Timeline data, effects, edits etc disappeared?

fibredrive

Newbie Joined: Mar 13, 2010 05:28 Messages: 3 Offline

Solved by

Mar 13, 2010 05:45

Hi there,

I just bought and downloaded PD8 Deluxe couple days back.

I used it for a video edit of a company event. Basically, I have about 7 video footages in all. 6 of which are performances for the night. The final one is an edit of the entire night together with photos. I am having some problems with this file.

After editing the entire video with effects, PiP etc and music track, I go to the "Produce" tab and reduce it to an MPG2 file. I save my project and exit. When I re-open PD8 later, all my edits have disappeared and it only loads the MPG2 file which I produced. I don't understand. what happened to my original file with all the timeline data, effects, music etc? It does not even load my media library. This only happens for this large file. The other 6 projects have no issues. I have re-done the project twice and twice it's happened. Grateful if someone could clarify. I know there are autosave files but the funny thing is these files have the same problems.

Strangely, my PDS file sizes are about 1.2MB. which means there is data on it?

thanks in advance.

My system specifications as follows: -

AMD Phenom II 955
Gigabyte MB
4GB Kingston HyperX ram
Corsair 520W Modular PSU
Windows XP SP3
ATI Radeon HD4830 512MB
WD Caviar Black and Green (Total 1TB HDD)
Echo Layla 3G external Sound card
Power Director 8 Deluxe v. 2508

TheShadowman

Member Location: St Albans, Herts, United Kingdom Joined: Dec 31, 2009 12:05 Messages: 57 Offline

Mar 13, 2010 07:39

Hi Fibredrive

Have a look at this page on the forum. In particular the post by Kevin about "packing project". You may find it useful.

http://directorzone.cyberlink.com/posts/list/1490.page

Regards

Robert

Cap'n Kevin

Senior Contributor Location: Chebeague Island, Maine Joined: Dec 26, 2008 20:22 Messages: 2011 Offline

Mar 13, 2010 08:58

Hi Fibredrive,

One other thought...Just confirm something... you attempt to open your Project file( it should have a .pds extension) and all it imports is the finished mpg2 file and you see it placed on the Editing TimeLine?

That does sound odd....

You might get lucky though..Power Director by default auto saves your project and places it in a folder every 10 minutes. If you haven't disabled this setting you will find it here. Just navigate to your Preferences and click on the "browse" button and it will point you to the folder where the Auto Saved Project files are living. Try opening them and see if it gets you back to somewhere that is better.

See Screen Shot.

Good Luck,

Kevin


Filename	Auto Save.JPG	Download
Description
Filesize	79 Kbytes
Downloaded:	139 time(s)

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TheShadowman

Member Location: St Albans, Herts, United Kingdom Joined: Dec 31, 2009 12:05 Messages: 57 Offline

Mar 13, 2010 11:43

Fibredrive, Hi again

As kevin says, this is very odd.

When you save the file, PD8 should only give you the option to "save project" Is that what you get when you save the file?

Now, to find that file again I think you may be trying to import it (yellow folder) which will only give you the MPG2.

Are you going to the "open project" (the white one at the very top of PD

folder to retrieve your saved work. If you do you should find the saved work.

On the other hand, if you are opening a "project" and the bits and pieces are missing you need to read the the section on "Package Project" as suggested above

I hope this helps

Robert

Edit!! I may have misunderstood what you were saying. If some of your files are OK you are obviously doing it right - sorry

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Mar 13. 2010 12:49

fibredrive

Newbie Joined: Mar 13, 2010 05:28 Messages: 3 Offline

Mar 14, 2010 06:50

hi all,

thanks for the replies. sorry for replying late due to time differences.

Cap n Kevin - yes. you got that right. "you attempt to open your Project file( it should have a .pds extension) and all it imports is the finished mpg2 file and you see it placed on the Editing TimeLine?" This is my exact problem. All my edits and effects etc disappeared. this only happens with this one file. My other projects which are much simpler in terms of edits and effects, do not have this problem.
Even with my Autosave files, i open them and all i get is the same mpg2 file in the timeline. I am tearing my hair here. I don't know why only this file is affected. Is it because it's too large?

Cap'n Kevin

Senior Contributor Location: Chebeague Island, Maine Joined: Dec 26, 2008 20:22 Messages: 2011 Offline

Mar 14, 2010 09:06

Hi fibredrive,

I don't have an answer....if you had several .pds files that were auto saved and when you open "each" of them and all you get is your mpg2 file on the timeline...then that is beyond my knowledge and experience as to why or how to correct it.

Someone may chime in with an alternate solution. But I feel your pain and understand how frustrating it can be when things go amis.

regards,
Kevin

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fibredrive

Newbie Joined: Mar 13, 2010 05:28 Messages: 3 Offline

Mar 14, 2010 21:32

hi kevin, many thanks for the help and advice nonetheless. appreciate it.

yes it is frustrating. there is so much more i wanted to do with the video but i could not. sometimes it crashes on me, sometimes it hangs. i don't believe my computer's power is insufficient to handle this? i may be wrong. it is unfortunate given that i find it very easy to use. it simplifies so many things now, and is indeed powerful. in the old days, i used Macromedia's Director and it was a pain just to do text effects. Now PD8 simplifies everything. I will contact Tech Support and see what the issue is.

Thanks again everyone for your contribution and advice!

cheers