Nationalsolo

HI Can't say why what you are doing isn't working. I find slideshows work as follows (for me at least) Get (crop) your images into the same format as your VP frame 1:1.777 (1920 x 1080 or 1280 x 720 etc.) or you will have black bars either at the top/bottom or left/right of your film frame. Size in MP does not seem to matter, mine are 12 mp images in JPG format Add them to the media list along with your mp3 file and then drag them onto the sequence line and the mp3 onto the Soundtrack 1. Add a title overlay etc to your first/last image Check it plays as you want it to. Click the "Save movie" toolbar tab. Click "Computer/data" Browse to your output folder and select it. Enter a name or accept the default. I output as an avi file 1280 x 720 HD-720p and 25 fps. So select these values. Click the "Encoder options" button I use H246 (native) as the video compressor, so select this. Set the "Video compression settings" slider to 23. Higher than this rendering is faster but the definition is worse, below this definition is better but rendering takes ages. 23 is a good average. Click OK Set "Sound compressor" to MP3 (Native) Sound format to 44100 Hz, 320 kbs Click OK Now click OK at the bottom to render your film into the selected folder. Depending on its length it may take some time. This avi should play OK. Hope this helps Nat

Hi You add titles and subtitles to your films using the overlay feature. (VP 2.41) Add your black frame to the sequence or add your video clip to the sequence. This is the background for your text. Now click the green cross to the left of the overlay track. This will open a "New overlay" window. The default is set for the addition of text. (note the radio button top left) If you want an image overlay then click the radio button at the lower left. Anyway you want text.. Left click the window and simply type your text. When complete click OK. Your text will now appear in the preview panes, and the overlay track will contain the text as a blue overlay "clip" on which some of your text will appear. This overlay clip can be dragged left or right to position it or made shorter of longer by dragging either end right or left. To position the text within the frame or make it do other things, you will see a control panel beneath the left hand preview window. (You have to select the overlay with a left click first) You can Scroll your text in various directions, change the size, font, colour, opacity or make it fade in and out. You will also see an arrow matrix to the left of this panel. If it is not visible you need to scroll the panel along with the horizontal scroll bar at the bottom. Click the respecive arrow button in the matrix to place your text on the screen in the desired position. You will also see a margin control button a bit further over which will open another window which will enable you to fix the text position more exactly by entering pixel values. Note that the overlay is independant of the clip on the sequence line (although you can link it if you want to) Effects added to the sequence line clip do not work on the overlay. You only have the options mentioned above. Hope this helps Nat

Hi I take your point, but as I said, if the poster wants to simply repeat the clip several times (loop it) then all he has to do is go into storyboard mode and right click the clip in question and then select "Duplicate clip(s)" This will repeat the sequence and there is no artifact between the clips. He can do this as many times as he likes. In any case,I can't get a black frame to appear between any of the sequences built up in this way. There may be one black frame at the end of the last sequence in some circumstances as I mentioned but how would you want a single sequence to end in any case? 1) The last frame as a static image. 2) A white frame or 3) A black frame. It's got to finish in some way. Nat

Hi It might be a screen resolution setting that your netbook is using.(But don't really know). What does the version look like on your PC? Nat

Hi Normally photos added to a video i.e interspersed with film clips look pretty much as they do when viewed on your PC alone. The appearance of images in the preview window on the right may be very slightly inferior (or when viewed in full sceen on using the Preview tab on the tool bar they can appear quite pixellated), however I am not quite sure what you mean by faded exactly. Is this in a finished film (avi etc) before saving as a DVD or in the completed DVD? What format images are you using and how are you adding them to your movie? Nat

Hi This can be done but is time consuming. Obviously you could scroll your overlay text left to right and add a sound track of key press sounds to match the speed of the letters but I don't think this is quite what you want and in any case would be difficult and not that effective. Here is something you could try which will work. You will need a sound clip of your typewriter key press. A single short sound, eg a click or pip will do. It needs to be short-about 1/5 - 1/10 of a second in length. (Depends how fast you want your letters to appear.) Add this sound bite to the media list. You will also need your video clip onto which your text will appear letter by letter. I am going to assume you want the text to appear at the bottom left corner of the frame and bult up to the right. First click into timeline mode then drag and drop your video clip onto the sequence line. Mute the audio track (at least for a start unless you need it to play later) Now add the sound clip to soundtrack 1 and drag it to the place where you want your typing to start. Now add the sound clip as many times as the letters in your text. Do this by selecting it in the media list and adding them by default to the end of the track. Don't leave any gaps between them. You should be able to see the peaks of the "PIPS". If they are too close together, use the zoom feature to enlarge the sequence until they are easy to see. This results in the "PIPS" appearing one after another in a regular sequence. Unfortunately VP will not let you link these sound bites into a single sequence. An alternative is to have a longer sound clip consisting of dozens of regular typewriter clicks and cutting this to length later. The main thing is to be able to see the peaks of each "PIP". Now, line up the red curser line with the peak of the first "PIP"on the soundtrack. Click the green overlay cross and in text mode type the first letter of your message followed by OK. The overlay will set itself at the cursor position. Now click the bottom left hand arrow in the overlay position box.(The arrow matrix in the overlay control area) This will place the first letter of your message at the bottom left of your film clip. The appearence of the letter will now coincide with the soundtrack "PIP" Move the red cursor bar along to the next peak of your soundtrack. Click the green cross again and now type the first two letters of the text. Click OK and then the left hand bottom arrow. The two letter overlay will line up with the second "PIP" and also cover the first overlay. It will seem that a second letter has been added to the first. Continue in this way, each time creating a new overlay with an additional letter, and each time moving the cursor line along to peak of the next "PIP" When you play the sequence each letter will appear with the "PIP" sound and the message will build up along the bottom of the screen. By positioning the overlay text in different places and adding or subtracting letters you can create different effects. It's not what the feature was designed for but although it is time consuming, it does work. Nat

Hi I would have thought this was possible. What values have you entered in the time start/stop boxes in the Subtitles dialogue screen. The first digit is the hour value. eg....... 1:25:06.4 is position 1hr 25mins 6.4 seconds. into the film. If this doesn't seem to be working...haven't tried this on films longer than 40 minutes...you might find the overlay feature easier to use. In fact I prefer it. Add your text in suitable sized letters to the bottom centre position and adjust margins. Drag the overlay box to the place required and alter its duration by pulling the ends left or right as required. Once it plays OK link it to the video clip to fix its position. Nat

Hi You may be mistaken in two ways....... "The Overlay sequence line will contain a grey box with some of your text showing in it." (1) The overlay sequence line mentioned here is the line directly below your video sequence track, and above the audio track......NOT the light gray box at the left hand end with the green cross. As you have found, clicking this will have no effect. If you have added some text overlay (like titles etc.)to your project, it will appear in a dark grey box underneath the video track but above the audio track and some of the text (depending its length) will be visible. This is the box that I am referring to in my posting. (2) Now, as you say you are working on a file that has already been saved as a movie. This will NOT show overlays. VP (and any other editor) will see this as single,complete clip. On loading, it will appear only as a video on the sequence line with the associated sound on the audio track. Any titles/end credits/subtitles etc. will be part of the film and will not appear on the overlay track But the film is editable in the normal way just like any video clip. Note: It is only when you are dealing with or have loaded a VP PROJECT that any text is seen as an overlay. As you edit your clips you normally save your work as a VP project...In essence this is just a series of instructions that tells the program how to recreate your work when you come back to it after a layoff. Now, once you save your project as a finished movie everything is incorporated (text/overlays/edits/transitions)and assembled and you can save it to DVD or your PC etc. Loading THIS back into VP (which is what you seem to have have done) is just the same as loading a new (but bigger) video clip. It IS editable but now the text is part of the film. If the VP data file - the VP project for your movie is still available you should load this to VP and then you can edit the text (and anything else) to your hearts content. Hope this helps Nat

Hi The image that you use for your overlay must have the same height-width ratio as your video frame. For HD this is usually 16:9. ( 1:1.777 ) So if you create your image or alter an imported photo in a third party graphics programe use 1280 pixels x 720 pixels (or 1920 x 1080...... or multiples of this) for your final image size. This will then enlarge up on the overlay to correctly cover the image on the sequence line. As the overlay enlarges it stops when either the sides or top/bottom reach the frame border - whichever happens first. As you seem to have ther width OK and there is still the top and bottom visible, it suggests your overlay image is too wide. This can also happen if your video is, say, an old TV copy or an 8mm film copy which have different formats. (1.25 or 1.33) in this case the 16:9 ratio of you overlay will be proprtionatly wider that the sequence image so leaving the top and bottom uncovered. If you are using a photo from the video it should be the same as the sequence and have the correct ratio, but it may be getting altered in photoshop. So just to make sure, use photoshop to make it bit larger and if necessary crop it to the correct ratio before you add your details. Does it happen when you simply take a frame (camera button) from your video and drag it onto the overlay track, centre and enlarge it to maximum?.....This normally covers the sequence fully with no problems. Nat

Hi Aerotekt Are you sure that your clips are in synch BEFORE you stabilized them. I am afraid that all my clips shot in MPEG4 HD H.264 run with the image progressively lagging behind the sound. (i.e the sound finishes before the image does by several seconds depending on the length of the clip.) If I convert my clips to MPEG2 then they play OK. Nat

Hi You can't link a sound track to the video so they move together. Only the linked audio track will move. Consequently, as you have found, the sound track will not move along if you add a new clip to the sequence to the left of the clip already there, only the clips with their audio will move. Your solution is probably the best way around this although its a bit time consuming. The answer really is to edit in the normal way by adding your clips in order to the right hand end of the timeline. If you have to add them anywhere else there will be no problem if the audio remains linked to the video but once you have unlinked sections so they appear on a sound track lower down they will remain independant. If you have to move any of them in response to adding clips earlier in the sequence, them it must be done one at a time as, unfortunately you can't link these together horizontally either and move them en masse which would be very useful as it would retain any spacing there might be between them. As you have to unlink your sound to restore the synchronisation, one obvious question remains and that is why is the sound out of synch with the video in the first place? Is it just a one off or are all your clips out of synch? Nat

Hi You can link your overlays with the sequence line clips but, although you can individually lengthen or shorten your overlays by dragging their ends to where you wish them to start and finish, that is, change their duration, they will not automatically re adjust their duration if the clip they are associated with is slowed down or speeded up. Their position relative to the start of the clip will remain the same. i.e. If the overlay starts 2 seconds into an 8 second clip and the clip is subsequently halved in speed to last 16 seconds, the overlay will still start 2 seconds into the clip and will have the same duration as before. On the otherhand, if you have linked the overlay and then shortend the clip (speeded it up) so it finishes within the end of the overlay, the overlay will be cut off where the clip ends. If it is followed by another clip then the overlay will play for its full duration into the following clip, but it will still remain linked to the first clip. I think the only way around it -- if you really want this to occur, although it's long winded and time consuming, is to put your clip with it's overlay on the sequence line and save it as a separate new .avi clip and then load it back into your project to replace itself. If you now adjust its speed the overlay will lengthen accordingly as it will now be part of the avi. It would be probably quicker though to simply lengthen your clips and then adjust each overlay which, as you say, can be a lengthy process if there are a lot of overlays. Nat

Hi "I just wonder if I have a cheap knock off device @ just over US$9." Well, I can't comment on that . However, I was going by the images of EasyCap that I have seen. In fact I use "One Touch Video Grabber" which looks very similar.(These devices are in fact just USB analogue to digital cards.) However, I do notice that whilst it has the same input leads...S-Video, Red/White (audio) and Yellow (video composite) sockets (or plugs), at the output end on mine there is the USB plug on a short cable PLUS a green audio jackplug on a second cable. This plugs into the line input on the PC. On the images I have seen on the web, EasyCap doesn't have this jackplug, there is just the male USB plug. But as the sound input lines are there I have to assume that the sound is input to the PC via the USB and it should work. Have you tried interchanging the red and white sockets (plugs) for the sound input to the EasyCap device? I don't really know why you get no sound. The answer may be very simple...anybody else want to contribute to this? If you still can't get any sound using EasyCap, you may have to resort to recording the sound from the videotape separately. Plug in a suitable cable to the white socket on the VCR and the other end (jackplug) into the green socket on the PC. If your system is anything like mine you can then go into the control panel and open the sound folder (icon looks a bit like a torch....meant to be a loudspeaker.) From here you can configure the sound input for recording. What you see here MIGHT depend of your soundcard - mine is RealTek HD sound. With this setup you can now play the VCR and adjust the recording levels. If you now go to your accessories folder you can open the windows sound recorder. Just enter where you want the file to save to and click the red Start button and Play the VCR. The input is saved as a WAV file in your selected folder which you can then load into VP and match up with the "silent" film. It'a a possible way around this lack of sound problem, but I am sure there must be a simpler answer as to why it's not working. Note that it is the same method that NCH Golden Records uses for copying vinyls. If you have a third party program that allows recording from a record deck/cassette player/microphone etc, (which usually includes a cleanup of the sound) use that instead of the Windows program. Best of luck. Nat

Hi I have converted lots of old videotapes using a "grabber" A/D card like EasyCap. The one I use seems identical but is badged with a different name. However I never directly save into VP using the "Capture" option. (Although I have tried it out with my "grabber" in this way and it seems to work OK.) Due to habit though,I always use the software that came with the "grabber" as it allows me to monitor the card's output on a preview screen with brightness/contrast/hue and sharpness control settings, and once the optimum values have been found, the output can be saved in a variety of convenient formats to the PC. (Usually MPEG2) If your EasyCap software works OK and produces a playable file (including the sound,) then I would simply use this to generate your copy and then import that into VP for editing and DVD production. Are the "downloaded" videos you mention obtained in this way? Nat

Hi In what format are you outputting your slideshow? I assume you are using the Utube default which will will be .flv format. However, I am not sure how this plays in IE. However you can easily change the output by clicking the File format button. If you use mpg, avi or .asf you might have more success. The following html code is for a very simple basic page that uses a single 1 col x 1 row table containing an .asf video (or .avi or mpeg xvid) called SHORT VIDEO. The video being stored on the PC here... C:/Users/NS/Desktop/ASF/SHORT VIDEO.asf" <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1252"> <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 4.0"> <meta name="ProgId" content="FrontPage.Editor.Document"> <title>New Page 1</title> </head> <body> <div align="center"> <center> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="800"> <tr> <td> <p align="center"><img border="0" dynsrc="file:///C:/Users/NS/Desktop/ASF/SHORT VIDEO.asf" start="fileopen"></td> </tr> </table> </center> </div> </body> </html> Obviously you can add controls instead of using start="fileopen" or use a separate page with links etc. Hope this helps. Nat

Hi Not at all ....Glad it helped Nat

Hi When you "cut" your clip VP does not create anything in the way of a "New clip", it just makes a note of your editing actions. The original clip remains untouched. Consequently when you want now save your newly "created" clip , VP HAS to do this from the saved info and your original clip. Your original clip therefore remains intact. Re-encoding is always needed. Nat

Hi Dcast has supplied the answer for adding multiple clips to the sequence. If however you have already added various clips from the list then your "No"s will be mixed up with the "Yes"s either singly or here and there in blocks. You can only add the single ones singly or as Dcast suggests for the blocks. There is no way of listing the "No"s separately from the "Yes"s which, in your case would be useful. You may possibly be able to re-number/rename your images/clips and sort them into order (en masse) with a program such as Irfanview. (Free...and very useful) before you import them to VP. Nat

Hi No idea...but I would save your edited movie to your PC as an avi file and then burn it. If you save direct to a DVD disc via VP you dont get a prompt to save the audio in a different format. Click "Save movie" Select "Computer data" Give it a name and save location Select "Preset" option.....eg HD 1080...HD 720 etc. "File format" will default to avi. Resolution will default to your preset (but you can change this) Click "Encoder options" and select "Sound compressor as MP3 (Native) Click OK and click OK. The film should render to your chosen folder from where you can check it plays OK. From here you can either burn it to a DVD with a 3rd party program or load it back to VP and burn it from there Nat

Hi The subtitles button should be, as you say, on the toolbar between the "Narrate" and "Preview buttons" What version of VP are you using. (Look bottom left of the window)...should be V2.41 Nat

Hi I think you may be mistaken here. You can't select multiple clips/images on which to add an effect. If you are in story board mode, it may seem that all the clips highlight blue if you do the clasic Windows SHIFT and select first and last clip, but as soon as you select an effect it defaults to the first clip selected only. It's the same with transitions. However, you CAN select and delete multiple clips from your sequence in this way. Again, in storyboard mode you can select 0,01 for the clip duration and it will default to 0.0 However it seems this IS ZERO seconds duration. i.e. The clip in question doesn't play. Check the time line above the sequence...it remains at 0.0 (In fact 1/100 second is really too short for animations.)The shortest Options default for images is 0.1 seconds (which works OK for most animation made with single images. The fact that you can actually enter 0.01 to the storyboard box but not in the Options default box may simply be an oversight, or possibly due to the fact that the "Options" box uses down and up arrows to change the value and stops at 0.1 anyway) Now if you really want it 10 times faster than thge 0.1 second default, I think the best way for you to proceed if you have 1000 or so images is to set your default to 0.1 seconds under "Options" and then add all the images automatically to the sequence line in the correct order from your media list. As you have so many you may have to do this from the list page by page. The sequence will now be your animation at 0.1 seconds per image. Now save your animation to your PC as a suitable avi. You MAY find this plays to your liking But if you think it is still too slow...... Reload the avi back into VP (it will now be a single clip) and set the speed effect so as to give the animation you are after. If you want it to be the equivalent to 0.01 ( 1/100 sec per image....10x faster) you will (theoretically ) need to set the speed slider to 1000 (i.e 10 x 100%) but you will most probably find this won't work. 500% gives a fast flicker of the images. It's up to you. There are lots of different plugins on the Virtualdub site that will work with VP but I am not sure if there is a speed up feature that will work in the way you want though. Nat

Hi If the original film is just a bit unsteady then the VP stabilising feature (deshaker plugin) can work extremely well but it's only capable of doing so much. If the footage is wildly shaky then the stabilized result will probably be just as bad. The remedy is to have a steady hand when you shoot your film and support the camera with both hands. Use the inbuilt camera stabiliser if necessary, better still use a tripod. With the old type film cameras held up to ones eye and pressed against the forehead as well as being supported with the left hand results were were generally much steadier than the small flip screen digital cameras of today that have to be held out in front of you. The deshaker filter written by Gunnar Thalin is "hard wired" into VP but is actually one of the many filters written for use with virtualdub. You can download many more filters here:- http://www.infognition.com/VirtualDubFilters/ and use them as plugins in VP. As deshaker (stabiliser) won't work on my version of VP for some reason I generally use virtualdub if I need to stabilize anything. Although the basic deshaker settings in VP give good results you can set up the parameters for both passes of the filter yourself. If you want to understand how it functions then go here: http://www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm Nat

Hi You probably need to change one of the "Options" settings. (See below) The first step is to load all your clips to the media list window using the "Add Media" button on the tool bar. (I am sure you will have done this ) Your clips will then list up in the window on the left. If they dont then click the tab marked "Media List" The next step is to get the clips from the list onto the the sequence line. You can do this in two ways but first of all set the program options as follows.:- Left click the "Options" tab on the toolbar followed by the "Other" tab. In the box prefixed by "Add new clip to the following position" select "Ask me" from the drop down menu. Now click OK. This will ensure that if you add clips directly from the media list you will be prompted as to where you want them to go. I am thinking from your post that this has been set to "Beginning of timeline" Now, to get the clips onto the sequence...The simplest way is just to drag the clip in question from the media list and drop it directly onto the sequence track. You can drop the clip into any position relative to the clips already there. If you drag your new clip left or right along the track a pink arrow appears over the junction between existing clips and that is where your new clip will go when you drop it. The second method is to right click the clip on the media list and from the menu that appears select to "Add item(s) to the sequence". If the clip is the first clip to be added it will appear immediately. If otherwise you will now be prompted as to where you want the new clip to be placed. (As you have set the options to "Ask me".) If you happen to select "Sliders position" your sequence will be split for the new clip to be inserted. You would normally select "End of timeline" in order to build up your film in the correct playing order. (Left to right) Note that if you have a clip on the sequence in the wrong place (Say, you missed one on the list and it's been added at the end of the timeline,) you can simply select it and drag it along right or left to the correct place where a pink arrow appears and then release it. Hope this helps Nat

Hi I I don't think there is a Help manual as such but once you have loaded VP then check... Programmes > NCH Software > VideoPad > Help. This a file containing numerous HTML help pages relating to the use of the Videopad functions. If you open the "Index" file you can print each help page one after another to create a Help Manual. However from within VP all you need to do is click the "Help" button (?in a blue circle) at the right hand end of the toolbar. (or press the F1 key) Nat

Hi The out of synch sound (video lagging) seems to be a common problem judging by a search on Google. Some while back NCH answered a question regarding this (a rare event indeed!) saying that it was performance related. All I can say is that if I film in big format (1920 x 1080 HD MPEG4 H.246 that I have this problem on my PC. Even 1280 x 720 MPEG4 show marked lag in the image.(The smaller frame sizes (not HD) run OK.) I have tried lots of formats with different length clips just to time the lag to see if its proportinal or relates to frame size etc., a 15 second clip of 1920 x 1080 60fps MPEG4 can be out by an average of 7 seconds which makes editing such clips difficult to say the least. Even a 10 second 1280 x 720 MPEG4 clip lags behind the sound by 4 seconds! So perhaps NCH are correct. Perhaps it requires a 64 bit machine. It's not just VP that has this problem as I have several editing programs and all show a similar fault. Even the clips played in Quicktime lag, Irfanview lags etc. No doubt someone out there will say this is all wrong........... But by using 1280 x 720 HD and converting the clips to MPEG2 before I edit everything works fine. In fact the image seems clearer and the sound less muddy. All you can do is give it a try. Nat