Hi,
Can't quite follow what you are saying about creating chapters. But here is what i would suggest create each chapter, starting at one, produce that to a project specific directory (gonna need it) continue this procedure for each of the 17(?) or whatever many required (saving each project with a name corresponding to it).
When all have been completed start a new project (the final one) and go straight to Create disc module. there is a tab called 'Content' click on it and add your 1 to 17 chapters. It should when you preview your movie have all 17 chapter.
doing it this way ( I find) puts less stress on your system and you.
Hope this helps.
Jim Intel i7-2600@3.4Gz Geforce 560ti-1GB Graphic accelerator, windows 7 Premium 12GB memory

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Karl,

You have the rant out of the way and you probably feel a little better. Happy New Year by the way.

Now can you tell us what you attempted to do without the rant. I tried to figure it out from your first post but had no luck.

Could you please list the steps you took. I have done what I think you want to do many times without disrupting the work in the edit screen.

When I Produce the project to a file or burn to a disk (or folder) it does not make any changes to the original project. I have a feeling that you may have done something in the 'Creat Disc' module that is causing your headaches.

Hal
OS - Win11 Pro, Alienware R13, CPU - Intel Core I7-12700KF 12 CPUs), 16g DDR5 4400 RAM, Video - Geeforce RTX 3080ti 12g, PD11 & PD365
My YouTube

Hi Jim and Hal,

Thanks for taking the time to respond and thanks for letting me rant. (Yes Hal, I do feel better )

So here's my steps:

On the "Edit" menu, I created my project with all my edits, text, etc. I then click on the "Chapter Room" to create all my chapter points. I go through my project adding a title/chapter at the various points along my timeline. Once complete, I do a final save and then head to the "Produce" menu. Here, I create my move file and I choose the MPEG-2 option. I choose my Output folder location and hit "Start" So far all is well and good.

It completes my 2 1/2 hour move in a little over an hour. (This is why I purchased PD over Adobe because of the quick speed!)
From here things get a little dicey. I then click on the "Create Disk" menu and on the "Content" tab I see my freshly rendered/created move file. Great, no problem so far. I click the "Menu Preferences" tab and choose a DVD menu. clicked the menu structure and saw my chapters. At this point I realized I needed to make a change to my project and re-render/produce a new video file. I went back to the "edit" menu, made my change and then went to "produce" and proceded to create a new file. Here's where I think PD got confused (I'm guessing): Instead of overwriting the old file, I created a new file with a different name. It created the file; I went to "Create Disk" My new file was present in the "Content" tab, but no chapters other than the default one. I removed the old file from the list, clicked save, clicked the "Show Chapters" link on the new file and still no chapters. I then went to the "Edit" menu and alas, my project time line is empty except for the complete video file.

After almost loosing it (or perhaps I did) I went to the autosave and retreaved an older version. Whew! Got my project back. (It had saved over the main project and my project file size went from 13Meg to 120k or so.) I then tried many different times of re-rendering, as the old file name, new file name etc. Probably did this at least 4 or 5 times, each time not getting my chapters to show up after the video file is produced.

I finally resorted to simply creating a new movie file and then let it "save over" my project file (after taking a backup of course) and then added the chapters to the movie file directly in the Chapters tab in the edit menu.

If PD lets you create chapters at the time when you are working in your project, then I would think that if you then render a move file, change something, go back a render that file even under a new name then the chapters should still show up once at the Create Disk area. I know that the move file is independent of the chapters per-se, however it is confusing. It seems that the project and the move file are mutually exclusive. I just confuses the heck out of me.

So I don't know, I guess going forward I will not make chaptes in the project itself but create a move file and then go back and add chapters under a new project. Does not add up to me, but if it works then ok.

Hope that makes sense as to what I tried. Again, I want to give PD a chance but I've been pretty unhappy up to this point. Let's see what the end result will be.

Thanks guys,

Karl

Karl,

I am going to pick a few points out here in my quotes and try to answer them for you.

I then click on the "Create Disk" menu and on the "Content" tab I see my freshly rendered/created move file

When you enter the 'Create Disc' module, PD does not use the file that you rendered in the 'Produce module'. These are seperate and different modules.

The 'Produce Module' is to create files that can be watched on your computer. You can choose the same format as is used in the 'Create Disc' Module or you can choose other profiles to suit yourself and the media you have used.

The 'Create Disc' module is for creating and writing your media in the time line to disk. In the 'Create Disc Module', the media in the time line is used to create the movie on the disc. It does not use the rendered file you created in the 'Produce Module'.

Many of us pre-produce/render our work for use in the 'Create Disc' module as you are doing. But, in order to use the pre-produced file you must start a new project and import your file that was created. Insert this file in the timeline to use it in the 'Create Disc' module. Note: You will not have chapters in the rendered/produced file in this case. The 'Produce' module does not save the chapters in the produced file. Chapters are only used in the 'Create Disc' module.

I went back to the "edit" menu, made my change and then went to "produce" and proceded to create a new file. Here's where I think PD got confused (I'm guessing): Instead of overwriting the old file, I created a new file with a different name. It created the file; I went to "Create Disk" My new file was present in the "Content" tab, but no chapters other than the default one.

When you return to the edit room before burning, you will have your project just as you finished it. If you make any edits, you may/will lose your chapter markers. You will have to check to see that they are still there and where you want them after any edits.

After almost loosing it (or perhaps I did) I went to the autosave and retreaved an older version. Whew! Got my project back. (It had saved over the main project and my project file size went from 13Meg to 120k or so.)

I think you are confusing the project file with the produced mpeg file. A PowerDirector project file is just a text file that records the media you use, the location of the media and a text record of the edits that you want to make to the media. The PD project file makes no changes to the media. It does not contain any of the media. That is why the size is so small. It is only text. When you produce/create disc then PowerDirector reads your instructions in the project files and creates a file according to your instructions.

I hope I am not just adding confusion to the matter.

thanks for letting me rant.

We all, by times need to have a little rant. Glad you are feeling somewhat better. One request though, could you put just one problem in each post? I am getting crosseyed trying to go back and forth

If you have further questions, just ask. There are a good many of us here that love to help users of PowerDirector.

Hal
Sorry if there are any typos, it is late where I am. OS - Win11 Pro, Alienware R13, CPU - Intel Core I7-12700KF 12 CPUs), 16g DDR5 4400 RAM, Video - Geeforce RTX 3080ti 12g, PD11 & PD365
My YouTube

Hal,

Really appreciate your response! (Happy New Year, BTW) So, in a nutshell what you are saying is that all of the "Modules" i.e. Capture, Edit, Produce and Create Disc are seperate, fully independent areas? OK, I'll go with that. Seems somewhat unintuitive to me. I guess I was looking at it all as the steps one goes through to create a DVD in that you Capture your video (should you need to), edit it, Produce/render the file, and then finally burn that to disk. I guess I was assuming the produce area was one of the steps to the final result. But you are saying that I can simply go from "Edit" to "Create Disk" thus compleatly bypassing the "Produce" step?

If I think of it like that I guess I can understand somewhat the issues. I'll have to go back through my project with that mindset to see what happens. From what you are saying when I added my "Produced move .mpg file" and then removed the default, it wiped out my timeline. What was confusing to me was that I thought the "video" in the Content tab in the Create Disc menu was my newly created move file. Not the case I guess. You are saying it is the Project data from my timeline?

That clears it up for me. (I think) I'll work with it in that mindset and see how it goes. Again, thanks for clearing it up. I really want PD to work for me. Just getting used to the different things can be trickey.

Karl.

Karl,

Every editor has his/her own personal preferences for working a project. I have developed a workflow that suits me. It may suit some others but not necessarily.

I use the produce module very often for bits and pieces of my projects. Some which I know will give my machine fits. Some are portions that I figure I might like to use in other projects.

I always produce each piece to mpeg2 and to AVCHD. That way I have the necessary building blocks for standard DVD or BlueRay.

When I am ready to burn, I load the produced files to a new project for the burn only. I may add some extra content or modifications at this time. I will burn to a folder on my HD before trying a burn to disc. This way I can test the burn for success and have a look at the result for possible errors, alterations or additions. When satisfied, I will create the disc.

Unlike some of the others, I always burn my original discs in PD.

Once you establish a workflow that suits you, I am sure you will enjoy editing with PD.

Hal
OS - Win11 Pro, Alienware R13, CPU - Intel Core I7-12700KF 12 CPUs), 16g DDR5 4400 RAM, Video - Geeforce RTX 3080ti 12g, PD11 & PD365
My YouTube

Quote: What was confusing to me was that I thought the "video" in the Content tab in the Create Disc menu was my newly created move file. Not the case I guess. You are saying it is the Project data from my timeline?

That clears it up for me. (I think) I'll work with it in that mindset and see how it goes. Again, thanks for clearing it up. I really want PD to work for me. Just getting used to the different things can be trickey.

Karl.

Don't feel bad. After I accidentally stumbled on the idea that you don't need to produce before burning a disk, it made perfect sense.

I still do a produce so that I can preview it on a TV before burning a disk, but that's a choice. Jerry Schwartz