Hei Dafydd,

I'm not hogging this thread but found your following comment most interesting ...

Question 5. How do I render to video just a section of my production? ...
Your answer: Deselect tracks may help. Isolate portions of a project, duplicating them to a single production track. Render the isolated single track might be a solution.

To date I have been copying and pasting for production a portion of a working project into a new project and then importing it back into the working project. Your method seems much simpler ... thanks for the tip. I had tried highlighting a section but this did not work ... it produced the 'whole'.
Ron CYa Ron (W10/i5gen8/Nvidia)
Someone famous once said: "We only have the 4th dimension of 'time' so that everything does not all happen at once"

Ref my post above. I tested producing a short section from the timeline. The only way I could see to do this was to create a track above track 1, move or copy what I wanted to produce to this track, deselect the below track/s and produce. The result was that it produced all the tracks but those deselected produced as 'black' with no information.
Maybe the best (only?) way is to copy the required section, paste into a new project, produce and then (as needed) import it back into the working project. Other ideas anyone CYa Ron (W10/i5gen8/Nvidia)
Someone famous once said: "We only have the 4th dimension of 'time' so that everything does not all happen at once"

Hi Guys Thanks for you efforts. But… 
Dafydd. Thanks I appreciate the ideas but on point

#1. That’s not how I mean. What I mean is that if I’m specifically working on one part of movie. I should be able to easily select that section of the timeline which could contain 2 or 3 clips, part of the music, and an effect or two and work simply just within that section to adjust timing against music and effects and such. Ideally when one hits stop it goes back to the beginning of that section and NOT the beginning of the whole movie. And it should also “stop” at the end of that selected section not play through to the end of the movie. Hitting “pause” stops the play head of course right where it is, but to hafta constantly be manuvering the play head is a nuisance. Think of it this way, its like the way PD can isolate clips and play just the clip. There should be another option, as it stands now you can select for playback “clip”, or “movie”. There should be a 3rd choice. “timeline selection” so one can isolate specific sections that may contain more than just one clip.

#2 No that’s not what I mean, PD has a 2500 image import limit or something like that. So you can’t use that sort of method. A simple 3 minute movie in the form of an image sequence is 5400 frames. And there appears to be no handling of image sequences in PD at all. Often within other applications or from other studios for example I may receive a preproduction image sequence. Basically a movie in the form of lossless or uncompressed still images, anywhere from 2000 to 50 thousand images or more. This is to retain the original quality. One does not want to re-encode something repeatedly. For example to bring an mp4 or what not into PD then re-encode it again is not always a good idea. By the end of the production if something’s been re-encoded 4 and 5 times the final quality will suffer greatly. These image sequences typically are brought into the editor on the timeline for further work and to ultimately become encoded and bound into the container (.mp4, .avi, etc) it’s clear that PD simply has no consideration for importing and or exporting image sequences.

#3 if using a background image really is the answer that at least is some sort of a “work around” but not ideal.

#4. A bunch of blank tracks you can’t remove is not professionally logical, it’s a waste of very valuable screen real estate, . . And right click simply won’t remove them unless my PD is broken. If I open PD it gives me a default layout of 8 tracks, there is apparently no way to remove these tracks. “Remove empty tracks” simply does nothing at all to these tracks. I understand that most consumer oriented users probably just figure that’s the way all editors are and give it no thought at all, but truth is its quite “different” and definitely not ideal.

#5 see Rons second post.

Thanks for your time and efforts DafyDD Its appreciated.. I think it’s safe to say PD just doesn’t do this stuff.
Ron also thanks for your input as well, I guess I’ll just hafto work projects with 2 files, 1. The master project and 2. A fodder project that can be stripped out and down to the part I want to produce and share with a client for and as a topic discussion. When I need to “share” just 40 seconds of a 5 minute movie to illustrate a transitional idea or whatnot I’ve been having to “capture” the pd preview window using camtasia studio as a work around which is also a bit of pain.. I think a duplicate project that can be torn down is a better idea at least. But it’s just crazy to not be able to render just frames “455 to 950”, it’s even crazier to not be able to render to the resolution of your choice…

Anyways thanks again I guess I’ve got my answers, even if I’m not pleased with them, what does one expect for a hundred bucks I guess, its just strange that free software that's been around forever such as "virtual dub" for example can do all of this. Yet PD cannot. Cyberlink should spend less on marketing and more on bringing PD up to speed. It has some very nice features, but also lacks a good amount of very important ones as well.

Best regards
T.
**post edited to make it "easier on the eyes"...

Quote: Ref my post above. I tested producing a short section from the timeline. The only way I could see to do this was to create a track above track 1, move or copy what I wanted to produce to this track, deselect the below track/s and produce. The result was that it produced all the tracks but those deselected produced as 'black' with no information.
Maybe the best (only?) way is to copy the required section, paste into a new project, produce and then (as needed) import it back into the working project. Other ideas anyone

Hi Ron,
I was aware of that short coming when I wrote up the piece. The project render responds to the track length including hidden media content. It does depend upon what the length of the project is or whether you choose to retain all the data.

Thanks for writing up your findings.
Dafydd

Another oddity.... When I do "render preview" of the timeline or any section of the timeline, then save the project and reopen the project the preview is gone, does this sound right? That you must re-render new previews each time you open and revisit the project file?

I was working on a rather heavy and demanding movie that was forwarded to me, but I had a meeting to attend. So I rendered a preview of the larger and more demanding sections of the timeline. I then saved the project so that when I revisited the project later after a meeting I'd have somewhat smooth sailing. BUT upon reopening the file I discovered that the previous preview I generated was no more.

Is this expected behavior for PD? :/

Thanks in advance.


*********edit
Correction.. My bad. It does seem to save the rendered preview with the project file. For some odd reason I closed and reopened the project and the previewed frames reappeared on the timeline. And seeming all 3 quality previews were saved. Certain portions were rendered to low quality, others to normal, and yet others to high quality. All three were retained. So this is at least a good start to the morning

Quote:
Hi Ron,
I was aware of that short coming when I wrote up the piece ...
Dafydd

On reflection Dafydd I would say that it is best to separately produce a portion of a project externally ... for me it reduces the possibility of major damage control CYa Ron (W10/i5gen8/Nvidia)
Someone famous once said: "We only have the 4th dimension of 'time' so that everything does not all happen at once"

If I understand you correctly Ron I would hafto agree 110%.... Its not at all a good idea to have to gut a working project file down to 40 seconds just to render that particular piece.

Should you save it by mistake then you are suddenly having a very, very bad day. And I'm my case could possibly have lost a considerable amount of capital given the man hours spent working on it, then in needing to rebuild it.

Frankly the only reason I've purchased PD is because a smaller studio I work with has asked multiple times if they can send me PD project files. In fact this is the second time I've purchased. The last time was with PD 10 which I recognized immediately was not appropriate for even "casual" professional usage, it was returned and refunded promptly. I figured I'd give another look at PD 11 assuming its grown up a bit.

That said. it is probably the best home/consumer editor available for a hundred bucks. ie. you tube vids, home movies, family album DVDs, "light" marketing presentations or product highlight vids etc. If they would implement some of the above features I could easily feel good paying 200.00 to 250.00..

To produce only a part of the timeline, you have to select the portion that you want to produce with the in and out markers, just like you do when you want to render the green line, then click the COPY button above the timeline. From the menu select FILE > NEW WORKSPACE (not New Project). Then click the PASTE button that's above the timeline. Produce.

After producing, you will have to open the main project again and repeat the process. Gateway DX4380, AMD A8-5500 Quad Core 3.2GHz with ATI Radeon HD 7560D; 16GB RAM; 1 TB SATA 7200 RPM; Windows 8 Pro 64-bit; PDR11, PDVD12.

To insert an image sequence, you use the Time-Lapse slideshow and set the duration of each image. To start place the images on the timeline and then click the Slideshow button. The Time-Lapse slideshow thumbnail is in the lower right. Click on the thumbnail and follow the wizard. Gateway DX4380, AMD A8-5500 Quad Core 3.2GHz with ATI Radeon HD 7560D; 16GB RAM; 1 TB SATA 7200 RPM; Windows 8 Pro 64-bit; PDR11, PDVD12.

Quote: From the menu select FILE > NEW WORKSPACE (not New Project).

I must be a bit thick this morning but I can't determine the difference between New Workspace and New Project ... operationally they seem the same? What am I missing please?
Ron CYa Ron (W10/i5gen8/Nvidia)
Someone famous once said: "We only have the 4th dimension of 'time' so that everything does not all happen at once"

New Workspace will retain the media that's in the library. New Project clears the library of all media except the default media.

Edit: You can paste in either. Gateway DX4380, AMD A8-5500 Quad Core 3.2GHz with ATI Radeon HD 7560D; 16GB RAM; 1 TB SATA 7200 RPM; Windows 8 Pro 64-bit; PDR11, PDVD12.

Thanks Xerox
Ron CYa Ron (W10/i5gen8/Nvidia)
Someone famous once said: "We only have the 4th dimension of 'time' so that everything does not all happen at once"

Quote: To insert an image sequence, you use the Time-Lapse slideshow and set the duration of each image. To start place the images on the timeline and then click the Slideshow button. The Time-Lapse slideshow thumbnail is in the lower right. Click on the thumbnail and follow the wizard.

Hi Xerox.

Appreciate your input but see my second point on my second post. (#2 PD has a 2500 image import limit or something to that order)

Thats only 1 and half minutes of footage that its able to import.. I've got 5, 10, and 20 minute long uncompressed image sequences. Far more frames than the limit allows for. The slideshow feature is really good for simply slideshows.

Virtual dub for anyone else interested can at least bring in the images and bind them into a container PD will accept. So while its and extra step if one really wants to work the content with PD it must be bound to a video container first.

For others like myself who may have some high end animation software then you can bind your image sequences using 3dsmax's ram player, or similar in maya or softimage etc.