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If you have 2 monitors the full scrren preview on the 2nd monitor works as expected, the video controls only reappear when the mouse moves on to the second monitor. I realise this may just frustrate if you do not have a second monitor so I tried the following on just one monitor.
Click to undock the preview screen, click to view full screen, and wait for the controls to disappear (about 2 seconds) then you can stop/start playback using the Space bar, you can frame step back and forward using the , and . keys (no shift needed) go to front of project using Home key and end of project using the End key, and all of this does not cause the control panel to reappear. When you want the control panel back - you already know how to do that!
Alan.
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Moving the timeline is not possible (I don't think) - but moving the preview screen is very easy and has the added advantage that once moved you can make it as large as the 2nd monitor will alow, and, PD16 makes good use of the freed area by expanding the area usede by the various "rooms". Eg the media window gets super large, special effects you see more which makes choosing easier.
Switching out is very easy, look for the rightmost icon under the preview window (little square with arrow heading NE) and click it will free the preview window you can then drag to the other monitor and play with. Reintegrate wiith the main widnow clicking top right icon in the preview window (normally your Close icon) and all is restored to initial state. You can even click preview to full screen when in other monitor whence is acquires its own icons to control playback etc. I'll leave you to work out how.
So if you have 2 monitors PD16 is well designed to make full use of them in a very productive manner.
Hope this helps.
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Hi Alan -
I haven't yet tried to dig into the "issues" you raised earlier in your post, but if you're simply trying to mask/blur a numberplate you're using the wrong tool. Perhaps that's the reason it appears not to be working properly for you.
Mask Designer allows media in different tracks to be displayed together, so the viewer sees through one track into another (so to speak).
To blur out a number plate, you could use a keyframed blur effect or go to Motion Tracker & achieve much the same thing.
Cheers - Tony
Yeah - fair comment Tony - its what I did in the end - just because it worked and maybe mask was always going to be an overkill for what I wanted. Motion tracker is actually probably the best for my wish whether the target moves or not since it offers both mosaic and blur as your weapon.
I still think that invert should do just that for the whole of the frame though rather than just whats in the bounding box.
Thanks.
Alan.
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Am playing with Masking and all seems as expected at basic level - select a mask and it can edited to be almost any distortion of the basic shape in any place on the frame, and as expected everything outside the shaped is masked.
However when you Invert the mask things go slightly silly - the shape now becomes the mask as does everything outside the bounding box. See PD manual page 314 where the white parts perfectly demonstrate what I am on about.
Within the box the behaviour is as documented - however it would be more sensible if the area outside the box were also to behave like the area within the box surrounding the shape.
My original aim was to mask according to the shape with everything outside it - unmasked. I was trying to obscure a car registration plate while leaving the rest of the frame clear. I used blur in the end as it was possible to select the region of the frame to blur. Fortunately the vehicle did not move within the frame so it was not necessary to get into motion tracking.
Is my use of masking inappropriate or do you agree this is an anomaly that needs CL attention? Or have a missed something ?
Alan.
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An interesting topic - with an interesting solution - but ...
seems it does not work with .mov files
tried the dos command and it appears to work but the resultant combined file is unusable.
Tried 2 different pairs of clips.
VLC plays ok to the join and no further (both)
PD16 gets more upset - one of the files it seems to accept but then you notice the duration is severely truncated, the other it actually complains is a format it does not recognise (when you play)
I don't know enough about video file formats so maybe its not that simple to just add 2 .mov files together.
Alan.
PS - not actually a problem for me as I have always been able to satisfactorily combine clips in PD.
PPS - neat way to work on dos on a specific folder in W7 - hold shift when you rightclick in the folder display and then select Open command window here - and up it pops already in the folder you want to work on.
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Unfortunately having magnified the sound tracks to the maximum, there are no overlaps which I could use to solve the problem. If I just put the two tracks as close together as possible and the Produce the MP4 file, there is a short period of silence, and some of the sound track is missing at the point of the 'join'.
I looked up the Format Factory software, but this seems to be just for converting from one video format to another.
Does anyone else have any ideas please?
I looked at Format Factory and yes its a converter basically but if you look closer it does boast joining but I don't know if it could overcome the problem you have.
So when butted together theres an audio gap but the video is continuous? If playback has just an audio silent part but the picture is continuous then consider cutting off the frames that have image but no sound, this would join the sound to continuous but at the expense of a small picture jump.
The bottom line is that if you have either audio or video missing bits its not going to be easy to "invent" the missing bits and you have to decide which is more easily tolerated, a gap or jump in audio or similar for video.
Good luck.
Alan.
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I have filmed a concert. My camera has a maximum file size of 2gb and then it starts a new file automatically. If the new file starts (as it often does) in the middle of a song, how do I seamlessly join the two files together, so that I can produce a perfect video of the song, without a gap or noise at the join?
My dashcam does the same (a total journey will be recorded as a collection of 5 minute clips)
In my case the dashcam provides a slight overlap between clips which involves me to cut off the repeat bits - working in edit mode at maximum magnification its easy to manipulate at the frame lveel. Its a bit tricky but it works perfectly resulting in no jumps to video or audio.
I imagine this should work for you and hope there is no gap between successive clips - if there is then a cross fade may be necessary to hide the gap.
I know of no other way to stitch clips together as gaps/overlaps will vary.
Alan.
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Yes I'm using Audio Director 7 and get that message when I close the program down - seems slightly odd to me as well - in that I have not actually made any changes to the audio - just gone into AD7 then out again.
Still working most of the time. Once I had started a project using File/start new project and my little trick failed me - so I exited the program and restarted it to start this new project - then it worked as I wanted. So yes a bit of intermittancy as other have experienced, but all the time my trick works I am pleased and hope this gets us one step closer to a proper repair from CL.
Alan.
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Still sufferring like many others - but I stumbled on a neat way to restore that does not take too long nor is too complex.
Rightclick over the offending clip and submit to Edit Audio/AudioDirector (this is fairly quick) - let AudioDirector load the clip then just exist AudioDirector - you will be asked "Do you want to send it back to PD...?" just click Yes, and when its all done you should be looking at a fully displayed audio track.
In my current project this has worked repeatedly. I am importing .wav files and do not have shadow files in operation.
Alan.
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Once I close PD16, it refuses to open again until I restart my computer. When this happens, my earlier versions won't open either. Does anyone have a clue what's going on?
Take a look at this thread and if you do an advanced search for PDR.exe there's more.
Not solved as far as I know but affects different people in different ways.
Certainly don't have to restart your computer,
Alan.
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There seems to be some debate as to whether shadow files are of any real benefit.
As a relative newcomer I always understood the value was that producing lower resolution files for use in editing when you might want to drag fowards and backwards on the timeline would produce a smoother and more responsive visual effect, but it now seems this may not be the whole story.
Issues of pc power - quantity of memory - power of GPU etc seem to bear relevance - and now Support are actually recommending turning off shadow files as a possible cure to the "Audio wave does not display in PD16" thread.
What is your opinion? Apart from the possible affect on the above threads issue - do shadow files really improve the visual appearance when dragging back/fowards through the timeline? Is available RAM an influence on the shadow file debate? Are other parameters of the host system relevant?
Like most - I love a smoothe scroll when dragging backwards or fowards on the timeline trying to locate a particular point, it feels and looks most professional, but is at the end of the day so much easier to work with than constantly wondering if the visual position you're at actually matches where the grabber is.
Try using NewBlue Titler Pro (even the free old v1.5) and you will get a beautiful demonstration of just how sweet live scrolling back and forward can be when the coders took the trouble to write sweet software. not that I am expecting PD16 to equal that demo, I still think smoothe scrolling is a very nice feature - but whether shadow files on any particular setup help or not is where I would value the thoughts of this forum.
Cheers
Alan.
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When I import a clip (1920 x 1080) and play it from the preview window, it plays fine. However, when I drag it to the timeline and preview it from there, it stutters like crazy. This happens to all clips and both original clips and proxy clips. This does not happen in any other video editing software ie. Filmora, Hitfilm, Windows movie maker. It even does it after I produce the file. Any thoughts?
The greatest cause of stuttering I have experienced has always been down to frame rate issues (given PC power is up to the task) but I don't know if thats whats causing your stuttering.
More detail will probably be asked for in trying to pin down your issue.
Alan.
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Without reading back too far - I assume we are editing the audio?
Select the audio clip you want to edit. Then hover the mouse pointer (the hand) accurately over the volume line (it changes to up/down arrow), then without moving anything press and hold Ctrl key - see the pointer change to a black dot while you hold ctrl down? While still holding Ctrl - click and hold left mouse button and see the black dot change to a red dot on a four arrow pointer. While red - you can drag it around left right up down then release leftbutton when in a place you like. There - you altered the audio amplitude line.
While dragging it around (red) you can also drag it off the selected clip and and the 4arrows will change to a trash can, let go of the left mouse button - and lo the trash is where your red dot ends up! Simples.
Have fun.
Alan
Thanks Alan, that's a nice description of how to change the audio level from the timeline, but the main point of this thread is that the audio waveform often fails to render in the timeline, which makes it pretty hard to do any kind of editing.
I totally agree - I had a video where the sound/vision dropped to zero for a few seconds - impossible to edit out the silence while retaining lipsync without that audio graphic. Got it back and the resultant edit was quick and resulted in a seamless repair in both sound and vision.
I thiink the clearing out of the temp files described above is probably one of the bext temporary solutions, given by tech support, so hopefully its on their todo list for a future release.
Alan.
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"...press the control key while adding a dot"? What does that mean?
Without reading back too far - I assume we are editing the audio?
Select the audio clip you want to edit. Then hover the mouse pointer (the hand) accurately over the volume line (it changes to up/down arrow), then without moving anything press and hold Ctrl key - see the pointer change to a black dot while you hold ctrl down? While still holding Ctrl - click and hold left mouse button and see the black dot change to a red dot on a four arrow pointer. While red - you can drag it around left right up down then release leftbutton when in a place you like. There - you altered the audio amplitude line.
While dragging it around (red) you can also drag it off the selected clip and and the 4arrows will change to a trash can, let go of the left mouse button - and lo the trash is where your red dot ends up! Simples.
Have fun.
Alan
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Almost anything other than a fade or wipe can look very cheezy, you never see pros using them.
However there are plugins for PD with some more variety such as Pixelan and Prodad. Go to the Cyberlink store and take a look.
Partner plug-ins
Spot on - I often pay more attention to transitions since becoming a PD user and agree - wipes & fades dominate the profressional field. Why don't the pros use a more varied selection? Too cheesy? - they don't use PD?
I worry anything more than fades or wipes and you begin to detract from the content - which should be King.
Much the same comment could be applied to credits - how many ways can you display credits using PD? Hundreds if you were to count, and how many different forms of credits do you see professionals use - no more than one or two I would wager.
Titles I think there is more flare and variety in the professional world, and I think PD offers plenty of scope for flare short of sophisticated and specialist title development tools.
Alan.
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I also came that route from Movavi but have had no issues of the like you say, similar system Intel i7 16GB Ram but only running 64bit W7.
Hope you're sorted soon as I find PD16 so much better than Movavi in many ways and could never consider going back.
Alan.
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I suffer with this lack of audio graphic intermittantly when I use .mts input clips and usually doing something will get it back most of the time.
However I have just been playing with an mp4 clip and cannot seem to do anything to recover the audio graphic.
It is the graphic waveform thats missing. Audio plays correctly and can be modified using the dot method (rubber banding).
Interestingly this mp4 clip displays the yellow (making shadow) icon, and the tool tip that pops up when cursor over the thumbnail also says Shadow File: Generating ... - but its not. I just left a single 5 minute clip in mp4 format - system is virtually idle and no file in the expected shadowfiles folder is present.
Interesting fact - shadow files are also mp4. Does PD think as its mp4 already theres no point in making shadow file? Despite saying it is in progress?
There is definitely something faulty going on. 1) I occassionally get this issue with mts clips altho I can usually get out of it (most times) sometimes reloading project is necessary. 2) mp4 clip does not seem to cause shadow file creation despite PD giving every indication that is is in progress.
Alan.
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Ever since i installed PD 16, i click on open and it opens
when close all is good
if i click on PD 16 icon again, 1 second passes and nothing happens
i thought it was open in the background and its not there
i go to task manager and its not there?
only way to reopen the program is to restart the computer
using Windows 10 Pro
any suggestions?
I don't know if there is something special about W10 but I use W7 and get the same problem. Sometimes instead of "nothing" I get a message saying something like Cannot support multiple instances of this process, but I believe it all amounts to the same thing.
There seems to be an issue with PD16 closing down and in an earlier thread some were experiencing different delay times before PD could be launched again. You can see whats getting in the way if you open Task Manager processes screen and show processes from all users, sorted in alpha order its generally (for me) one or two items starting PD...... In my experience once both have disappeared PD can be launched again.
You say 1 second - you may need to wait more - differences exist. Some say its PD tidying up, clearing temp files etc. I think its annoying.
Another way if you just want to make a clean start is to use File/New Project - it will ask to save if you haven't for the present project - opt for File/New Workspace and as I recal it starts a new project using the existing Library.
Going on the above advice about watching processes in task manager, try a relaunch immediately you see both PDx processes have gone - if it works thats almost definately whats causing your problem.
I would hope someone has already emailed support about this irritation.
Alan .
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Any success with those?
Tried Freemake - until you pay $40 it adds branding (watermark) and on the small run I did the speed looks slow albeit batch facility looks possible.
Now going to look at Movavi again for speed and batch capability.
Alan.
Installed Movavi video converter - heavy boasts about how fast it is - setup 2 .mov files as input and set mp4 as output - clicked convert - a few seconds later was all done - albeit only half a file (trial limitation) - was very impressed with the speed - then I noticed filesize was almost exactly half the .mov version - fair enough its half a file - plays perfect under WMP.
I am going down this route to save space and although fast - this looks like saving no space - further reading and Movavi reveal its effectively a remux job, same video different container, quality is the same - size is the same just the container that changed, fast this may be but its not giving the space I desired.
Now going to test VLC with the same task
VLC does a nice job, good because I already use and trust it.
Had to get latest version 3.0.0 as only that has acquired batch capability.
Conversion time to clip duration is approximately 1:1 but I don't mind as batch means I can at least walk away.
Loads my Intel i7 system fairly heavily - so earning its keep.
Just converted a batch of .mov files total 8.01GB down to .mp4 with a total size 3.78GB - impressive space saving.
Shadow file creation also similarly reduced.
I lose the GPS data, but have a utility from the manufacturer I can screen capture the route detail from for each clip.
Used PD16 to edit and produce mp4 end product and quality and resolution are indistinguishable from results using the .mov originals. Mission accomplished.
Thanks to all for interesting inputs.
Alan.
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Hi Alan et al -
I just did a little test here, since we're weighing up using converted files or PDR's shadow files. I understand from Alan's posts that the .MOV files from his dashcam take "too long" to generate shadow files... hence considering conversion in a separate application.
I don't know what the camera is so I don't have sample files to test. Instead I used 6 short 4K/UHD .MOV clips from Canon DSLRs - 5D MkIV, 6D MkII & C200. The clips range in VBR from 520 - 2,298 Mbps (so they'd be demanding to edit in that form). Total duration of the 6 clips is 00:01:57:26.
In Handbrake (free & does batch conversion), the 6 clips were converted to 1080p MP4. It took 5:50, after an initial scan time of ~30sec.
I imported the same clips into PDR, with shadow files enabled. It took 5:55.
From that little test, there is no time advantage. Other converters may do the job faster.
Alan - for your final production, do you intend to use the original clips or the converted ones? If original, you can do that with file substitution shown in this little tutorial. If not, don't click that link 
Cheers - Tony
Hi Tony - thanks for getting involved - just to add a little background info - my primary motivation was to reduce the size of the raw materials, as my dashcam makes .mov files that were about twice as large as equivalent duration .mts files I am used to working with. Really impressed with the HD quality of the dashcam footage - and as such see it becoming an interesting part of our holiday movies providing an insight into what we are driving through to get where we are likely to be filming. Never thought of that at purchase time. PD16 is an ideal tool to speed up video over the boring (motorway) parts.
So - reduced filesize of raw material is the prime mover. Reduced shadow file creation time is a welcome bonus - which triggered off this task as I had not really noticed how much larger .mov clips were until I started playing in PD and noticed the longer shadow file creation times. If you see what I mean.
On holiday I need to reduce filesizes as dashcam will not hold all we will film so I will need to upload dashcam footage to laptop and whilst I am not sure how much storage we might need by the end of a 2 week motoring holiday I am in with a fighting chance if I can reduce the storage required by dashcam footage. All worked well last year with Canon footage over 10 days, but this year we are off for two weeks and have dashcam adding to storage requirements.
You know I just had to click "that link" despite not planning file substitution - neat little technique though.
See next post for detailed results of VLC player conversions.
Thanks for your input - much appreciated,
Alan.
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Any success with those?
Tried Freemake - until you pay $40 it adds branding (watermark) and on the small run I did the speed looks slow albeit batch facility looks possible.
Now going to look at Movavi again for speed and batch capability.
Alan.
Installed Movavi video converter - heavy boasts about how fast it is - setup 2 .mov files as input and set mp4 as output - clicked convert - a few seconds later was all done - albeit only half a file (trial limitation) - was very impressed with the speed - then I noticed filesize was almost exactly half the .mov version - fair enough its half a file - plays perfect under WMP.
I am going down this route to save space and although fast - this looks like saving no space - further reading and Movavi reveal its effectively a remux job, same video different container, quality is the same - size is the same just the container that changed, fast this may be but its not giving the space I desired.
Now going to test VLC with the same task
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