Hi Philip,

The proper way to back up projects for what you want to do is use the Pack Project feature.

To use it, just create a folder on your desktop for your project. Next, open the saved project in PowerDirector, go to File > Pack Project Materials, and then select the folder you created on the desktop. PowerDirector will put the project file, and all of the media files that you used in the project (and the produced file if there is one) into this folder.

You can then take this folder and put it on an external hard disk.

Let me know if you have any questions.

David

Quote Hi Philip,

The proper way to back up projects for what you want to do is use the Pack Project feature.

To use it, just create a folder on your desktop for your project. Next, open the saved project in PowerDirector, go to File > Pack Project Materials, and then select the folder you created on the desktop. PowerDirector will put the project file, and all of the media files that you used in the project (and the produced file if there is one) into this folder.

You can then take this folder and put it on an external hard disk.

Let me know if you have any questions.

David

Great! Thanks David. Now I can secure my work. Best, Phil Philip Anderson
Charlottesville, Virginia USA

Quote Hi Philip,

The proper way to back up projects for what you want to do is use the Pack Project feature.

To use it, just create a folder on your desktop for your project. Next, open the saved project in PowerDirector, go to File > Pack Project Materials, and then select the folder you created on the desktop. PowerDirector will put the project file, and all of the media files that you used in the project (and the produced file if there is one) into this folder.

You can then take this folder and put it on an external hard disk.

Let me know if you have any questions.

David

I have a question about backining up
I am asking this because I just lost all my work of a full month editting
I am a newbie in editing and just started to edit a pile of holiday movies of the last years and still many to follow.
I
My problem is I am working on 2 computers, one at home and one in our holiday home
On both computers I want to do my editing
I solved this using a external hard drive and bring my hard drive from one computer to the other
I had all my work on that hard drive incl projects, clips and media clips, etc.
I can not solve my problem of losing the material I have lost but I want to avoid that from now on
So I want to work on my computer at home, want to back copies of all materials and bring thta materials on a external hard drive to my holiday house computer, copy there teh material I need and start working there

The 2 computers are different and have a different directory structure

What do I need to do to make situation workable
I think just making the backup as you discripted would not be sufficient I think
For example the location of the original mediaclips need they be exactly the same on both computers?

kind regards,
Andre

Quote What do I need to do to make situation workable
I think just making the backup as you discripted would not be sufficient I think
For example the location of the original mediaclips need they be exactly the same on both computers?

kind regards,
Andre

The Pack Projects method does exactly what you're looking for.

For example, if you simply copy the project (and all related media files), then PD will look for the media in the same place on your other machine. You will be prompted to browse when PD can't find the content in the original location, and will need to navigate to the new location whenever PD can't find a clip. You will need to do this the first time you run the program on the other machine, but not afterwards.

When you pack a project, howevver, PD actually copies all the clips to the destination folder and also changes the pds file to look in the same folder as the project - so it always "knows" where the files are. That's why this is probably the best way to go.

The only downside I can think of would be if you have several projects using some of the same clips. Every time you pack a project, PD will create a new copy of every media clip used in that project. You may then end up with several copies of each of those clips, and if they are large files, you may run out of space on your external drive.

A compromise solution might then be to simply store all of your media clips in a single folder on your external drive, and if each machine mounts it differently, you'd simply browse to that location each time you open a project for the first time on each machine. If your external drive is fairly slow, it might make more sense to copy the content into a folder on an internal HDD/SSD and point PD there instead.

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Quote

The Pack Projects method does exactly what you're looking for.

For example, if you simply copy the project (and all related media files), then PD will look for the media in the same place on your other machine. You will be prompted to browse when PD can't find the content in the original location, and will need to navigate to the new location whenever PD can't find a clip. You will need to do this the first time you run the program on the other machine, but not afterwards.

When you pack a project, howevver, PD actually copies all the clips to the destination folder and also changes the pds file to look in the same folder as the project - so it always "knows" where the files are. That's why this is probably the best way to go.

The only downside I can think of would be if you have several projects using some of the same clips. Every time you pack a project, PD will create a new copy of every media clip used in that project. You may then end up with several copies of each of those clips, and if they are large files, you may run out of space on your external drive.

A compromise solution might then be to simply store all of your media clips in a single folder on your external drive, and if each machine mounts it differently, you'd simply browse to that location each time you open a project for the first time on each machine. If your external drive is fairly slow, it might make more sense to copy the content into a folder on an internal HDD/SSD and point PD there instead.

sounds great, I will try, thanks