If all your clips are black/empty when you open an existing project in PD16, that means the media clips are not in the original folder they were in when you created the project.

Perhaps they were still on your camera while it was connected via USB, or maybe they were a flash drive that is no longer connected or has had its drive letter changed. You should have gotten a message box when you opened that project that PD couldn't find the media clips and would have been given the option to browse for them, to ignore the message about that clip or ignore all missing clips.

Tracking down where your clips are is the solution, and I hope you didn't intentionally delete them after making the PD project as the media clips are never stored in the PDS file. They must always remain on your computer until you have produced the finished video.

I'm also unclear on your comment about finding the New Topic button. It's true that the option to start a new topic isn't on every page like it is on some forums, but it is at the top of each forum's main index page:



YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Hi, Thanks for your reply optodata,

The unedited footage is still intact in my "Huawei Vieos & Photos" folder on my PC, and I can reupload them for a new Powerdirector project.
There are threads about this topic from 9/10 years ago which mention that Powerdirector 8 had a bug which was fixable by a complicated process, or shutting off shadow files, these remedies helped some, but I havent seen any more recent posts.

Perhaps it is my computer that randomly decides to erase all my edited Huawei footage, but less than half my memory has been used. Using the Browse option the projects are not there.

I have always reloaded projects that I'm working on via my "Huawei Projects folder", but then I have to click on "Ignore All", and this has aways worked for me. I think however, you are supposed to start the Powerdirector programme first, and then retrieve projects, but I have only been able to retrieve all of them at once and not singly.

I will continue to work on a solution to this problem.

Ref the "New Topic" icon, I think it should be on the home screen. I can't see a way to change the forum index (but I must have done, spending ages clicking on everything). "Powerdirector (previous versions" is not really Something I would have thought of clicking on to find a New Topic option.
As far as I can remember this is the first forum I have ever joined.

Best regards

BarryD

One should always copy the files from the phone to the hard drive first. Here is one tutorial that may help with the black thumbnails: https://youtu.be/yhQ_1Q4H6EY .

Quote I have always reloaded projects that I'm working on via my "Huawei Projects folder", but then I have to click on "Ignore All", and this has aways worked for me. I think however, you are supposed to start the Powerdirector programme first, and then retrieve projects, but I have only been able to retrieve all of them at once and not singly.

I'm trying to figure out what's happening but I can't quite understand what you're doing.

You shouldn't ever get any media missing messages, yet you say you're always clicking "Ignore All" If you wanted to make a screen recording showing that it would really help us see the situation, and we could possibly offer some suggestions to help make your editing more reliable.

YouTube/optodata

DS365 | Win11 Pro | Ryzen 9 3950X | RTX 4070 Ti | 32GB RAM | 10TB SSDs | 5K+4K HDR monitors

Canon Vixia GX10 (4K 60p) | HF G30 (HD 60p) | Yi Action+ 4K | 360Fly 4K 360°

Quote One should always copy the files from the phone to the hard drive first. Here is one tutorial that may help with the black thumbnails: https://youtu.be/yhQ_1Q4H6EY .

Hi, I do copy the videos from my phone to the computer first, and they are still there. It's just the PDS files that have gone blank.
I have upgraded to powerdirector 18 now though as it is more 4K friendly, and have had no further problems with this. The original PDS files are still blank though, with just titles playing properly.

That is a very good video though.

Quote Hi, I do copy the videos from my phone to the computer first, and they are still there. It's just the PDS files that have gone blank.
I have upgraded to powerdirector 18 now though as it is more 4K friendly, and have had no further problems with this. The original PDS files are still blank though, with just titles playing properly.

That is a very good video though.

Post the full path name to where you are copying your phone videos to the computer, is it by chance a PD volatile area? Hate for you to experience the same issue with PD18 again in the future.

Jeff

Quote

I'm trying to figure out what's happening but I can't quite understand what you're doing.

You shouldn't ever get any media missing messages, yet you say you're always clicking "Ignore All" If you wanted to make a screen recording showing that it would really help us see the situation, and we could possibly offer some suggestions to help make your editing more reliable.

Hi Optodata, I have now upgraded to Powerdirector 18 as it is more 4K friendly, and have had no further problems with new projects. The original PDS files are still blank on the timeline though if I retreive them (with just the titles playing), but I've started my project again from scratch.
Before watching a Powerdirector University Video I didn't know that the proper way to retreive projects was via the "File"icon.
I used to launch Powerdirector from my Powerdirector Projects in documents. I have made many videos using this method with no problems though, but i did have to click on "ignore all" when the box came up.

Quote Before watching a Powerdirector University Video I didn't know that the proper way to retreive projects was via the "File"icon.
I used to launch Powerdirector from my Powerdirector Projects in documents. I have made many videos using this method with no problems though, but i did have to click on "ignore all" when the box came up.

There's no "proper" or "improper" way to launch PD, and double-clicking on a PDS project is a perfectly fine way to start PD with that project loaded.

Again we're back to the issue of your original projects having blank/black clips and you having to click Ignore All. The only reason that will happen is if the original clips are no longer where they were when you created that project. If you knew for certain that the clips were on your phone or on your camcorder's SD card, it should simply be a matter of reconnecting the card or device and then opening the PD project.

It's also possible for the original drive letter of the camera/SD card to be changed by Windows, especially if another USB drive is plugged in, and you'd then just need to choose Browse from the PD menu and locate where the clip(s) is(are) currently located.

You could also search for them on your computer (I use a free utility called Everything from VoidTools to do that very quickly) and move them all to a more permanent location one one of your internal drives. That way, when you Browse for the clips and PD is able to find them, saving the project will lock in their new locations and you won't ever have to search for them again.

Quote

There's no "proper" or "improper" way to launch PD, and double-clicking on a PDS project is a perfectly fine way to start PD with that project loaded.

Again we're back to the issue of your original projects having blank/black clips and you having to click Ignore All. The only reason that will happen is if the original clips are no longer where they were when you created that project. If you knew for certain that the clips were on your phone or on your camcorder's SD card, it should simply be a matter of reconnecting the card or device and then opening the PD project.

It's also possible for the original drive letter of the camera/SD card to be changed by Windows, especially if another USB drive is plugged in, and you'd then just need to choose Browse from the PD menu and locate where the clip(s) is(are) currently located.

You could also search for them on your computer (I use a free utility called Everything from VoidTools to do that very quickly) and move them all to a more permanent location one one of your internal drives. That way, when you Browse for the clips and PD is able to find them, saving the project will lock in their new locations and you won't ever have to search for them again.

Hi Optodata,

I don't know how to upload a photo to this forum, but I have one showing the timeline with blank clips in situ. I think a glitch affecting all the PDS files filmed on my Huawei phone must have somehow occured. The files are still there but have no imformation in them.

See this Read me: https://forum.cyberlink.com/forum/posts/list/80133.page on taking screen shots and attaching it to your next reply.