Nationalsolo

Hi

You do seem to be having problems. 

"...unfortunately that's not the case for the next clip......"

Certainly there seems to be something odd about this. The X for the transition is not on the join; something which I haven't seen before, but the join itself only has the right white drag boxes for clip ends. (The screen image from YT is a bit blurred but it's obvious there is only one..on the right hand clip)  ... again, something I have never seen before...

There should be one on the left hand clip and one on the right hand clip.....like your other clip joins..e.g..

And the Transition X....That is weird. Have the clips been trimmed at all and if so how was it done?

I agree with you that it seems from your video that the video FX and Audio FX buttons are not working correctly or perhaps at all, but assuming there IS something wrong with that clip or the way it was added that affects those buttons , I think Unlink would work in any scenario since I don't think there is a connection between that feature and the Volume and FX buttons which are the one's that are faulty. It would seem to point to THAT clip and not specifically VP. (If the clip is faulty then VP can't read it correctly..the vpj data for that clip may also be corrupt (although read correctly) so the error will always appear since VP is using this to load the project.

I can't understand why your system takes so long to close. Here, on a slower Vista PC a project with 250 HD MP4 clips  , fully cached closed in around 3 seconds.  Normally if closed too soon then threads have to be stopped...VP may be generating/copying data but normally displays a progress window while it does this. Didn't see that in you vid.

After the reload in your video, the clip with the faulty buttons still only showed a single white block at the join. Try jumping the cursor line along using  II>  or II<  so it sits on the join with the problem..does it actually get there? If it does delete the clip to the right and then reload it from the bin to the cursor position and see if things change.

Another couple of questions...

Has the right hand clip beem trimmed in the bin using the red/blue brackets in clip preview?

Has the right hand clip been trimmed from the timeline with the red/blue brackets?

Is it always the same join?

I tend to trim either by dragging the white bars in/out or by splitting at the cursor and ripple deleting the unwanted section. Again,  never seen this particular problem before.

Nat

Hi Alan

It shouldn't make any difference if you use the down arrow or scroll the range choices once you have selected the particular transition it should get applied to all the joins. Here I am also prompted to either overlap or use a still as the Option for this is set.

The order is important though.....

1. Clips to the track
2. Select a range of clips on the track.......they should highlight in grey.
3. Whilst selected click the X........ usually the first one -  keep Ctrl pressed
4. Select the range option at bottom of the window
5. Select transition.
6. Select Overlap/Still  if choice window comes up

This works here.

Nat

Hi

• With all the clips/images on the timeline, select those that will use your transition. (Click the first, hold down SHIFT and then click the last one.
• To select ALL clips click the track thumbnail and press Ctrl+A
• To all transitions Click an X between a pair of these clips. This will open the transition list window. (see below)
• At the bottom centre you will see a choice box. The default is Apply to Current Clip.
• Click the down arrow and select Apply to Selected Clips or Apply to All Clips
•  
• 
•  
• Choose the transition and alter the duration if required. All the selected clips will  (should) now have the chosen transition between them.

Nat

Hi

Have you tried using the Split Screen effect?

• Go to Options/Display and set up Dual Displays as it's easier to monitor things.
• Place the piano clip on Video track 1
• Click the FX and and select the Split Screen effect. Set this to Horizontal 2 and select Side A.  Now click Fit to Region. This will place the 16:9 clip of the piano in the centre of the left hand side of the split screen
• Place the lyric images (or generate text images within VP) onto Video track 2 and move them to their required time positions.
• For each one select the Split screen effect and put them on the right.. Box B
• Adjust the position and if necessary offset.

I used text clips here to give something like what I think you are after .....

Using text files they could be added as a single clip and then scrolled vertically to match the music but obviously if you have individual images they will work just as well

Nat

Hi

"...Is there a way for VideoPad to display the actual size of the image?..."

As far as I know this is not possible. as these things are all relative.

VP will always enlarge an image to fit the  preview window.  Your image of the black line is 480 x 20 pixels.  It is enlarged in this case until the width (being the greatest dimension) fits the preview screen horizontally...

In this case the line is on Video Track 2 with a 1280 x 720 video clip on Video Track 1 In essence now the line has been enlarged until the width is essentially 1280 pixels long.

As Borate notes you simply need to apply a Scale effect to reduce it to the required size, keeping the AR unaltered and monitoring the changes in the Sequence Preview screen.

If, however you want an EXACT scale down (relative to the screen...that is .the image behind it,) you need the divide the width of the line image  (480)  by the width of the clip image (1280) 

480/1280  =  0.375.  

So, add a Scale  effect to the line image and then (without altering the AR) slide the H or V scale down to 0.375 ....

Relative to the video clip now, the line is 480 pixels. Had the background image been bigger the scale would have been smaller.  As you can see everything is relative. The line itself is 480 pixels....how should that appear on its own in the preview screen??  There is only that screen to relate to and there is only the AR to go by. VP enlarges it to fit the basic screen.

Nat

Hi Andy

I forgot to mention...I usually use thumbnail view for clips etc in the bins but using the buttons at the top of the box area  you can switch  into list view. This will list the clips/images by name and duration. The order seen (I think) depends on which direction you swipe the clips in the list. As mine (simply by chance )are labelled numerically they ended up in number order.

Anyway it might help as you can see the 5 clips here all have the default value that is still set up here...5.96

As mentioned if you are adding clips/images one at a time in your chosen order and you don't want to use Ctrl+A then Use Place on Sequence at Start for the first one and then Place on Sequence at End  for the others. You can drag them about later if you want to change the order or if you make a mistake you can insert an image in another place  by stepping the cursor along to a join and then Place on Squence at Cursor

Nat

Hi All

@Borate....I think the set up is slightly different as I presume Andy is adding his images to a single track. Your test project did give varying results but no idea why.

@Andy

If you are dragging a single image  clips to an empty timeline the first one should automatically go at the start of the track with no gap. This is irrespective of where you drop it or the position of the cursor. You can, however then pull it to the right and release it where it will re-position leaving a gap. Can't say why you are seeing a 6 second gap. When you drag the image onto the track and BEFORE you drop (release)  it do you see a grey zone at the start of the track? This should reflect the eventual place and length of the image you are about to release.

Note that it also tells you where the drop position is........(First image is 0:00:00.000)

For my test I started with an empty timeline and cache and used Ctrl+A to drag all the images from the destination folder to the image bin and then did Ctrl+A again to select all the images in the bin and dragged them en-masse to the track. As mentioned all had the same (default) image duration and ended up in the bin order. (See previous images). 

If you are still having a problem as an alternative, use Ctrl +A to select all images in the bin., (they highlight in blue) and then right click and select Place on Sequence at Start. There should not be any gap!

If you want to do each image individually just to be certain what is happening, select each one and then for the first image choose to Place on Sequence at the Start, and for all the rest Place on Sequence at the End they will then go on the track in the order you do it.

Also let us know what the duration is of each image that you have in the bin. (Hover the mouse over each) If you had an empty VP and cache when you altered the default still image value in Options/Media to 5.96 they should all show this value (even extra images you may add later) and also have this duration on the timeline. If they haven't there is something awry.

Nat

Hi B

Just repeated using 53 completely random images both in size,format.AR etc keeping the defaulted 5.96 time I set in the previous test.

The result was perfect. each was 5.96 secs and the total timeline was  15,15 as before.

All the clips in the bin had the same default time so I don't think that's a problem. If Andy wants to make the images equal (as seems to be the case) then before he adds them to the bin he should set the default time to the duration required.

I'll check out your project.

Note that I move all the clips en masse with Ctrl+A but I have just cleared the timeline and dragged them individually from the bin to the track as Andy says he has done....all had the same duration as they had in the bin.

Nat

Hi B

Very Odd.  I've done this several times including just now as a test with 53 images without any problems. Does this mean that the default time can't be relied on? I have to say I've never noticed differences before but then I usually alter clip durations in slideshows manually as I edit, either to match music or commentary. One thing then to find out is if the thing is reproducable and if the odd durations always affect the same image.

I'll try it with another set of images..different sizes etc and see if it comes out the same.

Nat

Hi

Moving cursor line works fine with both methods.  

To Insert a clip...

• Step cursor line to insert point or join
• Select clip in the bin and use the option Place on Sequence at Cursor (Ctrl+Shift+Insert) The clip will be inserted at the selected join and everything to the right will be shifted along

Alternative

• Step cursor to the chosen join in the timeline
• Select clip in the bin and use the option Overlay on Sequence at Cursor
• Grab the clip on the overlay track and pull it vertically down onto Track 1 The clip will be inserted at the selected join and everything to the right will be shifted along

Nat

Hi

Your reasoning and procedure would seem correct  but the arithmatic  is a little out   

5 minutes 16 seconds = 316 seconds. Each of the 53 images must have a duration of 316/53 = 5.96 seconds

So...

• Open VP 
• In Options/Media  enter 5.96 into the box labelled Default still image duration
• Load images and drag and drop onto  Track 1 (If they are in order in the image bin just use Ctrl+A to select them all and drag/drop then in one go onto the track. They will retain their order.)
• All images will have a duration of 5.96 seconds and appear of equal length on the timeline.
• The timeline will be 5mins 15.8 seconds as shown below....

You can quickly check the separate durations if you like by checking them out in Storyboard mode....each will be 5.96 seconds.

That is the behaviour here with VP 8.95. Playback in VP is smooth as is the exported project. Follow this and it should be OK.

Nat

Hi All

It would seem that transparency in the image in this case should be ignored.

Although the png already  has transparency as shown by the top image and the desired "ghost" effect is there by simply using it as an overlay.

The problem MummyPazuzu had was adding a Scale effect to make it smaller or any movement effect like Position. The already existing transparency being apparently lost as soon as Scale is selected even before any values are entered or sliders moved.

In fact this doesn't matter..It's just an an unwanted effect  that is a bit misleading (in this case.)

The order of adding the effcts is not important either. A Transparency effect can be added following Scale or Scale  can applied before Transparency. 

Position may seem to alter the transparency but this can be corrected in the effects window by simply adjusting the Opacity slider and monitoring the effect in the Sequence Preview window.

It's confusing and probably shouldn't happen. Initially I found it puzzling and assumed a bug until I looked at it a bit more closely

Nat

Hi

After you have added a specific effect to one of the grouped clips, and setting it so all the selected clips get that effect,check what effects have been actually added (or are present) in the ones that seem messed up.

We have reported a problem here where the default values are NOT deleted from the associated clips so these end up with duplicated effects one being the default and the other being the required one.

Nat

Hi

Your image as downloaded has transparency. Overlaid on a clip without any changes the transparency is retained.

As soon as Scale is added to make it smaller it does indeed lose all transparency even though the timeline shows that this is apparently not the case...

Adding a Position effect  does the same thing so what you describe is correct. Not sure how Borate managed to get his result though. The png as downloaded was already transparent and as used had the 50% VP default value applied.

Nat

Hi

"....I'm still having issues at the moment with saving audio clips. ...."

Right click on the Video clip in the Clip bin. From the menu select Save Audio Clip as a New File....

The Audio attached to the clip will be saved as a wav file in the Audio bin....

A further copy of this wav file will also be saved in the folder set up in Options/Disk It's the second box down named Captured audio. You can set up any file you like for captured images/and other clips by using the Browser tab on the right.. even the Desktop.

If you STILL can't find it Right click the file in the audio bin and select Open File Location...

That's where it should be 

Nat

Hi

If you know beforehand you need 50 images that have a total duration of 3:12 you should have done the calculation 192/50 to get the duration of each image(= 3.84 seconds )  and then set it in Options/Media/Default still image duration. If you didn't do this each image will use the default value whatever that was.

To change them in the image clip bin  before you add them to the timeline....

1. Place the cursor in the bin
2. Press Ctrl + A. This will select all the images in the bin
3. Right click on one of the thumbnails and select Change Clip Speed
4. Left click the Duration shown and type in 3.84
5. Press the Enter key and then press Set.   All the clips in the bin will now have a duration of 3.84 seconds
6. You can now drag them all onto the timeline.

If they were in order they will remain in order, otherwise you will need to re-arrange them.

If you want to change their duration if you have already placed them on the timeline follow Borate's instructions. Check however that they all get changed...some earlier versions of VP had a bug that left at least one image with the original default value.

Nat.

Hi

Alternative..

1. Go to the frame before the framein question
2. Split
3. Click Next Frame
4. Split
5. Change to Storyboard mode
6. Click on and Delete Ripple  the Frame you separated with the two splits. (It will have a duration of around 0.033 seconds at 30fps)...

Nat

Hi

Some things to check

1. Under Options/Editing what is the  Default Transition Duration set at?
2. Under Options Editing what is the Video Clip Transitioning option set at?
3. Under Options/Media what is the Default Still Image Duration set at?

Here I have:

1. 4 seconds
2. Always Ask
3. 10 seconds.

Generally no problems.

Nat

Hi

It should be pointed out that when you have completed projects copies of all the files associated with those projects remain stored in the cache and unless the cache is emptied from time to time it can fill up with a large quantity of unwanted (or unused) data. If you do this when VP is empty the cache will be totally cleared, including, however files you may be currently using.  The correct (?) way to use the cache is to first load the project and THEN clear the unused cache files. Old files are then cleared leaving just the current project files. 

Loading a project to a completely empty cache can take much longer than to a cache containg the current files.

Nat

Hi

Still. a bit odd.

After finishing with a project the contents of the two caches are as shown....

After reopening VP and without loading anything (leaving it empty,) when the Option/Disk/Clear Unused cache files is clicked, the folders are in this state...

All VideoPadCache files have been cleared....

All VideoPadSoundCache files have been cleared and just the VideoPadSoundCache folder (empty) is left. But as mentioned even if this is manually removed it is regenerated when another project is opened.

This is with VP{ version 8.94. It seems there is some discrepancy between versions in this respect.

Nat

Hi

Note also that if you select the sound clip from the audio files bin (top left) you have a choice of placements including the Start; End; the red cursor or an overlay track at the cursor position. The default placement is set under Options/Media

Existing timeline clips will be moved depending on the choice made. The overlay track shouldn't move any of the upper clips along. Direct dragging and dropping of the audio onto a lower (overlay) audio track also shouldn't disturb upper tracks.

Practice a bit with the options on a few clips to see what happens.

Nat

Hi

You can clear (manually delete) everything the cache folder even the sound cache folder. It will be regenerated when you start another project.

However tests here show that if you use Option/Disk and delete the unused cache files (and assuming you have closed VP and not retained anything...i.e. you want to completely wipe the cache) then all the files in the cache are deleted including the sound cache files. The sound cache folder remains however but it emptied.

If your sound cache is not being emptied and VP has no open project when you go to Option/disk then there would seem to be a bug with the version you are using or you do have a sound clip open in VP that you have missed.

Nat

Hi

You have tagged on to a REALLY old thread. (2017) It might be better to start a new one for a future query.

In answer to your question re. location of Cache file. Open  Options/Disk and note the location shown in the lowest box. navigate there to fine the cache file. You could also browse to another location...e.g. the desktop and set that as your choice. Close VP and then reopen it. The cache file should then appear in the new location. You can physically empty this (delete the contents) like any folder. No need to have VP open when you do this.  I use a PC so assume that the Mac is similar.  Can't say why VP freezes though. (I have my cache folder on the desktop as I often refer to it when checking out queries and also empty it frequently. Note that the sound cache is also in this folder)

Nat

Hi

Try these...... 

• Create your text
• Add your effects to the text
• Save your project. (Just the text). You will have a vpj file.
• Load this vpj file before you start your next project.

• Create your text
• Add effects to your text
• Export the project. (Just the text) as an mp4 etc.
• At any point during editing of your new project, load the saved mp4 clip of the text.
• Green screen the text clip using black to render the background transparent.

Unfortunately, although you can import clips (including text clips) from another project. and even though it would be a vpj file, the effects are not imported, with the text clip.

HOWEVER.......

• Create your text
• Add your effect to the text
• Click the + that follows Sequence 1 x at the left end of the timeline. This creates a Sequence and clears the timeline.
• Now Save  Project As...give it a name like "Text with effects" (Something descriptive) This will save a .vpj file of your sequence
• At any point during the editing of your next project  Click Menu/File and Import clips from another project
• Select your saved vpj file ("Text with effects.vpj")
• Your Sequence bin will now contain your text but WITH THE EFFECTS intact
• If you keep this vpj file somewhere safe you can use it over and over again for different projects

Nat

Hi

Video of 1hr 13 mins 43 seconds. Played OK in VLC but although the first 39 seconds plays sound (Opening squence) it is at a very low volume. Following that audio seems fine.

Using

Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E4500@ 2.2GHz, 2.0 GB RAM
NVIDEA GeForce GT 730.

From an empty cache file, your video loaded to VP clip bin in 7 seconds.and  it loaded FULLY to the timeline (full green bar) in around 20 mins, although it could be played with no hangups from almost the start. Audio track appeared immediately.The CPU was running during this time at 50%  - 98%

So, apart from being a bit slow which is to be expected with this PC and and starting with an  empty cache it seemed OK

Nat