|
|
Quote
Hi,
Yes I realise the problem, which is really one of overlapping overlay track content being "unselectable" in many circumstances where the exact selection point falls on another track's content which then takes precedence.
As Jeff has said in the other topic, it has been that way since PDR17. But the lock all tracks followed by unlocking the track to be edited is the only way round in many circumstances, as the locked tracks can no longer be selected, allowing the unlocked track to be edited, irrespective of overlapping content in other tracks.
Cheers,
PowerDirector Moderator.
PD Mod,
I understand what you are explaining, but the white handles work to scale the lower track image. What I don't understand is what is the point of this change, other than making it harder/longer to edit content. :{
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Not sure if it's to be expected or not, from what I see, versions prior to PD17 didn't lose focus of the selected track and didn't default to the top layer when another layer was highlighted. Versions since PD17 do lose focus to top layer and one needs to move item to open area for keeping proper focus, use track locks, or other viable workarounds.
Since OP coming from PD16 to PD20, it's a change in functionality.
Jeff
What would be the reason for this other than making it hard for users to move tracks around?
I am now going to document this via screen capture and send it to support along with the dxDiag and whatever else they want.
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Hi,
I recall this first popped up a while ago. As far as I know, unless anyone has found another way, the best way to work around the issue is to use the Lock/Unlock tracks function to "select" the track in question and carry out your positioning etc. The locking of other tracks overrides the issue with trying to select overlapping overlays by mouse.
Cheers
PowerDirector Moderator
I set up a demo project this morning with 6 tracks (track #1 at bottom).
1) The track I want to move is track # 1
2) When I click it to move, the focus jumps to track # 6 and it moves
3) When I hit the undo button, it does not undo. I have to select it and move it back
4) If I lock track # 6 and try to move track # 1, then the focus jumps to track # 5 and it moves
5) When I hit the undo button, it does not undo. I have to select it and move it back
6) If I reverse the track heirarchy (track # 1 at top), the same thing happens
So, unless I lock every track, the focus jumps. In a large project, this is not do-able.
EDIT: I uninstalled and reinstalled via the Cyberlink App Mgr. just now and the problem still exists.
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
CharlesDallas, I've been able to duplicate the change in track focus issue. I think the workaround suggestion of using keyboard arrows to move to a no overlay region and then using the mouse in this region to grab and move as desired should work, at least for me it appears to.
Jeff
Unfortunately, there is not a region without content.
I had already found a work around by dragging any white handle all the way off the 16:9 boundary, then clicking there and moving to the intended postion, then dragging the same white handle back to the initial position. What a pain and then there is the issue of precision, which I never had to do in PD16 or previous versions.
I will post a screen capture on this thread tomorrow. Thanks for all the help.
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Making a simple screen recording would save lots of time and back & forth conversations as support (or people here on the forum) could seee exactly what you're doing and would be able to respond with specific instructions. A recording is literally worth 1000+ words!
Optodata,
I will do it tomorrow and post it here.
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Maybe instead of grabbing the + since that changes track focus, just grab the body of the pic and move that.
Jeff
Doesn't matter where I click to move, it still happens.
Suggestions? I emailed support last night and they want me to document it with screen shots, movie capture, etc.
Trying to avoid that if possible.
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Not that I know of. I think it was a "improvement" but just poorly implimented like so many other changes. Good idea, half baked.
My version does not do that, I have perpetual at version 2607. There was a very similar post with behavior as you describe recently, but it was removed. There are so many versions out there for 365 users depending if they update or not so it could be that one of those versions has this behavior. Are you running the latest for 365 users, I think maybe 20.1.2519.0?
Jeff
Yes, I am running PD V 20.1.2519.0 (64-bit)
Version type 365
Charles
|
|
|
I recently upgraded from PD16 to PD365 and have come across this situation which isn't right unless I am missing something.
1) I have a project open with 20 or so tracks and have the heirarchy switched to track 1 is at the bottom.
2) If I click on say, track 10 to scale and reposition, the following happens:
a) I can drag a blue corner handle to scale it up or down and it works as intended
b) but when I click on the image in the preview window in order to move it to another position, the focus of my click jumps to another random track higher up and that is the track that moves. (this happens as I begin the move)
Help?
Charles
|
|
|
Thanks Jeff. I saw your previous post in another thread that said...
"Several ways, here is one way. By default, the "Anchor Point" is set to the middle of the video/pic. You can display "Anchor Point" by turning on in the control panel at the left in PIP.
Since default is anchor point in the middle, drag video/pic to middle of screen, pink vertical and horizontal lines will appear when centered. Now just drag a corner to refill frame, pink guide lines will appear and snap in corner.
The anchor point can be moved around by dragging or coordinates in left control panel for other useful options, https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/84233.page#post_box_348180"
________________________
Does this change somehow revolve around 3d behavior? I can deal with it, but it is alot more clicking.
________________________
Here is another change I don't understand, if you have an answer for it:
I have the track hierarchy switched with track 1 at the bottom. I have say 20 tracks already. If I click on a track in the middle of those tracks and grab a corner to scale it down, that works fine. But when I then click on the "+" to move the track in the preview window, the focus jumps to a higher track and moves that track.
Why?
|
|
|
Last week, I upgraded from PD16 to PD365. Couple of things that are different now in PD365 from PD16 (or I don't know how to do it)
I want to make a door appear as if it is rolling down from the top.
1) I drag an image of a door to the timeline and it shows up in the preview window.
2) In PD16 I could move the little blue handles separately, but in PD365 if, for example, I move the lower right blue handle
up to the upper right blue handle all is fine, but
3) With that move in place, I try to move the lower left blue handle up to the upper left blue handle, all three of the remaining blue handles move down (in the Object Settings, "Maintain aspect ratio" is UNchecked).
4) Further, if i move the lower right blue handle up to the upper right handle, then try to move either of the upper blue handles separartely, they work as intended.
Help? I will address the second problem after this one is resolved.
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Chances are that the downloaded clip isn't fully compatible with PD due to the encoding method the downloading app uses. Use a free 3rd party tool like Handbrake or VirtualDub2 (not an online converter) to transcode the downloaded clip into a more common format.
Feel free to use the Attachments button below the forum's text box to share the clip here if you'd like other people to test it and find a suitable format to convert it to.
Optodata,
I found more clips that accomplish the same idea and they actually work in PD, so I threw that one away.
Charles
|
|
|
"An error occurred while opening this media file in the media library..."
I put a downloaded YouTube greenscreen video into PD365, left the greenscreen background, shortened the clip and produced it as H264 MP4 at 1920x1080.
It will open in VLC and Windows Media Player.
I even put the file in two different online video converters and the resulting file still yields the same error message in PD365
(one week old) Dell xps15 #9510, 11th Gen I9, 32gb ram, 1 TB SSD
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Thanks for the new info. Based on what you've added, I don't think you need to use shadow files (which take time to generate and slow PD down while it's creating them), and I also don't think uninstalling/reinstalling PD will make any difference.
Assuming you're not looking to get a new computer, using the Reset this PC tool or doing a clean installation of Windows may be the only ways to solve this particular issue. Here's a link to the steps, which will give you the option to keep all your data files and (most) of the installed apps or to completely start over.
Make sure you have all your old installers, CDs and DVDs ready, and it's always a good idea to make a full system backup that's stored on external discs or USB drives in case you need to recover any missing files.
Since we're talking about some significant changes here, I also think it's important to consider updating to a modern version of Windows.
Your system isn't compatible with Win11, but Win10 is a far better OS than 8.1, especially since MS stopped mainstream support for that version three years ago and will end all support in Jan 2023 (15 months from now).
You could try an in-place upgrade from 8.1 to 10 first and see how that goes, and only doing a clean Win10 installation and adding back all your apps if PD16 was still lagging.
___________________________________________________
ugg! When I had this same problem in 2019, did alot of work to get PD16 to work right, then it still was good in the 2020 season and now it's not. What changed?
|
|
|
Quote
Thanks for the details. Your Intel HD Graphics driver is almost 2 years old and you can download the most recent version (Feb 2021) from here.
You haven't said what you're doing with your project(s), but there are all kinds of edits that will slow PD to a crawl even if you're using shadow files. If simply placing a clip on the timeline and hitting play is S-L-O-W, then that's a different story.
Also, the DxDiag results show a whole bunch of WindowsUpdateFailure3 crashes which is a potential sign of OS instability. While this situation shouldn't cause performance issues with PD, you still may want to run the two commands shown in bold here to have Windows check and repair any damaged system files.
Optodata,
Nice to see you are still here. I posted this same problem in 2019 for this very same laptop. You walked me through steps to take over the course of several days and were very, very helpful. Thank you. The dialog is here: https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/80503.page
I only use this program one month per year right before Christmas as I am making a movie which plays on our house along with a LED "lights to music" show we do each year.
The use of PD16 includes building a movie to a sound track. The assets I use are kept in an "Image" folder and a "video" folder. I build a 4:3 to fit an area on my house. I build several videos, all around 2-3 minutes in length.
An example of SLOW is with a group of assets in the content area of an opened project, if I click on one asset to delete it, it takes about 10 seconds for the blue box to outline the asset, then I right click to delete and it takes another 20 seconds for the asset to go away. Working on the time line is simply un-doable at this point.
______________________________________
Since I posted last night, I performed a sfc/scannow and a dism...scanhealth. I also disabled shadow files. Attached is a new dxdiag since doing all that. PD16 did not improve at all after those changes
So..I was thinking about re-installing PD16??? What else?
Charles
|
|
|
I have PD16 on a 2014 Lenovo laptop running Win 8.1. I have used PD since version 8 or 9. I have the following settings preferences
1) Windows "compatiblility" settings enabled
2) Shadow files enabled
3) Preview quality set at "normal"
4) Preview mode at Real-time (i need audio)
5) Open CL enabled
It is unbearably slow and I am only running 1920 or less.
Thoughts anyone?
|
|
|
In the middle of a project and Power Director 16 is crashing every so often. When I pull up Task Mgr on my Win 10 machine I find one or more of the following, so I click on them, "end process", restart PD16 and carry on.
Cyberlink Rich Video Module
Power Director 16
PDHanuman SVR App
PDR Style Agent App
My questions are:
1) to which process are each of the above related
2) Why are they hanging
3) What can I do to prevent this hanging
Thanks in advance for any help.
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Actually there is a way to import time-based events as it's what ScreenRecorder does to set markers above the timeline whenever the mouse was clicked during a recording. I've attached a sample that you can open in Notepad and see the details.
It's an XML file that ends in .mrk and the events need to be formatted like this: <Mouse time="3.76" mousetype="CLICK"/>. As long as you can set up or convert the output to match these tags, you'll be all set.
The next thing you'll need to do is to name it exactly the same as a source clip with a special ending. For example, if your clip is called Clip001.mp4 you'll need to name the markup file Clip001_mp4.mrk so that PD will automatically import the markers with the clip.
The other issue is that the markers will only extend for the duration of the source clip, so if you've got a 30 minute timeline but you only have a 2 minute clip, you'll only get the first 2 minutes of markers. You may need to create a full length MP4 clip (which can simply be recording with the lens cap on for 30 minutes). You won't ever use the content, and as long as that clip is longer than your light show timeline the markers will be imported and displayed as soon as you drag the clip to the timeline.
Optodata,
Thank you very much for digging so deep into this situation. I will attempt to follow your example tomorrow. Tonight; however, I did this wih success:
I took my 56 second Overture song in xlights and
1) went through it writing down in milliseconds where each beat or accent occured
2) wrote an excel file that converts milliseconds in .05 increments (which is how the song is programmed in xlights) to number of frames with a 30fps basis. RE: 1 sec = 30fps, .5 sec=15fps etc
3) Went into PD16 and put timeline markers at those time intervals
4) Opened both PD16 and xlights on side by side laptops and watched to make sure the timing marks were indeed at the correct locations
They were...so that worked and perhaps your method will also. I have 20 minutes total music time so I am looking for the quickest and most accurate solution
Charles
|
|
|
Anyone,
I do synchronized" lights to music" Christmas displays.
Back story:
I use xLights to program the lights and it has a feature whereby you can use a third party plug in called Queen Mary Vamps". When used with a song, this plug in returns a timeline with timing marks at the "bar" and/or at the "beat". I do this first, then load lighting effects into the timed areas and the lighting effects line up perfectly with the audio beats (or bars)
xLights will also playback a video (via HDMI to projector) in snyc to the lights.
I am using PD16 to create a video and will use the same music track from xlights to time the video cues.
My question is:
Can these (or some other) timing track be imported into PD16? If not, is there some other method someone has used for this purpose?
Thanks in advance,
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Like I said earlier, your video driver is 4 years old, and PD is known to have serious issues with incompatible video drivers.
The easiest step is to go to Intel's auto-detect driver update page and see if you can get the latest driver installed. You may have to manually download and install it, which you can do from the left side of this page.
Some PC manufacturers, like Dell and possibly Lenovo, make it difficult to install newer "generic" drivers, even though they stop releasing "official" ones soon after they stop making that particular computer model. You can Google for ways to force the update if you have trouble with these two easiest approaches.
Optodata,
Thank you for your guidance. It was a long journey into the sfc and dism processes, then into a 10 hour chkdsk/r process before I could even get to the driver update which eventually happened (even though the Intel site said my drivers were up to date).
But even after all that, PD16 would instantly crash after loading. The last error dialog box which opened showed Wdmaud.drv as the fault event. I had to go to msconfig and drill down through the services tab to find that the Wdmaud.drv service was not runniing even though it was set to "automatic". This is the driver that enables the sound card to function.
Once I got that figured out, PD16 loaded and ran without bugs. My computer is so clean now. Somewere along this journey I even threw away Google Chrome and will probably not re-install it.
Thanks again.
Charles
|
|
|
Quote
Optodata,
Thank you for your guidance.
I ran sfc /scannow 3 times, restarting after each scan. After the last scan, the comman prompt returned "no integrity violations"
I ran dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth one time then restarted. The command prompt returned "No compnent store corruption detected. The operation completed successfully."
I went to Lenovo and it said I did not have Lenovo Service enabled, so I enabled it and it told me there were no updates for my laptop
I uninstalled MS New Blue
I installed 3424 upgrade to PD16
Then I opened PD16 and it gave me the new page look for about 5 seconds, then crashed.
I re-ran the DxDiag and it is attached to this reply and labeled as DxDiag2. The latest crash produced this message:
Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BEX64
Application Name: PDR.exe
Application Version: 16.0.3424.0
Application Timestamp: 5bc9b043
Fault Module Name: nvinitx.dll_unloaded
Fault Module Version: 25.21.14.2531
Fault Module Timestamp: 5cac7ebd
Exception Offset: 000000000000611b
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Data: 0000000000000008
OS Version: 6.3.9600.2.0.0.768.101
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: d57c
Additional Information 2: d57c2cf9f7f7582733f8cf995fd683f5
Additional Information 3: 7b49
Additional Information 4: 7b49c274b27f904840c2f0bf374dc62d
Read our privacy statement online:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=280262
I did have the latest Nvidia drivers installed. After this error message I went into nvidia console and rolled back the drivers.
I can now open a movie again without crashing, although there are a couple of missing images which PD says have been
deleted or moved (although I did neither)
I am not going to say it---but it might be working again. I will open back up tomorrow and see what happens.
Charles
I worked for about two hours last night in PD16 after an all day exploration of problem solving. I thought I was good until
it crashed again.
Turned off the laptop and went to bed. This morning it is still crashing. It works when I boot in safe mode.
I am getting the feeling that the crashes may be related to the graphics card and/or drivers, but I am not sure.
Can anyone point me in a direction? I am willing to try to work through it.
|
