Hi Monika. Let's assume you have a single video track layed down in the master video track (the top track). Power Director 7 (PD7) won't allow you to move it to the right because it would create an empty space on the master video track. (also to note: video's and pictures can both be placed on the master track).

The solution is to drop a color board for your title in the master video track (like a background for your title). You want to place the color board in front of your video and then re-size it to match the length of your title. Most of the time I use looping background videos myself (becuase it looks so much better - they're hard to come by unless you buy a package of them). But you can use an picture you'd like instead of a color board.

-Select the Media Room (top room - F3 will select it)
-From the drop down list box that defaults to "all media" select the last choice: color boards
-Pick one and drag and drop into infront of your video. You don't have to be exact. If you drop it anywhere on the first half of the video it will move the video over to the right.
-Now place your mouse over the right edge of that color board. When you do this, the cursor will change into a double arrorw. Click and hold down and then drage to make that color board larger or smaller.
-You can do the same thing to change the size of your title.

Taking this a step further, select the "Transiton Room" (F7). Pick a transition you'd like and drop it onto the right endge of color board. Also make sure your title finishes before the transition begins. Now instead of your video or picture just appearing instantly, there will be a nice transition. If you don't like the transition you picked, you can drag and drop another one on top of it to replace it. You can also click on the transition and press the delete key to get rid of it.

The best way to learn Power Director is by watching the video tutorials on YouTube. There's a list in the sticky thread above:
http://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/3523.page

Good Luck

I have the exact same problem. I cannot move the video files around but I can move the titles, and transitions anywhere on the time line. I cannot move the videos at all. I used to use Adobe Premier and I could drag video clips anywhere but this program that I just purchased last night doesn't let me move them anywhere I need them to be.


Can anyone help Monika and me? Affordable Medical Insurance
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Thanks Walker. That did help. Now my video preview window just quit showing the video, or the clips or anything at all.

Man, THis software had rave reviews from a bunch of websites but I am having my doubts about the usability thus far. Affordable Medical Insurance
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As an alterntaive to using colour boards I quite fregeuently use a freeze frame of the first video clip that follows the titles.

You have to make sure that you chosen font has a good colour contrast to the freeze frame (I use red with a yellow border).

The effect of this technique is that the movie suddenly springs to life when the titles have ended.

To get the freeze frame select the video clip in the edit track (make sure the cursor is right at the start of the clip - it usuually is) and then click on the doublde rectangle button just to the right of the double arrow button in the preview window in the top right hand corner of the screen. Name the frezze frame which will then appear in the media window.

Drag the freeze frame to the video track, making sure that it is to the left of the first video clip and insert your titles. You have to be careful to ensure that the you are putting the titles over the freeze frame and not the video clip as they, not surprisingly, look identical in the time line.

Regards

Rodney

Quote: Thanks Walker. That did help. Now my video preview window just quit showing the video, or the clips or anything at all.

Man, THis software had rave reviews from a bunch of websites but I am having my doubts about the usability thus far.

You should try learning Vegas 8 or Avid. Video editing software doesn't get much easier than Power Director really. There's some more simple packages out there and Pinnacle Ultra is even eaiser to pick up from scratch but PD7 is more powerful and really a breeze to learn how to use.

My guess is: you did what I said and when you went to play the video you still had the color board selected. If a single object on the timeline area is selected, PD7 will try to only play that object, ignoring all other tracks and stopping playback at the end of the selected object. Just click an empty area of the timeline to de-select the object and re-select the entire timeline.

Thanks Walker and Rodney. I really appreciate all of the input.

Walker, I used to use Vegas Video, Pinnacle/Avid Systems etc. I got the titles etc to play but the preview window kept locking up and not playing anything but the audio, even when I selected "Movie" instead of "Clip" under the preview window. After it had done that for about 10 minutes, my entire system locked up. I am running a 3.2 Ghz P4 processor with 2 Gig or RAM and using XP Pro as an OS. I'll mess around with it again later tonight and see what happens.

I think there are some very simple aspects to the operation of the software that are great and really easy but I may have been better off not having any video editing or audio editing experience at all before starting this.

Just as an FYI, I have been an audio engineer for 21 years and run a commercial recording studio and we have done everything from major label recording projects, some commercial video/dvd production, and live sound engineering. I actually have quite a bit of experience in non linear editing etc. Affordable Medical Insurance
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Oh that doesn't sound good sorry. The preview window is a very intensive process. It can even lag for me when source videos are very high quality or un-compressed.

2GB is probably a bit low. I'd really say that for Power Director You'd want to have 3GB or more. I've seen 2GB solid be in use while working with PD7.

For example, lets say you were on the edge of free physical RAM left and XP started hitting your page file heavy. The preview window in PD7 is a very intesive process where PD7 is generating on the fly content. Of course while doing this, it's reading your assets off the HD. So you have a massive bottleneck generated between asset access and pagefile access. That could really explain what you're describing (or not - PD7 can be buggy).

Also... the speed of a processor means almost nothing any more. It use to mean something but now it doesn't at all except when comparing two of the exact same processors. My quad core also runs at 3.2Ghz but it can probably encode video 10 times as fast (probably even faster). From what I've seen I'd have to say that you really want a dual core processor for video editing, and a quad-core if you can afford it.

Try doing exactly what you're doing but with stretched out pictures instead of video. If that works perfectly, that's a good sign that your system might be a bit weak for dealing with the preview window.

Thanks Walker. That is about what I thought. I only use this system for our web site developement and customer tracking so it isn't our fastest system by any means. I will either upgrade it or just switch over to one of our other systems.

While we are on the subject of titles, how can I get a title to come up while the video fades away and keep the audio from the video playing and then have the video come back in while the title fades out. I used a color board and I can get the title to come in like I want it to but the audio from the video cuts out until the title is done. Affordable Medical Insurance
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Try putting the black color board on the PIP track. Expand it till it completely covers the main video track. To have it fade in and out double click on it and the PIP editor opens. Above all the mask overlays you have 2 buttons, click on the right one (PIP motion properties) and at the bottom of the motion properties choices you have two boxes to check.

Fade in and fade out.

Adjust the length of the black color board to cover the video on the main track as desired. The color board clip should have no audio track, if there is one be sure and mute it. The audio on the main track will continue uninterrupted.

Then you can add a title on the title track below, edit it and trim to length, and add any effects (fades or whatever) by clicking the effects button in the title editor. If you're confused on this part check out the "Titles and tips" tutorial on youtube in the cyberlink channel.

Also a note on hardware.

I had to change out video cards to get away from the preview window going black and nothing playing but audio.

Changing from a card with 256MB memory on it to an Nvidia GeForce 8800GT with 512MB helped a lot.

I could not edit the full qual my cam would do in another package, and although PD7 would try it wouldn't display video from the timeline.

The graphics card change solved both problems.

Sounds like with your P4 you may still be editing in SD. It may just barely handle HDV but most likely you'll need to move up to a dual core processor based machine. If you are even entertaining thoughts of moving to "tapeless" HD you'll likey need to bypass the dual core and go right to FAST quad core.

Facts of life.