Nationalsolo

Hi Chas I sometimes find this a bit irritating too but have learned to live with it as one of those idiosyncrasies of VP. Make a suggestion here.. https://www.nch.com.au/suggestions/index.html?software=VideoPad Nat

Hi Quick method.. Place clip on timeline Move red cursor line to end or start of the unwanted section......doesn't matter which. Grab the cursor line in the track area (you will see a left/right arrow appear) Drag the cursor line right or left according to which bit you want to delete/trim. This highlights the area in blue and brings up a small tab with several items...... (depending on version this might be horizontal or vertical)....... Left click the Dustbin icon (to the right of the scissors) (Looks like a little Greek temple 🙂) The selected area will be deleted and the gap automatically closed.....Clip trimmed! Nat

Hi It seems that some animated gifs just show the first frame...some work normally and show the transparency and some work normally and don't show the transparency. A single transparent gif only shows the image as a single video frame but does see the transparency (but see below) Tested some home made animated gifs here using gif images with transparent backgrounds. Microsoft gif animator (old but simple version) produced a file that did not play correctly in VP. But the animator will allow the user to render the background of the animation frames transparent, (even though the individual frames are already transparent.) If this is done the animation plays correctly in VP. Possibly the ones that remain opaque for you may fall into the first group. Bit of a mystery. Nat

Hi (VP 8.94) A .gif image with a transparent background does work OK here and it exports OK with its transparent area BUT VP sees a .gif image or an animated gif as a single frame of a clip and not an image per se. It will not place it on the timeline like a jpg or bmp etc. with the default duration. Thus the first frame of the .gif image on the timeline is all that you will see if you place it over a background image (jpg etc) or a background clip. The best way around this, I think is to use a png image or copy/convert the .gif to a jpg and use a green screen to render the required area transparent. I understand from NCH that there are difficulties when using gif images. Note that a .gif image is placed in the video clip bin...... not the image bin. Nat

Hi Mary No it's not a bug. There is a limited amount of screen room to show all the tracks at the same time if you are using many. (Some users have been known to set up 20 or more! ) However, you can increase the vertical height allocated to the track area at the expense of the preview displays by dragging the small white horizontal bar above the tracks upwards. There is another just above the Audio tracks will will also show more at the expense of the Video tracks. Clicking the chevrons at the left end of each track will compress it so more can be seen. The maximum if everything is squashed up is around 16 tracks....8 video and 8 audio (assuming they are linked.) They are small though. If (for some reason) you add more, then you can scroll them up and down as you have found with the bars at the extreme right. In most projects you shouldn't need to use more that 3 or 4 tracks. Nat

Hi It does seem you are not understanding how Crop and Zoom work. In short Zoom loses quality but Crop does not. ".....It's surreal and unbelievable to not have the cropped area become what will be exported at the end. ...." Original: Cropped: Export: What did you expect? The Frame has been cropped (restrained to 16:9 in this instance). The area chopped off (cropped) is still there but is now black. You are seeing the whole frame...resolution has not changed and image quality remains the same. If you wanted the selected area full screen then use the Zoom effect and there will be no borders. Resolution (pixel x pixel) will remain the same but image quality will be worse. "....And Zoom is NOT the same, as it keep the original resolution....." Zoom crops but also enlarges the selection to make it full screen. Full Frame: Full Frame Cropped: The whole frame is retained so the selected cropped area does not lose quality But when Zoomed: The selected (cropped) area is enlarged by removing the black borders and filling in with duplicated image pixels. In effect visual quality is lost. The final result will have the same resolution as the original un-zoomed frame but may not be as clear. This loss in quality may not be seen at normal zoom levels however. It's one reason why it is always better to use an optical zoom on the camera when shooting instead of the editing digital zoom. Nat

Hi ".... how to make before and after...." Sorry alex. I am not sure what you are trying to ask. Could you be a little more explicit. What do you mean by "before and after"? Nat

Hi Jimbo Unless I missed something on GD I just got the .vpj file which just tells VP what to do but it needs the files as well. Reconstruction of your project can't be done without them. If you load your project then Save Portable Project As...It's one of the choices under the Green Menu /File button... Using this VP will save a dated and numbered folder containing a copy of all the clips as well as a vpj file. Send that folder to Drive and make it public. It will have a name like 2020-11-01 18-50-04. Nat

Hi That's about it. Scaling down a little more of course will enable a gap between each vertical image to be enlarged. The first column sort of establishes how you want to see them. Once you have the figures the other columns of 6 can be set up identically. The Vertical gaps are arrived at at the last stage when the 6 final clips are adjusted horizontally on the different tracks. Nat.

Hi The basics can be learned in quite a short time. One can produce a simple slide show or video consisting of Title-Clips/Images separated with transitions - End title in virtually a few minutes. A more complex project involving multiple tracks multiple effects editing of clips and animations will take longer to master. The software is quite intuitive and the forum members try to answer questions give advice and often explain "How to" Download the free version and give it a try. Nothing is lost and if you like it you can easily upgrade the latest version. https://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/index.html If you receive the expiry message and If you kept the setup.exe file you should be able to delete VP via the control panel and then reload it once more, without needing to download everything again. Nat

Hi By creating 6 exported clips you can fairly easily get a 6 x 6 grid along the lines I suggested in the sticky.. with slightly altered values Set Dual Displays in Options Place the first 6 videos on Track 1 one following the other Add a Scale effect of 0.16 (1/6 of the screen) to each clip (Placing all the clips on the same track means you can select them all and add the Scale effect to them all in one step using the Append effect chain to all selected clips. tab. They will now all be scaled down so 6 will fit into the height of the screen Add a Position effect to each clip in the same way setting the Horizontal value so they move to the screen left (Horizontal = -42) Now drag each individual clip to a separate higher track. (Vid 1 on Track 1 Vid 2 on Track 2 Vid 3 on Track 3 etc. Alter the Vertical Position values of each clip so they lie one under the other. (They should already be on the left.) You can do this by dragging them and monitoring the position with the Sequence preview. You will now have column of clips fitting vertically under one another and each playing when previewed With all 6 clips playing one above the other at the left , export the sequence with a suitable name like Column 1 Repeat the same procedure for the next 6 clips and then the next 6 clips and so on. You will now have exported 6 new vids (Column 2 Column 3 Column 4 etc. Re-open VP and load your 6 exported clips Place each on a separate track and use the Position effect so each track is positioned slightly more to the right than the one below so revealing the column of clips on the track below . You should now have a 6 x 6 matrix. Nat

Hi "...Speaking of which ... I was temporarily experimenting with 8.91. I noticed immediately that when you crop, the resulting clip isn't recentered by VP. How can I recenter it so as to maintain the original theatrical black bars? ...." A re-centering option was suggested some time ago but has not yet been implemented. The nearest thing is probably to count the chequered squares Left/Right and Top/bottom Same with Top/Bottom Nat

Hi Simplest way... Set the still image default duration to the time required in the Options menu (10 seconds) Play the clip (or drag the cursor line) to the place where you want it to become stationary for 10 seconds. Split the track Right click the Sequence Preview window and select Take Snapshot of Sequence. In the menu that comes up select the resolution required (match the resolution of the clip) A snapshot of the clip at the cursor position will now appear in the image bin. Drag the snapshot from the bin to the split on the timeline. This will insert the still image. If the still image clip goes to the overlay track just drag it vertically down to the main track. Video clips to the right will move along to accommodate it. This will play up the to the point where the still appears, the sound will cease during this 10 second period and the action and sound will continue from the end of the still image. You can adjust the duration of the still image section by dragging the white marker at the end of the clip to the left or write. If you wish for the sound to be continuous (if synch is not important..eg if you are using a music track) then you can unlink the audio to the right of the insert and close the gap. Nat

Hi Even if you have deleted the VP cache file folder itself (as well as the Sound cache folder which it contains) instead of just the contents and emptied the recycle bin, a new cache will be created when you reload or start a new project. This will be at the location designated in Options / Preferences . Nat

Hi Place the background video on Video Track 1 Place the green screened video on Video Track 2 Click the FX button of the Green screen video on Track 2 Add the Green Screen effect Click the colour square and use the pipette to pick the green screen (background) colour from the Clip preview or Sequence Preview. This selects the exact shade which will become transparent in the clip. (In fact you can pick ANY colour on the screen) Use the Feathering/Threshold/Fading controls to clean up the outline of the subject in the green screen clip Here is a typical green screen image.... By choosing this green with the color picker pipette the background becomes transparent and the figure is seen against the clip on Video track 1 ; in this example, a landscape....... Note that the subject of your clip should not have any "green" in it or that also will become transparent. Also note that green is traditionally used as it is not normally present in skin colour. In practice you can use any colour not present in the subject Even if the background contains shades of green that differ from the shade actually picked...... ... the Threshold setting can be carefully adjusted to render these areas transparent as well. For example you may have used a green cloth to shoot your subject against that has creases or perhaps a green or blue painted brick wall with similar changes of shade. The Threshold setting will remove these shade differences or brick pattern. Nat

Hi With the cursor line set at the start of the project, what is seen when you preview? Nat

Hi "....Hey, I would of thought there was an Options menu as well. But I can't find it--remember from my PC days. The tools menu does have, Batch Video Editor and Subtitles in it but not Options. However, I was able to download a third party program CCleaner on a suggestion by my brother. I used it to to clean out all of my cache files. ..." AFAIK CCleaner won't clear the VP cache. However, to clear the cache.... Click the chevrons on the extreme right of the toolbar...(NOT the down arrow to the right of the question mark) This opens a menu containing Options... Select Options and then click the tab labelled Disk. This opens a window at the bottom of which is the cache File section with options to set a new cache folder location (just use the Browse tab) and another to Clear Unused Cache files If you still can't find the Options choice then click the green Menu button top left of the main VP window, slide down to Tools and you should now see the Options tab.... if you Clear unused Cache Files using this option you will not see any files. VP will do it automatically leaving any files you have on a currently opened project. If VP is not opened ALL cache files will be deleted. vpj files are normally stored elsewhere and are not affected. If you Use the Browse option you can use this to transfer the cache folder from the AppData/Roaming....... location to say, the Desktop. From there you can easily open it to examine the contents as with any Windows folder. Nat

Hi "....If you are trying to recreate this problem, it happens when you unlink audio from video then start inserting still pictures and linking it up to perhaps a new music track then start to " close gaps" ...." This should be pretty basic. You have your video clip on Video Track 1 with audio on Audio Track 1 ..... Click either track and Unlink it. If you don't want the audio you can delete it... .......and add a new one........ To insert new still images load them to the clip bin. You have the option to Place on Sequence at Cursor This inserts the image at its default duration but creates a gap in the audio track which needs to be closed BUT........ NOTE: If you GROUP the new audio to the original Video clip and then try to close the gap the inserted image will be covered up as logically the timeline to the right of the image is still grouped. Once you have closed the gap you can group the clips..... Using this scenario the audio track is necessarily left with a split but you could equally mute it add the new audio on a lower track after all the edits have been made or if you don't like the splits (they shouldn't be audible) you could drop another copy to Audio track 2 and delete audio Track 1 completely as shown here...... Your inserted image is complete. Working in this way, paying attention not grouping before removing gaps you shouldn't get any hidden clips or things out of order. Keep it simple. Don't use too many tracks-that can quickly become confusing particularly as they may not all be visible at one time. Work carefully one step at a time and once you have a section working OK, Save Project File As giving it a specific name or #. This means you can easily get back to that point without losing anything if you fatally make a cock up later. Another possible option if are happy with a section is to save it as a sequence in the sequence bin. Nat

Hi I am beginning to agree with you. There is a lag with zoom on a 4480 x 2520 jpg which doesn't get better with the undocked window contrary to what I first found. Ive checked this again and it lags just the same. But again, it's pretty well straight away with a 1920 x 1080 jpg so it does seem to be a matter of image size. Nat

Hi B Sorry. Like all clips posted direct to forum...... ------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------------- When I tried I ended up with an active link which I think you saw. (But I will live with it Nat

Hi Borate VP 8.94. Using H265 on a short mp4........ H264 is fine. Nat

Hi Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit SP2 Intel Core 2 Duo CPU E4500@ 2.2GHz, 2.0 GB RAM NVIDEA GeForce GT 730. That seems about the speed and lag I get when setting the zoom on a 4480 x 2520 16:9 jpg image. At this image size it's a bit annoying but to be expected on my PC but then I mostly shoot 1080p Using a smaller 1280 x 720 jpg the zoom adjustment is normal with no appreciable delay at all. Using A 1920 x 1080 mp4 . again, no appreciable lag either with resizing or moving the zoom rectangle. I don't know how large your jpg image is but the speed would seem to be dependant very much on image size. Nat

Hi Uberprutser Relating to your H264 and H265 exports of mp4. I checked a 4 track timeline having distinct clips that could all be seen on export and this included a title text on Track 2. H264 Export.... All the tracks exported and the result was perfect with no missing tracks or other errors. H265 Export.... This failed to initialize the output and produced a Windows message on a white screen. saying that x265enc3.exe had ceased to function. Should the encoder have failed? ?Problem with 64 x 64 pixel blocks on the clips used? No idea. So can't comment on any loss of higher tracks. MPEG4 Export This exported perfectly. "...I'm sorry but I do not seem to understand what you are saying Dangerfreak.I only have on sequence so how do I export one after the other?...." The word sequence I tend to reserve for timelines that that have been converted to Sequences and which placed in the Sequence Bin leaving the timeline empty. This process allows the user to work a large project in sections with many sequences being stored in the bin. What is on the timeline I generally refer to as the Timeline or Sequence Line or make reference to individual tracks. Otherwise there may be a misunderstanding with the word sequence. To be strict of course you do have a sequence of clips on the timeline , and it means you can make a single export of those clips. Sequences in the Sequence bin can also be exported but an option exists to export ALL the Sequences in the bin one after another. I suspect that you were exporting a single timeline and not Sequences from the bin. Nat

Hi Text, by default is placed on Track 2 at the red cursor line position. VP considers that unless you want otherwise it is to overlay the main track. If you don't move the cursor line and add a further text ...or the cursor line passes through your first text, VP will place it on Video Track 3 etc. If there is enough space in front of your first text and the cursor line position is suitable, a new text will also be placed on Video Track 2 otherwise it will be placed on Video Track 3 The rule of thumb is that texts clips are placed on the first available higher track at the cursor position. The fact you had them all (apparently) on Video Track 4 was because they went their by default, the lower tracks being occupied at the cursor line position, or you played the sequence to check each one was OK, leaving the cursor line at the end and then adding the next text etc. Consequently they ended up all on the same higher Track. Depending on the size you have for the Preview area, (controlled by dragging the horizontal white bar below it up/down) you may only be able to see two tracks when they are set at full height. To see more you can scroll the tracks up/down with the scroll bar at the right hand end or reduce the height of the tracks by clicking the Expand Track down-chevron at the extreme left of the track. The easiest way to see more tracks however is to simply drag the white bar under the preview area up as far as will go. This should enable you to see at least five tracks. To move the texts down to a lower track (assuming there is enough space for them there) is to grab them and then drag/drop them onto the lower track in question. This process will not create duplicates, or leave copies of the original behind. This is Drag and Drop process NOT Copy/Paste which will duplicate. Nat

Hi "....And trying to set the grey outlines on the zoom effect ..." Regarding the speed of adjusting the Zoom rectangle (set at 16:9 for a zoom out... I assume you are referring to the dotted zoom outline) With a 12 meg image (and larger) the adjust showed a little lag and a lack of accuracy but this becomes easier and quicker almost immediately if you undock the clip preview screen. I presume that with the "reduced" normal preview window VP takes more time to calculate the zoom rectangle position. Also if the rectangle is very small the + to move it can't be shown. In the undocked window it's easily seen. Nat