Hoping that someone either knows a trick, or a macro, or some other clever solution... Here's my scenario:

I'll often download a "montage" video full of clips -- "Wacky Vintage Ads" or "Ten Fastest Rollercoasters" -- and I'll want to split them up into separate files. In particular, I like using PowerDirector because the clips in the original montage jump all over the place in terms of volume.

You probably know what I'm talking about, but a good example of such a volume jump comes about about 1:50 in this long video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TwW3RWGZN8#t=1m43s

My goal is to take the individual long video, chop it into smaller chunks, normalize them, and save them out as individual files that go into a folder full of such silly clips, all about the same volume.

Here's my current process:

1. Open the long video in PowerDirector and pick all the break points between clips (based on content, and also on volume jumps).


2. File > Insert Project... Then insert a project ("Good Volume Clips") with a ton of clips that are already my target volume. (Enough clips to force the new clips to conform to the established good volume.)


3. Normalize the entire video, then delete all the "Good Volume Clips," leaving only the newly adjusted clips.


4. Save each clip as a separate PDS file.


5. Batch produce the PDS files.

I see that step #1 is subjective, and there's no way to automate it, but step 4 sure looks like it could be automated. (And maybe also steps 2 and 3.)

I'd like to be able to say:

"PowerDirector, here is a PDS file called 'Wacky Ads,' containing 14 clips. Please output 14 separate PDS files, called 'Wacky Ads 01' through 'Wacky Ads 14'."

I'm about certain that PowerDirector doesn't do that natively, but I'm wondering if there's some kind of macro, or other clever way to do this.

If it's truly a "macro" I'm wishing for, then I might as well wish big and ask if it could also do steps 2 and 3 as well. (They aren't difficult steps, but they take time -- especially waiting for the Normalization process to complete in step 3.)

I don't think I need to automate step 5.

Does anyone have any ideas? The ideal would be a built-in "Save Clips as Individual Files" or "Export Individual Clips" command, but I'd be willing to put a few hours (or a few dollars) into finding, creating, or even purchasing some other solution.

Thanks in advance, for any ideas.

AG