Transition duration not cooperating

[gdog]

On my initial cross fade action, when I set the duration, and hit enter, it doesn't set the duration I inputted, nor does it prompt me on clip overlap.  I have to click on the transition again and set the duration I want, hit enter, and then it prompts me and sets the correct duration.

Also, I'm still seeing the adjacent layer track frame glitch problem I brought up months ago, where I have a clip on track 1 connected to a clip on the same track and a text overlay on video track 2 for the second clip.  On the connecting, a frame of the previous clip shows, so the text overlay shows a frame from the previous clip before starting the second clip.

[borate]

Upload the project (not the export).  Specify the clips involved and the transition duration where a cross fade attempt is being made.  We'll check it out.

What version of Videopad is being used?

http://nch.invisionzone.com/topic/23659-tips-for-getting-help-on-this-forum/

If it contains sensitive material link it in a personal message (PM).  Click the envelope above.  It won't be passed on or retained.  Use FILE|SAVE PORTABLE PROJECT AS, not simply SAVE PROJECT, and don't forget to get a shareable, public link - not one that is restricted.

 

[Ancient Printer]

I hope that this is the best place to write my query.

I have had Video Pad four days so am virtually a beginner (late in life I am 77!) I have used video editing software before but long ago!

Q1. I am working on transitions. My video consists of about 100 slides originally derived from a Power Point presentation and then captured as a video using Debut.

I have experimented with  one or two transitions. (i) split the clip, as it started life as one clip (ii) Move the rt hand clip slightly to create a gap (iii) Click the X icon and select the transition and then set the duration eg 1 sec (iv) expand the timeline to show the duration as a grey strip along the top (v) run the sequence at 0.1X speed. (vi) mentally note where the transition starts and finishes approx (vii) change the duration to 7 sec (silly!) (viii) the grey band expands (as expected) (ix) replay the sequence - same speed) (x) the apparent duration of the transition effect is unchanged........WHY?

Q2. Can anyone provide a fast way to split the single clip into its 110 slides and a quick way to apply the same transition to each change?

Lastly a compliment to the designers of this forum - one of the easiest to use I have found - many are extremely difficult to navigate. Though that may be the onset of Alzheimers!

[borate]

If there is a gap between clips, transitioning won't work correctly.  Dragging the trans grey strip edges is another way to change its duration.

Don't see here what you describe.  Whatever the playback speed, when the transition duration is changed, it is reflected and plays as such in preview.

One way to quickly split is to position the cursor at each slide, then press the L key.  Very fast.

To add the same transition to all clips, click a clip X icon.  At the bottom of the transitions box choose APPLY TO ALL CLIPS, then click the desired transition.

[Ancient Printer]

Many thanks. Yes understoos ref gaps. Thanks for the L suggestion - that will be quick. 

I am now having trouble in implementing a single transition. I select the type (Diamond) and then Apply to All Clips and leave the duration as 1 sec. The diamond effect doesn't happen - though I HAVE had it work on one or two occasions. I'll have to leave your last remark until I can make the transition type apply correctly. Can you reiterate the exact steps to make this function apply correctly? Lastly, try as I may the duration of the effect seems to be unaffected by the time period set as I said.

Have to leave it now till morning!!

[borate]

What version of Videopad is being used?  The following works well here...

Slight revision (no need to select all clips first).

1.  Click any transition X.

2.  Change the duration, if desired.

3.  Click the chevron at the bottom and choose APPLY TO ALL.

4.  Click the effect (diamond).

To alter the duration of all transitions after the fact, use the same procedure.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

Transitions to all clips...

 

• Open VP and set the default Still Image Duration in Options/Media (Suggest a value of 10 seconds)
• In Options/Editing set the default Transition Duration to a suiyable value. (Suggest 4 seconds)
• Load all the images from their storage folder to the clip bin (Drag and drop the number required)
• Place the mouse cursor on the clip bin and click Ctrl +A  This selects all the images in the bin.
• Drag and drop all the selected images onto the Video Track.  They will all appear on the timeline with the default duration and with a transition X between them...
• 
• Click on one of the transition Xs. This opens the transition list containing active thumbnails.
• At the bottom of the window click the down arrow and select Apply to All Clips......
• 
• The default transition duration will be shown to the right of this.
• Now click the transition type required. e.g. Diamond
• All the Xs in the selected track will now turn blue and a 4 second transition bar will appear above each join. The transition (4 seconds) will be split equally over each image...
• 
• Playing the timeline now will show each clip/Image transitioning with the selected option.

Don't make the transition too short. If you want to have a different transition between each image/clip select the Random option.

Individual transitions can be made shorter  (or longer) by grabbing one end of the transition bar when a white bracket will appear, and dragging it to the left or right.

Nat

 

[Ancient Printer]

Many thanks both to Borate and Nationalsolo.

1. Transition Duration playback doesn't change.

I need to take my issues a step at a time so as not to confuse matters. So may I address the specific that the play back duration of the transition does not appear to change whatever duration is selected. Yes, the grey band can be stretched as required as an alternative to selecting a duration BUT the play back duration doesn't change. Here is a link to a video taken with Debut that shows exactly what I did. I should point out that in this sequence there are fade transitions that have come in with the original video made with Debut that was in turn made from a Power Point slide show some time ago. In the video clip, I remove that fade transition before moving on to apply the Diamond selection.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gJetOvDvZL2aTrWiqII6oxBoSA9Ogw03?usp=sharing

I click frame by frame through the transition and in both cases it lasts approx 20 frames. What am I doing wrong? Borate asks what version i am using - it is VP Professional 8.67

2. Removal of the original videoed transitions from Power Point:

Thank you again Borate for the "L" ket quick method of applying splits. For my 110 slides I might have to do two splits followed by delete for each unwanted trasition (as shown in my video clip). Any suggestions for a quick way to do this? I wondered if there is a clever means to, following a split. to delete a fixed length of the right side clip since all the old transitions are the same? 

Further comment: 

I said that the duration of play of a transition was not affected by the grey band length. However I found that the transition choices that require additional information such as "Blinds" DO respond to the duration selected whilst those such as Diamond DO NOT!!

Thank you both for all your help.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

From the point of view of deleting constant sections, there isn't a specific way to do this and have a constant interval. However this might be a little faster..

• Move the cursor to the start of the deletion point
• Place the mouse exactly on the red cursor line in the grey overlay band above the timeline. You will see a double headed arrow.
• Drag the cursor to the right to the end of your selected deletion point. The selected zone will turn blue...
• 
• Right click the blue region and select delete. The selected zone will be removed and the gap will automatically close.

You could probably do this quite rapidly after a couple of deletes.

 

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

The duration of the diamond transition (like other transitions) should alter when the transition bar above the join is lengthened or shortened.

However, I am not sure if you are editing a "video" of still image clips (which would behave like a single film clip) or individual image clips. As you are describing the need to remove old transitions by splitting and deleting I assume you are editing a single slide show clip.

Another thing to note is that you may not  see a transition if the to and from sides of a split  are the same (or no movement is occurring in the content) as would happen if you split a still image. (in effect the transition is there but goes to the same image) Fades will be visible however.

Nat

[Ancient Printer]

Thanks for that!

Yes that's right - it's a video film of a Power Point slide show. Power point has put its own transitions in the film and I want to get rid of those. Please look at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1gJetOvDvZL2aTrWiqII6oxBoSA9Ogw03?usp=sharing which shows what I am getting in regards to duration. Hope you can see what is wrong?

[Nationalsolo]

Hi

Having a bit of a problem with Google drive currently but as you say you are editing a video film then it should be fairly straight forward.

Load the film to VP and split and delete the old transitions as explained above by deleting the blue sections. I appreciate that it may be a bit time consuming but I can't think of another way that might be quicker. If any don't quite delete correctly you can always use the undo arrows at the top left of the interface. Save your work(project)  frequently as you progress along the timeline so you won't have to start all over again in the event of a cockup. (Using Save Project As will allow you to use a different name for each save.)

At the end of the editing session you should have a slideshow of individual clips. This is identical to having loaded all your images separately.

Now you can add transitions (same or random) as mentioned above.

I'll post again with a suggestion on how you can extract your slide images without splitting etc.  Just bear with me a bit.

Nat

 

[borate]

You need to change 'restricted' to ANYONE can view in Google Drive.  Then folks can access your content.

Changing transition duration here works for every choice, including diamond.

[Ancient Printer]

26 minutes ago, Nationalsolo said:

I'll post again with a suggestion on how you can extract your slide images without splitting etc.  Just bear with me a bit.

Nat

Much appreciated - many thanks

15 minutes ago, borate said:

You need to change 'restricted' to ANYONE can view in Google Drive.  Then folks can access your content.

I do believe I did that. I copied the link they gave for use by anyone. Nationalsolo says he's having touble with Google Drive - and so have I - I couldn't play my own video from Drive but of course I can from my own PC folder. Maybe it'll be OK later. I hope you can view what I did?

[borate]

You should receive a request from 'krosnafone.'  Grant it.

Switch to Storyboard mode and be sure that there are no gaps between slides where transitions are desired. 

Also suggest that you upgrade to this version.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi again

OK , If your slideshow film displays the slides at a fixed interval you could try this..... (Note it can work with luck...

The basic idea is.....Establish the duration of each image......e.g. 10 seconds  = 300 frames (30fps)

• Load the film to VP
• You have about 110 slides each of 30images/second. You want to end up (on paper) with 110 frames i.e. one frame per image.......Let's go for 10 frames per image.
• This means increasing the speed of the clip so it lasts around 30 seconds in total
• Right click the timeline and open the speed change option.
• Increase the value until the duration shown below the box is around 30 seconds  (Might need a speed change of several 1000...just experiment) 
• The timeline will become increasingly shorter..That's OK
• Now Export the video as an Image Sequence.

This should copy the frames of the project into the designated folder. Depending on the exact speed change chosen there may be multiple images of each slide.So long as none are missing you can now load an example of each one (the best) into VP. You could delete the multiples from the holding folder leaving the ones you require and then load them all in one go to VP.

Drag all these images (jpgs) to the timeline and re-edit as normal.

Worth trying and would be somewhat quicker.

Nat

[Ancient Printer]

1 hour ago, borate said:

You should receive a request from 'krosnafone.'  Grant it.

Switch to Storyboard mode and be sure that there are no gaps between slides where transitions are desired. 

Also suggest that you upgrade to this version.

Thanks. How does the krosnafone request come in? Yes - no gaps. Yes upgraded - will await any news on fixed durations once you can view my video on Google Drive.

-0-0-

Thanks Nat. Sadly the slides duration is variable (intentionally) so I realise my suggestion of a quick fix wouldn't work! Can't find how to rt click on time line - there seem to be several time lines so which? There is a speed drop down that only goes from X0.1 to X5. You must be referring to something else?

Any ideas on the fixed duration issue?

[borate]

Grant the request so anyone can view your links.  As it stands, they cannot.

As noted earlier, durations can be altered here on any transition type, including diamond, by either inputting a time or by dragging the transition grey line.

[Ancient Printer]

18 minutes ago, borate said:

Grant the request so anyone can view your links.  As it stands, they cannot.

As noted earlier, durations can be altered here on any transition type, including diamond, by either inputting a time or by dragging the transition grey line.

Please try this - Google Drive indicates "anyone can use":

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NqdxrxQQESbov4JSQCyydqKhWMVUv9QY/view?usp=sharing

It appears that Google Drive is hanging at present

[borate]

Thanks for sharing.  Unable to replicate what you see.  Suggest upgrading to the version linked above.  For licensed users upgrades are free for up to six months from purchase.  After that, VP will continue to fully function but a fee will be required in order to register the newest.  Retain your old install file and registration info.

[Ancient Printer]

I have already upgraded as you say to 8.74. I will plough on for now but come back again if I get anything more specific. It appears that the choices for transitions from the lower section of the window (those that need further parameters) work as expected. Only the upper ones such as Diamond will not respect a stretching of the grey band.

[borate]

Don't know what to tell you  As shown in the above video, the diamond transition operates correctly, no matter what its duration.

You might try an uninstalled/reinstall of the program.  And, under OPTIONS | DISK tab, Clear Unused Cache Files, just in case there is corruption.

[Ancient Printer]

OK Thamks - enough for one day! I'll have another go along the lines you suggest tomorrow.

One more point for tomorrow--- two clips abuting each other - how do I join them to be one clip?

If the split was done in error but only spotted much later so Ctrl Z is not suitable how to rejoin them?

Thanks for all the help

[borate]

Select the clips, right-click and GROUP CLIPS.  Then they will move in concert whether both are selected or not.

Sometimes, right-clicking the handles on the split will offer an UNsplit choice.  If a single clip is split but not trimmed at the split, no action will occur.

[Nationalsolo]

Hi Ancient Printer

".....Q2. Can anyone provide a fast way to split the single clip into its 110 slides and a quick way to apply the same transition to each change? ...."

If all the slides/images are equally spaced in your video of the Power Point presentation here's a even easier way to extract them...

Place the video on Track 1 and in Options set up Dual Preview Displays.

• Determine the time interval between the center of image one to the centre of image 2...Let's say it is 10 seconds
• Create a blank image of 10 seconds duration. (Same duration that you found above)
• Move the red cursor line to the centre of image 1. The image will appear in the Sequence Display.
• Right click the display and Take a Snapshot of the Sequence
• Overlay the blank image at the cursor
• Click the >II button to step the cursor to the end of the blank  on the overlay track. This will center it on image 2
• Take snapshot
• Slide the blank along Track 2 so it grabs the cursor line
• Click the >II button to step the cursor to the end of the blank   This will center it on image 3
• Continue in this way until you have copied all the slides. (110?)
• Clear the timeline and open the Image clip bin and drag all the snapshots to track 1 for editing further.

You are using the blank image as a "spacer" above the main track to position the cursor on the next image. It assumes that all the images in the video are equally spaced and that the original transitions are also equal.

Nat