution, without requiring that I reinstall the program?

Thanks

Thanks. I'll definitely familiarize myself with keyframes

Thanks 18tillidie - also very helpful, although at this stage, I haven't had any experience with keyframes on PD14. I'll look for a tutorial (if you have any suggestions in this regard, I would appreciate it)

Best rgds

Thanks Dan & Neil. Both comments very helpful!

Hi, I'm new to PD14, having cut my teeth on Serif's MoviePlus X6.

I've been playing with transitions and recently had a situation where I wanted the audio to remain steady during a fade transition. I understand from PD Support that it's not possible to de-link the audio from the video in transitions. I found that even if I de-linked the video and audio tracks, then tried to apply the transition to the video track only, it still affected the audio.

Is there some way to create a fade transition that applies to the video track only. The only way I can figure to do what I want is to create a freeze frame at the end of the one clip and beginning of the next, then apply the Fade to the intersect of those. But this seems very clumsy to me - not practical if needing to do it repeatedly.

I haven't had too much time to explore this and have a feeling I may be making it more complicated than necessary. So I'm trusting there's a high tolerance for dumb questions on this forum....

Thank you