Nationalsolo

Hi Might be a codec problem. Try installing the k lite codec pack. http://www.free-code..._codec_pack.htm No idea otherwise. It's worth a try. WMV files play OK in VP on my PC (Vista) If it still doesn't work try uninstalling the files and setting it up again. Nat

Hi As you have your sequence playing both sound and vision in VP perhaps you have an incorrect output setting. The following settings work fine for me:...... Click the "Save Movie" button on the toolbar. Click the "Computer/Data" option. (I assume you will be saving it to your PC for a start.) Enter (or browse to) the Destination folder for the eventual saved film. For the Preset, click the downbutton and select HD 720 The other options automatically complete as avi. 1280 x 720 - HD 720p 25 fps (TV PAL) (If you require NTSC then the custom settings return if you select this format) Click "Encoder Options" Set the Video Compressor to MPEG4 (Native) Ignore the video compression Settings button. Set the Sound compressor to MP3 (Native) Set Sound Format to 44100 Hz, 128 kbs, Stereo Click OK Click OK on the Video Output Setup Screen to save your avi to your selected detination folder.. Hope this works for you. Nat

Hi If you feel that one click back from max zoom it is still too squashed up for precise sound editing then what you can do is......... Slide the zoom to the left then click the minus button once. Now you can zoom in towards maximum again in smaller increments using the mouse roller. The individual sounds that make up speech should now easily be visible. As previously mentioned, unlink the sound so it drops down to a lower track. Right click it so it is activated. (It will turn blue) If you play the clip a few times using the preview button of the right hand preview screen to start and stop the cursor bar,(which will move quite rapidly) you should easily be able to stop the red line exactly where you want. If you miss it then simply drag the cursor line to the left a little and try again.You will quickly get used to matching the sound line appearance to the sounds you are hearing. Unfortunately the soundtrack doesn't play when the drag the cursor line along the sequence which would make it easier. Now.....This method is probably easier than splitting the soundtrack twice and removing a section... Split the track just after the offending word/s. Now activate the left hand sound clip by left clicking on it. (It will turn blue). Now move the mouse cursor to theright hand end of the activated clip. It will change to two vertical black lines when placed over the end of the clip. Now grab and drag the clip end to the left. The soundtrack will shorten (but will not move) and eliminate the offensive bit. Note don't move the track.This will happen if you only grab the track. The mouse cursor will change to two short vertical lines when placed precisely over the end of the soundtrack. You can slide it back again if you eliminate too much. The soundtrack section to the right will stay in place. You can now move along to the next offensive sound and repeat the procedure. Note that you will be chopping up the soundtrack into sections that are not linked to the video track any longer, so dont move them. Nat

Hi There are several possible ways, but are a bit phaffy. One simple way is as follows.... Load the clip/movie to the media list and then place it on the sequence line. Switch into timeline mode. Left click the sound track without unlinking it and then playing the soundtrack in the left hand preview pane. (you can drag the red line along if required) Stop at the point the offending sound starts and then left click the yellow sound level line at the point where the red cursor line intersects it. This will place a red dot at this point and fix the volume line. Grab the yellow line just to the right of this point and then drag it down to the bottom of the window directly under the red dot. (Dont go past it to the left or the line will jump down from the start of the clip) Aim to get the yellow line to drop straight down to the bottom of the screen under the first red dot. When you release it there will be a second fixed point. Now grab the yellow line to the right of the second marker and drag it back up to the cenre line again. This fixes the level.with another third red dot. The sound level line will now be slanting upwards from the second dot to the third dot. Now grab the slanting sound lineto the left of the third dot and drag it along vertically below the third dot What you should have now is a yellow line (sound level) that drops to the bottom of the screen at the start of your offending sound, runs along horizontally until the end of the offending sound and then rises straight up again to the original level. In effect reducing the volume for the extent of the unwanted sound. You can easily adjust the volume line by dragging the red dots until the effect you want is obtained. In some cases this may not entirely mute the sound however......... Another way risks de-synching the sound if you are not careful but is possible to completely mute small sections of the soundtrack as follows:- Put the clip/film on the sequence lineand switch to timeline mode Unlink the sound track. (but dont move it). It will drop to a lower track. Enlarge the sequence line (+soundtrack) using the + button at the bottom right, until all the sound peaks are easily visible. Play the film and stop the red cursor where the offending sound is about to start. (you can drag the cursor L/R and pinpoint the sound peak.) Now split the soundtrack at that point. Play to the end of the offending sound and in the same way split the soundtrack again. Right click the sound section you have isolated and either.. 1) Delete it 2) Adjust the clip volume and mute it. If you have a bleep soundbite, you could add it to the space or to a separate track. You will need to be careful to check the soundtrack does not move once it is unlinked. Hope this helps Nat

Hi ?BUG Loaded to clips (MPEG2) to the media list ....OK Placed the first clip on the sequence line (Timeline mode) by dragging and dropping......OK Moved cursor to the centre of the clip by dragging it along the sequence.....OK Split the clip at the cursor point......OK Checked that the right hand clip could be dragged to the right along with its sound track....OK Checked gap closed for both with the "Close gap" prompt provided.......OK Clicked the second clip in the media window and selected to add it "at the cursor line" which was still at the split position. Clip inserted but sequence lost the right hand part of the clip I had split. Clicking into storyboard mode showed that only two clips were now on the sequence line instead of the the two half clips separated by the inserted clip. (ie three clips) This also happened (ie RH portion of the split clip disappearing) when inserting at a split point in a sequence with several clips. (Later) Procedure however seemed to work correctly if done whilst in storyboard mode and looked OK when switched back into timeline mode. (Later still) Looking at the help files relating to this procedure......... "Place on Sequence at Cursor Clip(s) are placed on video or audio track 1, at the position of the playback cursor (the vertical red line). Any clips already on those tracks at that position are truncated or deleted. " What is the rationale for this? If you insert a clip it shouldn't truncate or delete part of the sequence line clip. It should simply split the clip and insert itself in a similar way to film. I assume that one now has to use the extra video tracks for the new clip and then split and separate the sequence line to create an "insert" when all the tracks are previewed. As video tracks tend to get hidden it it makes seeing what you have on the timeline somewhat difficult. Nat

Hi Managed to download Beta version at last and have have had a short try out of some of the features. Layout doesn't appear too bad but I miss the ability to manipulate the transition bars by dragging their ends and the fade in/out effect applied to titles. I can apply the fade out and other effects to text overlays now, but can't fade in. (I haven't had enough time to find a way if there is one) Inserting a blank frame (or image) into the sequence line only splits and pushes along the video track, thereby unsynchronising all the sound tracks following the insertion point.(irrespective whether if they are linked or not). Shouldn't the sound tracks move up as well? Perhaps the ability to link any sound clip on any track with the video sequence could be implemented so that any inserted image only splts and shifts up the linked sound clips leaving the others (eg background music) where it was. I haven't found a way yet of splitting an unlinked sound track without splitting the video track at the same place as well. This was a useful feature in the previous version. The sound is unlinked and so splitting it should not affect the video clip as it seems to do. It would be nice if, under "Text attributes" the font names listed written in their actual font.You can get a better idea of what they look like without having to try each one in turn. The new version seems a little more complicated than the previous one (which at the moment I still prefer) and a small film (avi) generated with this version (native mp3) and native H246) only played sound. Nat

Hi Once you have created your complete film save it as a VP project (.vpj file) When you are ready to work with it, just load it into VP, select your start point and split the film. Now delete the left hand segment you don't need. Proceed onto your stop point, split the film and delete the right hand portion that you don't require. Now (if you want) save your segment with another name as another project. Now save your segment as your movie. Your original project will still be complete and you will have created a film from the bit you wanted. Nat

Hi The aspect ratio of your raw clip is 1 : 1.5 (720/480) whilst VPs aspect ratio is 1 : 1.77 for the full screen. This is for normal digital camera output of 1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 etc i.e. 16:9 This means that in order to "fit" your 720 x 480 pixel images to the screen area AND keep the image ratio of 1:1.5 correct it has to leave black bars on each side once the height has been made to fit. (To have the aspect ratio to fit across the screen your images would have to be 852 pixels wide, which, of course is not the case) The VP image you have when you add your 720 x 480 clips will always be 1 : 1.77 and have the difference filled in on each side. Any manipulation you do like cropping will affect your raw image and not VP screen size, so the black bars will remain (cropping them in fact will just make them larger as all you are doing is narrowing your already narrow image.) The only way around this for the whole of your film (but with a down side) is to ... Go into storyboard mode Left click your first clip to select it. Click the Effects button and select the crop option. Don't crop anything for the moment. On the left you will see your frame (without the borders) click the 16:9 option. Your image will be cropped to this ration (1 : 1.77) Now, the downside, you will have lost some of your image either at the top or bottom, so grab the red frame and move it up or down to include as much of the clip as you feel is important. The clip will now play in the complete VP window although you will have lost some of it at top or bottom or both. There will be no distortion to the remainder. Treat the remainder of the clips in the same way. If you want the WHOLE frame you will have to put up with the black bands on either side. Nat

Hi If you left click the tab on the toolbar marked "Options" and then select the "Other" tab you should see the option "Automatically normalize audio volume" Left click the box concerned to insert a tick. VP should then attempt to keep the volume of clips about the same level. Alternatively if you left click the sound track for a clip it will appear in the left hand edit pane with a yellow line across the centre. This represents the default clip volume. By left clicking on this line and dragging it up and down you can create volume envelopes with the sound from that particular clip. At the same time as you start to do this, the yellow envelope line will also appear on the soundtrack for the clip. If you then do the same for the next film clip you can roughly match the end and the start heights for the yellow lines on both clips on the soundtrack line. In this way you can get the sound on both clips to have approximately the same volume. You could also play from one clip to the next and alter the volume of each using the "Adjust clip volume" slider (left clicking the clip and selecting this option from the menu). Nat

Hi If you unlink the audio from your clip, it drops down to a lower track where it becomes a separate audio clip. You can move it about,and manipulate it as an independant sound clip. The video clip from which you took this audio can be removed from the sequence without affecting this sound clip on the lower track. Also, as an alternative, If you right click the video clip in the Media list window you can save the audio as a separate sound file. If you have unlinked your audio it will remain in position even if you insert more video clips, but obviously active sound on the soundtrack will move right. It is probably best if you are doing a lot of sound manipulation and expect to have to add further video or sound clips, to unlink all the sound first (or mute the clips). Unfortunately VP 2.41 will not link a row of sound clips together so they can be moved en masse and remain in synch with themselves in the event that you add further film clips. If you do insert then each individual sound clip will have to be re-positioned individually, which is a decided drawback. Nat

Hi Simply insert a blank, black frame to the start of your film and then add a crossfade effect. Steps to follow are:- Depending on the choice you have set up under "Options"/"Other" you can set up to have the inserted clip (any clip in fact) placed at the start of the timeline, the end of the timeline, the cursor position or prompt you as to where you would like it to be placed. It might be best to have this set routinely to "Ask me" If you also click the little down arrow to the right of the "Insert Blank" button, you can choose the colour of the inserted blank clip.It does not have to be just black or white. Now,if you already have your film on the timeline, left click the tab on the toolbar labelled "Insert Blank" You will be prompted where. Select "Beginning of the timeline" Now left click "OK" A blank, black clip will be inserted at the start of your film. If you haven't altered the default length of this under the "Options" tab it will have a duration of 5 seconds. If not already in "Storyboard mode" right click the down arrow in the window marked "Sequence style" to select it. Between your blank clip and your film clip (now shown as two images) you will see a blue square with lines across it. This is the transition marker.Left click this to open up the transition pane. Left click the "Crossfade" transition. Enter the duration you require for this effect and then "Apply" The transition indicator will change to show the type of effect applied along with the duration you have selected. Once the program has completed the installation of the selected effect as shown by the yellow progress bar above the transition marker, you can preview your film in the right hand window pane. You should see you film fade in from the black, inserted clip. You can alter the duration of the effect and the duration of the blank clip to suit. Hope this helps Nat

Hi Carrdon "VP will create a "duplicate clip" that you can reverse. I am using no third party software to do this. In the timeline, just right click on the clip and select "duplicate clip." Then, for the duplicate clip, you add effect "speed" and click the "reverse" option. " My apologies, you are quite correct I forgot there was a "reverse button" in the change speed window, and the steps you outline above are correct. (I have mostly used the VP speed change option to match copied 8mm film to the re-recorded soundtrack. I agree that there IS a black frame at the end of the last clip and you agree there is NOT one between the two clips. It seems if we use VP to edit our films (and I think it's pretty good in most ways) we just have to put up with that last frame. I respect your opinion that it might be better without it and the clip should perhaps finish with just a static last frame, but erhaps there is a technical reason for it. Nat

Hi I don't seem to be able to download this as clicking the link supplied just opens my desktop in explorer with no further options...am I missing something? Normally there is an "Open" or "Save" window followed by a request for the destination file... Nat

Hi Check the position of your overlay and also the vertical margin setting. (The button to the left of the green chroma button). By default, the overlay image is placed in the subtitle position. Right click the overlay to get the control window up and make sure that the central square on the arrow block is clicked. When the size slider is moved fully to the right the overlay and main frame are the same size but if the margin settings are not zero , there will be a gap at the top or bottom or either side (depending on the position setting) You need to check the central box for the overlay to be central and the margin settings should be zero. Hope this helps. Nat

Hi That's a novel scenario but usable and perfectly possible, however VP (as far as I am aware) will not reverse a clip and create a new one. This means you would have to create this second reversed clip in third party software and it would then simply be another clip to add to the VP media list and drop onto the timeline. Now, even if your first clip does finish with a black frame, this would not be seen when the reversed clip is added to it, as they are not present in consecutive clips. The black frame which would (as you suggest) start the reversed second clip could easily easily be split off in any case, so leaving no black frames. At the same time, there is nothing to suggest that the end black frame would, in fact appear at the start of the reversed clip. However, my question still stands...What do you want to see on the screen after the last frame? It has to be something.... Nat

HI ad As I mentioned, unsplit clips dissolve (crossfade) OK using still frames, but once the end of left hand clip is split off and deleted thenVP apparently uses the "deleted" bit to complete the dissolve. Before going down the road of creating numerous segments try this method for reducing the "ghost". Put your clips on the time line and split the left one as required and delete the section that you have cut off. Now add your crossfade effect to the remaining left hand clip. The yellow effect bar will span the two clips equally, but the overlapping right hand side will fade out using your deleted bit (i.e.making the "ghost") So, grab the right hand end of the yellow effects bar and drag it closer to the join. This will mean that the crossfade will have less of the left hand clip to fade out, i.e. less of the deleted section will play. If the crossfade is now too short overall, simply drag the left hand end of the yellow bar more to the left. In effect you are making the transition more "off centre" Adding a dissolve in the normal way it is always centred on the join between the clips, but you have the means to alter the start/finish points of the effect. See how that works. Nat

Hi ad I have had a play with some MPEG-4 clips to see if I can duplicate the effect you are getting. I loaded two MPEG-4 1080 clips to the media list and then dragged them down to the timeline so one followed the other. I then switched into time line mode so I could see what was happening. By default (setup in options), a 6 second crossfade was also added between the clips. This was shown (as normal) by a yellow bar across the junction of the two clips. However NOTHING was shown in this respect on the soundtrack line. At this pont the clips appeared to play correctly with a normal crossfade and the sound played OK across the junction between the clips. The crossfade appearing to be generated as I mentioned above using the first and last frames of each clip. Deleting the crossfade and then reinserting it made no difference to how it appeared on the timeline or how it played. So, I deleted the default crossfade leaving just the two clips. I then selected a point in the first clip where a bright red object appeared (I thought this would be better seen in a "ghost" image.) I then split the clip just before this point. After selecting the section containing the red object I deleted it.....No red object! The clips played correctly one to another without any "red object" being seen. So this was just as expected. I now added a 6 second crossfade to the junction by clicking the small blue square on the first clip. A 6 second crossfade gives enough time to see anything untoward. The first thing I noticed was that the yellow effects bar spanned the clips apparently correctly except this time there was also a "crossfade" yellow bar shown on the soundtrack. This was at odds with the crossfade added before the split was made which showed nothing on the soundtrack. Furthermore, tthis was shown to start AT THE JUNCTION of the clips and not in sequence with the film crossfade.....ODD! On playing the clips this is what was seen.. Clip 1 played up to the start of the crossfade and at this point Clip 2 started to appear.This is what I expected. However, at the point where the join between the clips is shown, Clip 1 continued to fade out but PLAYED THE DELETED PORTION as evidenced by the "red object" appearing (and fading out over the next 3 seconds). I mentioned above that a normal crossfade in VP seems to use still frames from each end of the transition in order to keep the overall clip length the same. It would now seem that when a split has been made in the left hand clip and an effect is then added, the original length of the two clips is retained, not by using a still frame from the end of the split clip, but by playing into the split off section for half the duration of the effect. I think this is what you are getting and appears to be an inherent "fault" with all effects that span points where clips have been split Your workaround..ie creating avis of the bits you split and then reinserting them will solve the problem but......... Nat

Hi It may be the fact that you are using the cross fade effect. (Just a thought ) In most video editing packages the cross fade is made by dragging one clip (usually the right hand clip) and visually overlapping it onto the left hand clip to the extent required. When the clip/s play the overlapping section fades in under whilst the second clip fades out.Both continue to play as movies. With this method the combined length of the two clips is shortened by an amount equal to twice the overlap. In videopad this does not apparently happen. Where the crossfade starts,the first frame of the second clip is held as a still image and is faded in under the left hand clip which continues to play up to its cut off position. At this instant the left hand clip is fully faded in and both clips are visible. Now the last frame of the left hand clip is held as a still image and faded out whilst the right hand clip plays. In this way the total length of the two clips remains the same (and sound on other tracks remains in sync.) The downside is that whilst the crossfade is happening there are two static images being faded out and in which, depending on their brightness and the length of time chosen for the dissolve can be jarring as they can be seen as ghost-like still images. Are you certain that what you are seeing as a ghost is actually moving and not just a faint still image? It's a possible explanation for the effect you are seeing. If you are rendering or using full frame HD there may be a delay whilst VP sorts out all the rendering required. You could try making your crossfades shorter (1-2 seconds say) and seeing if the effect is still present. Nat

Hi From what you are describing you would seem to have an overlay playing. You will need to check your project. (Assuming you saved one.) Go into time line mode,(as overlays are more easily seen). Now, when you click the green cross to add an overlay, (image/video/text,) whatever you enter (or select) appears on the overlay track as a short blue/grey box with an image icon in the centre, or, if you have added text, some of the text will be seen. When you review your main clip, the red cursor line will, at some point will also pass over the overlay box. When this happens the contents will appear on your film in the preview screen. If you have not altered your overlay size, it will appear as a small "window" by default in the bottom centre of the screen. (An image will be static, a movie will play and text will display) If this is the case and you want to remove it, then simply right click the overlay box and select to "Remove selected overlay/s) from the menu. If you want to alter how it is seen then left click the overlay box to open up the control window for your overlay. In this you will find controls for its placement position (the arrow grid), scroll movement, size (as you have found), fade, opacity, border and chroma effects etc. Note however, that you can add several overlays to the track and these can be overlapped so they play at the same time but appear as a single box on the track as by default they add to the cursor position. If this is the case you will only see the top one. You MAY have inadvertantly added your effect twice and whilst your controlsregarding size etc would work on the bottom overlay, the other one would remain as a default image and be seen in the preview. Check if you have two overlays by grabbing the box and dragging it left or right. If there are two then they will separate. This is just a thought but a possibility. Nat

Hi Your clip, when placed on the timeline is just small enough to fill the line with your current zoom setting. I think you will find that you have your zoom slider set to the right hand end, and so no scroll bar is needed. Zooming in on your clip using the slider, i.e. moving it left will cause the clip to "lengthen" and your scroll bar will appear. Nat

Hi Mike You are correct, my PC is a 32 bit OS with an Intel Core Duo CPU E4500 running at 2.2 GHz but has only 2.0 GB of RAM not 3.2 as you suggested. I can appreciate that the jerky effect (actually not THAT jerky...just with objects moving at right angles to the camera line of sight) might be PC related, but would it still persist in the completed DVD played on a standard player (as it seems to)? Nat

Hi The internet cable is not important as the rendering is done by your PC. However, it can take an apreciable time to render a film and seems to depend on the output format and the format of the original footage, and certainly the processing speed of your PC. However a 12 min film taking 12 hours seems quite excessive and not my experience even with longer films. (PC is dual core 2.2GHz with 2Gigs of RAM) A 2 hour holiday film edited for my neighbour who wanted ALL the footage included(yawn!) took all night to render and wasn't finished as an avi until midday the following day. Nat

HI The output from my camera is MPEG4 H264 but when the raw footage is played back on my PC (quick time) it is jerky, a moving object moves across the frame in small jerks. More annoyingly the sound and image become rapidly out of synch. This makes it almost impossible to edit. To get around this I convert all my MPEG4 footage into MPEG2 (1280 x 720) using "Any video converter" In this format it plays OK and editing is straightforward, although the jerky effect is still visible. Outputting as an avi from VP and saving to DVD using a third party DVD creator, the result is OK. IT must be connected with the type of videoplayer used on the PC since I recently dowloaded VLC and the MPEG4 files played OK no lag and no jerk. Unfortunately this is not an editor. Nat

""Click the down arrow beside Insert Blank, and you can select the color you want. The duration of the blank is adjustable. So insert a blank and cross-fade to it, which will give the effect of a fadeout." Which is what I suggested (and is normal practice in most films) in an earlier post. Nat

Hi If you select to output your film in mpg format, the encoder options are MPG1 DVD Standard (low bitrate) and MPG2 DVD Standard. Obviously if you output using mpg with the intention of creating a DVD then MPG2 would be best. I have to say that my camera outputs MPG4 H246 standard. Full HD but my PC can't cope with all that data so I usually convert my raw clips to MPG2 which edit fine and output as avi, as I mentioned, and save this DVD with a third party program. (VP wont add menus to DVDs with multiple films.) If you click on the options tab on the toolbar a window will open up that will allow you set transitions duration default as well automatically add a transition between all the clips as they are added to the sequence line. I think all the transitions have to be the same though unless you manually change them where required. Hope this helps Nat