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Hi Jaime
Yes it seems that the problem is peculiar to discs without a menu that are made with PowerDirector and then played on this model of DVD player.
Discs without a menu made with Ulead work fine in the Panasonic.
I will do some trials in other players belonging to friends and family. This could take some time with a few other things that are happening at present. I will report back here when I know more.
Roger.
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Hi Jaime,
The aspect ratio of the project makes no difference.
I first encountered the problem on a 4:3 movie. Following your suggestion I made two short movies from a video clip from my Sony DCR-SR65 camera set to 16:9, one with a menu and one without. I put a title on them, on the bottom just inside the TV Safe Zone. Both play normally on my two computers (one on WMP and the other on Toshiba DVD Player) Both display as expected on my very basic ($99) LG DVD Player. On my $800 Panasonic HDD/DVD recorder player the one with the menu displays normally, with the full image showing, including the bit outside the Safe Zone. This is the case at all the usual TV aspect ratios. When I play the DVD made without a menu the picture seems too large to fit on the screen, like it is zoomed in. No combination of settings on the player and TV give a normal picture.
I have asked Cyberlink for help on this but that was only two days ago. Previously they had no idea what the cause of the problem was and just advised the upgrade to PD8. I hope now I have defined the cause for them that they can provide a solution, apart from the obvious "always make a menu"
Regards
Roger.
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I have finally solved a persistent problem and thought the answer may be of interest to the group.
I recently replaced my old CRT TV and VCR with a Panasonic LCD TV and Panasonic DMR-XW350. I then found that a DVD I had made with PowerDirector 7 would not display properly. The top and bottom of the picture were cut off, and with that all the captions I had put on the still images in my production, as well as part of the titles. It only happens with this player, not my other LG one, and not on a computer. It is not dependent on aspect ratio, either player or TV, nor on DVD quality (SP, LP, HQ) or TV Safe Zone
I checked all the settings, searched this forum and asked the question but no joy. Then began a lengthy and very frustrating correspondence with Cyberlink. Finally they admitted defeat and offered me a free upgrade to PD8.
I installed this and dropped a short pre-Produced file (MPEG-2)to the time line, burnt a disc and it worked fine in the new player. So I returned to my current (unfinished) project and burnt it. The problem is back, with the top and bottom of the picture cut off.
After checking everything again and making a couple more trial discs (Hooray for re-writeables) I realised the only difference was that if the disc has a menu it plays OK. If I burn a disc without a menu it does not play properly in the Panasonic.
I want to make the DVDs, a collection of old family photos and 8mm film I have copied, without a menu for my vision-impaired father. He can see if he sits about 6 ft from a 106" TV, but has great difficulty using a remote for navigating menus.
I would be interested to hear if anybody has encountered a similar problem.
Regards
Roger.
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The TV is a Panasonic 32" LCD Viera with HDMI connection. It does not seem to be a function of the aspect ratio. No combination of aspect ratios, player and TV, works.
The first Panasonic guy I spoke to said the problem was because I had not set the player to "Progressive scan". It was set to Auto detect anyhow, and changing to other values did not work either. The second Panasonic guy I spoke to said to have both TV and player in 16:9.
Surely there must be a way to get PD7 to make a DVD that works on one of the most popular TV?DVD combos around.
Roger.
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Hi fellow producers,
I have searched the forums but cant find an answer to my problem, not to say that there isn't one hidden there somewhere.
The problem is the DVD I made plays back perfectly on one player (a basic $99 LG) but on my $800 Panasonic DMR-XW350 the top and bottom of the picture is cut off. This makes a mess of the captions I put on the stills, not to mention some titles I had in the production.
I made short test productions in 4:3 and 16:9 but that makes no difference to the problem.
In all cases everything is inside the TV Safe Zone
I tried every combination of settings on the player and TV (a Panasonic 1080p 32" LCD)
I phoned Panasonic and checked all the setting while the guy led me through them. He then concluded that the problem was caused by the disc, as I have no problems with any commercial discs in this player.
He did not seem impressed when I mentioned the LG player!
Have I missed something in the settings of PD7? I can repeat the production if I can find the right settings.
I have already made 10 copies of this disc to give out at a family reunion on Sunday.
Thanks
Roger
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Hi Dafydd,
Sorry I was a bit confusing with my query.
I understand that I can set up the Export Directory to save my files to. My concern is that When I switch to a different project, where I have set up a different export directory, the export directory remains the same as it was in the project I just closed down, and does not change to that I had set in the project I just opened. It is a nuisance to have to go and re-set the preference each time I switch projects. Surely It would be easy for the programmers to fix this, so that the export directory is "attached" to the project unless I deliberately change it.
I sometimes forget to change the preference when I open a different project, and end up with voice-over captures in the "wrong" directory
Now I am aware of the problem I take care to change it, but I got my files in a terrible mess before I realised what was happening. It is just so illogical I never expected it.
Is there a good reason not to have the export directory change to that which has been set for a particular project?
Regards
Roger.
Regards
Roger
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Why cant all the preference settings for a project be saved with the project?
PD7 does not remember the preference setting for the Import Directory for a particular project. With several projects on the go you have to remember to change the Import Directory each time you switch projects. Otherwise any voice-overs etc. are put in the "wrong" directory. I like to keep all my media and captures for each project in a separate master folder. That way you can't loose track of them.
This question has been raised before.
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/3605.page
but I was wondering if PD8 has addressed the problem.
Thanks
Roger.
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Cap'n Kevin, Tony-
I solved the problem in the strangest way.
I went to change the export file location preference and while there took a look at the Editing Preferences. One of them is:-
Link all tracks when moving/removing content in Video track: links titles, video effects, music and PIP clips to clips in the Master Video track. Selecting this option moves these clips when a video clip in the Master Video track is moved. Uncheck this option to allow for the movement of all Timeline clips separately.
It was already checked so I wondered why it was not working, as it seemed it might do what I needed. Then I noticed that there was no mention of the audio track. So I moved a couple of audio clips down to the music track and then inserted a JPEG at the start of the video track. The audio clips moved to the right and stayed synced to their relevant video clips. But I also noticed the audio I had not dropped down to the music rack had also moved right and stayed in sync. So I put all the audio back in to the audio track and everything is now working as I want.
I have no idea why it was not working before. but then PD7 is full of little surprises like that.
Back to editing.
Roger.
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Cap'n Kevin, Tony-
Sorry if my original request was not clear. I tried to keep it reasonably short. No matter - You got it exactly right.
I have taken my various video clips from a holiday and assembled them. I edited them fairly tightly (to remove the "yawn" factor) by, for example, selecting two or three bits each no longer than about 5-10 seconds from a clip sometimes one or two minutes long. In doing so I sometimes split off the audio and trim it separately to match the length of the video bits I trimmed out. Other times I dump the original audio (wind noise etc.) and do a voice-over, again to match the length of the video clips I trimmed out.
Having got that far I decided to put into the project some JPEG stills, after seeing what was missing from the video, as I need them to fill out the story of our holiday. We take close-ups of flowers or telephoto shots of birds etc.
It would be great if I could "sync" the start of an audio (or music) clip to the start of a particular clip in the video track, so that when the video track expanded the audio and video were"locked together". I envisage something akin to selecting multiple objects on different layers in Photoshop then moving them about together in an image.
Tony's suggestion of pre-production then add the inserts seems a good way to go. I will give it a go after I have a play with PIP tracks. Never used them before for my previously simple editing needs.
Thanks for the help guys - much appreciated.
Roger.
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I need to insert some more video clips and stills into the video track, but this expands the track and moves the existing clips out of sync from any music or voice-over captures. Is there a way to lock the audio or music to its own video clip
This has probably been answered already but I just spent half an hour searching the archives and cannot find it -probably asking the wrong question in the search.
Thanks
Roger.
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Hi Dafydd,
I reinstalled PD7 build 2429a. Then I went to the project I had the problem with and it worked OK. No jumping or sticking cursor. I will continue working as time permits and if there are further problems I will run the Aquarium trials etc and post on this topic.
Just for completeness here are the details of my project.
1. I had several hours of 8mm VHS from a 4 month trip. I captured it using a PCI card which converts it to MPEG2.
2. Initially captured in clips of about 45 minutes each. These were given a quick rough edit to delete anything like the occasion(s) I recorded my foot for 5 minutes. This allowed me to make them significantly shorter and save disc space.
3. The rough edits were then "Produced", again to MPEG2.
4. This clip was then run through scene detection.
5. The individual scenes were then edited with Multi Trim, often to take two or three short clips of a few seconds each from a 1 minute scene.It was at this point that I encountered the problems with the Multi Trim Play cursor locking up and/or jumping to the end of scene.
6. These "trimmings" will be used along with JPEGs, music and Voice-over to assemble a sub-project, several of which will be combined to make the final DVD with which to bore friends and relatives .
Although the re-install seems to have solved the problem there is still an anomaly in Multi Trim when it is used to trim a "scene clip" as in step 5 above. While the scene is playing the time/frame counter shows the time from 0 at the start of the clip. If you enable the magnifier then the times below the frames displayed are from the beginning of the original clip the scenes were taken from. Also if you want to go to a certain place in the clip you cannot do so by entering the time/frame in the counter. The cursor just jumps to the end of the clip. It would be really helpful if Cyberlink could rectify this anomaly, as it would make timming easier.
Thanks
Roger.
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Thanks Dafydd,
I will collect the necessary information, run the trials and report back.
About the updates - I had been using build 2227 because there was some mention on this forum about instability with 2429a. Every so often I would get a pop-up inviting me to update. When this problem cropped up today I decided to update. Instead of waiting for the next apparently random appearance of the pop-up I clicked on the update arrow at the top right, only to get a message telling me no update was available as I had the latest version! I found it on the Cybelink and installed it. Still no joy.
Roger.
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I have encountered a problem with Multi Trim in scenes extracted from a clip.
Before I go boring everyone with a details of a lengthy set of trials I have run to try and characterise the problem I need to know - Is Multi Trim supposed to work on individual scenes (PD calls them Segments) detected from a clip?
In a nutshell the Multi Trim function goes haywire. The play cursor jumps about of its own accord, sound disappears, sometimes the space bar does not work for starting and stopping the preview and the times in the frames seem to be from the "parent" clip and not from the segments detected and separated, so typing in time to go to a place in the segment is useless.
I did a search and found one reference to a similar problem but the fix mentioned there did not work, and is not much use if you need to mark in from the first frame of your scene.
PD7 build 2429
Intel Pentium 4, 3 GHZ
2GB RAM
Vista Home
900GB free on HDD
Roger.
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1. Save your project.
2. Save it again under a new name.
3. Delete everything from the timeline except the clips you wish to combine.
4. Select the Produce tab. Pick the format you want and PD7 merges the files into a single clip. Save this where you wish.
5. Re-open your main project and import the new file. Don't forget to delete the original clips.
Roger.
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Barry,
I had a similar problem when contacting Support recently. When I selected Power Director as a Product the next drop-down locked on "Please select a version". I found that if I selected another product, say Power DVD, I could select a version. This seemed to "unlock" the drop-down and I could then select Power Director and the version drop-down allowed me to select the version.
I have no idea why it does this, but then PD7 never ceases to amaze us.
Good luck.
Roger.
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Robert,
I was referring to the various re-size and move fixes mentioned in the earlier thread :-
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/5266.page
but it seems they do not work reliably either.
It looks like we just have to wait until Cyberlink comes up with a patch or new version. I am not inclined at this stage to switch to another video editor, preferring to spend the money on a new HDD and/or RAM upgrade.
Regards
Roger.
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I searched the forum on this but could not find a mention of this specific problem.
I have been designing my own menus because of the limitations of the Menu Templates supplied with PD7 rather than modifying existing ones. One problem I have is that I cannot make a menu with text highlights for the chapter headings. In the Menu Designer you can do this for the Main Page by ticking "Enable Text Highlights" but I can't find a similar option for the Menu Page. All you can have is button highlights. Am I missing something or is it just another of the strange little quirks of the PD7 menu system?
It seems that the PD 7 menu design has too many fancy effects like animated backgrounds with rising bubbles you can resize yourself, but misses out on the basics. If you modify one of the supplied templates you cannot get rid of those fuzzy edged background images except with a convoluted workaround. What's wrong with a simple select and delete? Yet if you want to make your own menu from scratch, you cant put in this background window!
Thanks
Roger
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Rodney,
1. The thumbnail thing is for Video Thumbnails. When you run preview are they video or stills of the first frame of the chapter? I have the stills in the menu I created and don't know how to remove them. Perhaps insert some colour boards at the start of each chapter.
2. When you create a menu from scratch by selecting New the Menu Designer opens in the Main Page with the My Videos title and 3 items which are place holders for the Play, Menu and Subtitles. If your project does not have subtitles then Item 3 is not used. If you then go to the Chapter page it opens with one button and Item 1, which is the text place holder for the first chapter. Don't worry about the button layout at bottom left -just add as many buttons as you need. Move/resize/modify them as you wish. Select OK to save your custom template. Then you can author the project. If your custom template has 3 buttons on the Chapter Page then the Button Layout at bottom left will show 3 buttons, not a choice of 1,2 or 3.
I don't know if it is possible to create your own menu with a selectable number of buttons. I suspect that the Menu Design feature in PD7 does not offer all the options that are seen in some of the standard templates on offer. If one of these has a special feature that you want, try modifying it to suit.
The issue of menus has been discussed in several threads on this forum over the last few months and there is a lot of information there if you do a search.
Regards.
Roger.
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Rodney,
After you select "Create Disc" you will see a little spanner icon at the lower left. This opens the Create Disc Preferences window. Select the menu tab then make sure the "enable video thumbnail" option is not ticked.
Be aware that several people , me included, have had problems with menus whereby custom-made menus, or modifications of the standard templates, do not show the selection highlights after the disc is burned. It works fine in the preview, but not on the disc. The workaround is to enable the video thumbnails. Until Cyberlink fix this it is too bad if you don't want them.
To add buttons in the Author mode you need to select "Modify" which opens another window. There are four icons at the top centre, just to the right of Save. The last of these is the Add Button one. Just make sure you have selected Main Page from the Go To pull-down at the bottom.
Cheers
Roger
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I just want to add that I also am now another happy customer. I also had the problem of menu items not highlighting, except for the templates supplied with PD7. Any modification to one of these, or a new menu made from scratch, did not work, either in my DVD Player or on the computer in WMP
Anyhow, by enabling the "video thumbnail" option I can now burn a disc which works. Thanks Jeff.
Of course this is not a solution to the problem, just a work-around. We don't always want video thumbnails, do we. This is another PD7 BUG which Cyberlink need to fix.
BTW I have not had any problems with "create disc" stalling or locking up. I am only making SD discs. I assemble the project from several clips, captured as MPEG-2 and then use "produce" to combine them into a single clip which I burn. It remains to be seen how I go with something more complicated: Stills, transitions, audio track etc.
Happy new year to all.
Roger.
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