Nationalsolo

Hi Just a quick line regarding Inserting an image into a forum post. This process has be disabled on the forum due to misuse. We may get it back possibly sometime in the future but who knows so for the moment we will have to do with verbal descriptions. Nat

Hi The text entry window is wider than the VP frame so if you type 39 characters size 10 they will just fit across the frame (Can't insert image here due to a forum error ) Note that in the text editor window the line of characters only goes halfway across making you think you can add more. This is not the case with this size font If you type more characters they will appear in the editor window but NOT in the video frame unless you start a new line. If you don't start a new line the text will be truncated and no more characters will appear in the video frame even though they are present in the editor. Using larger characters means you will get less on the editor line, smaller letters more on a line. But don't think that the text EDITOR SCREEN is what you are going to get. Always check with the preview pane. Changing the resolution of the preview in options (keeping the same AR) makes little difference to the preview; perhaps a few pixels at each side as VP (I think) keeps the same text resolution. If, on the other hand you export at a different AR then the text will be truncated (cropped) it wont be stretched or shrunk to fit. e.g. If your VP timeline is 16:9 (1.77) and shows 39 characters at size 10 but you export at 704 x 576 (1.22) The text line will now only hold 27 characters. In both cases the VIDEO beneath the text will remain a full frame but in the smaller AR it will be reduced in size at the correct AR to fit......The text will not! So always export at the AR you have used during editing. Check it looks OK in the sequence preview pane and the text should not get truncated Nat

Hi NCH The option to insert an image into a post using the Insert other media tab does not seem to be working. The only option that comes up when the tab is clicked now is Insert existing attachment. This is when there is NO actual attachment and the URL of the image has been copied from the hosting site and is ready to insert.. (Only the URL can be inserted as a link) Can this please be rectified? Nat

Hi " Note: How to attach image/video in this forum from my system for supporting my topic? " Inserting an image into a forum post. Do a screensave or have a suitable image available to demonstrate your point. (e.g. a jpeg) Goto https://pictr.com/ and click Start Uploading"This will open a File upload window. In the File Upload window navigate to your image Select the image and click Open. Click the green Upload button. Your image will be uploaded to Pictr.com When upload is complete scroll down and click Embed codes Copy the Image URL. (It also has a Copy option if you hover over the text so click the word Copy that appears ) Return to the forum and in your post place the cursor where you wish your image to insert. Now click Insert other media at the bottom of the post. Select Insert image from URL. This opens up a window above your post. Paste your Image URL that you copied from Pictr.com followed by Insert into post... The image will appear in your post at the position of the cursor. Left clicking on the image will allow it to be suitably sized in the body of your post. Nat

Hi Possibly better than the original (I noticed you were watching it on the TV) Great fun.....Loved the dog "jumping" off the windowsill LOL. and nice flying saucer effects a bit like "Mars Attacks" Great fun to make I expect. That's what it's all about. Nat

Hi Also.... With the 2min clip on the timeline... Play the timeline (or drag the cursor) to the start point of your 10 seconds Split the clip and delete the first section. Close the gap. Play your 10 seconds of clip and stop the cursor at end of it. Split the timeline again and then delete the unwanted end section. You now have your 10 seconds left on the timeline. Nat

Hi Normally you can take a snapshot by having a clip on the timeline, scrolling the red timeline cursor bar to the frame required and then right clicking the sequence preview screen.(The same applies for the clip preview) If you then take the Take Snapshot of Clip option a .png image of the frame is added to the Image clip bin and a copy is saved to the default folder set up in the Options/Disc page. A quicker method is to simply press F11. If, as you seem to have done, applied a Crop effect to the clip and followed the same procedure as above, the snapshot obtained and saved to your default image folder, will still be the full frame but with the cropped off area shown as a chequered zone...i.e. just like the frame on the sequence line.......... If you want the frame to hold just the cropped area, then use the Zoom effect. (Set the restraint to the AR of the original clip otherwise the snapshot (and the clip) will be stretched in one or another direction. ) Then use the procedure as described.The resulting snapshot (.png) will be full frame and placed in the image bin as well as the default folder . Whereas Zoom will always produce a full frame snapshot (with stretching if the AR is not respected) Crop will always have a chequered surround even if the AR is retained. Snapshots are always the full frame as it is shown on the timeline Nat.

Hi Transition Option set to "Ask Me" Transitions between separate clips work OK and the "Ask me" option window comes up as it should. This does not happen for a split in a single clip even when a section of the clip has been removed and the resulting gap is closed.The option to overlap the two clip sections is not available. Is this deliberate? It does look as if an overlapping crossfade is produced however. Nat

Hi Miggy Use just the Zoom effect. but keep the AR 16:9 Open the keyframe pane to the right of the effects window. Set the red cursor line to the start of the clip Set a start keyframe by clicking the small green cross at the top left of the keyframe graph. Move the cursor line to start of your zoom and create a second keyframe Move the red cursor line to where you want your close up to complete. Adjust the zoom rectangle in the preview window to outline the face of the subject. Create another keyframe. Move the red cursor line to a point where you wish to change the zoom position again (or to the end of the clip if you want to remain zoomed in on the face.) Create another keyframe. When played the clip will start out showing the whole frame and at the designated second keyframe point start a zoom into the subject's face. It will then stop at the next keyframe position and remain zoomed in to the end of the clip (unless you have chosen to move/alter the zoom rectangle with another keyframe. The greater the time between the start and end of the zoom the slower the zoom will be. Nat

Hi " So with any sort of Fx applied to Video, you do A to B to get a result, But there is no simple way to undo Fx from a finished product, no B to A. " That's more or less it. Once you have exported your work it becomes a single video and the effects can't be reversed in the exported version. After exporting VP will still have your project displayed and you could step back to an earlier point using the redo tab. Of course if you haven't retained your work in some way it will be lost. The "Master" you refer to would be an easily created small text file with all the info needed to re-assemble your work... a .vpj file. So, to clarify the save options for this if you don't already know them... VP will allow you to save your work at any point, either with or without all the component clips. this will include a .vpj file which are instructions that tells VP how to reconstruct your project. If you want to move all your work to another PC or upload it somewhere use the option Save Portable Project As. This will create a dated folder and copy all the clips to it as well as a .vpj.file. This folder can then be transferred to the new machine or uploaded to a web site like Dropbox etc. Since the clips are present in the folder the .vpj file can be used by VP to recreate the project. If you just want to save your work at a particular point so as not to lose stage you have reached, you should use Save Project File As. This does nothing with the clips which stay where they are, but simply saves a vpj file with the name you supply. e.g. "Project 1 PointA". After a bit more editing you can repeat the Save Project File As with a different name e.g. "Project 1 PointB" and so on. This process creates an additional .vpj file each of which will enable VP to reconstruct your project at the point at which you saved it. If you just use the Save Project File option, you supply the name the first time around (or use the default Untitled.vpj ) but subsequent saves using this option overwrite the old file using the same name There is no opportunity to enter a new name so previous saves will be lost and you will only retain the last save . That's why I generally use Save Project File As. The last point is that provided you haven't deleted or moved any of your clips VP will recreate your project from the vpj file (even if you have emptied the cache.) If any clips are not present on your PC or you have moved them to another folder, you will get a message to that effect and a prompt to locate them. Hope this helps Nat

Hi stebbinsd The nature of your Crown of Thorns image makes getting a good outline with the tools available to VP and the method I suggested above quite difficult as using Scale etc on the shadow image doesn't doesn't "fatten" a thin segment of the image like the horns. All the expansion is outwards so although you can get an outline to the right and left of this complex shape, the inner edges also move outwards so that the outline is not obtained. Judicious use of vertical and horizontal scale values can alleviate the problem somewhat but the result is not very good. In fact your final result IMHO was better. Perhaps NCH could implement an outline effect that does what you want for objects on transparent backgrounds. Why not file it as a suggestion? Nat

Hi PIP in brief..... Place your main (background) clip on Video Track 1. Place your "floating" clip on Video Track 2 which is the overlay track. Line the clips up one over the other. The clip on the overlay track will hide the main clip at this point. Add a Scale effect to the "floating" clip to reduce it to the required size. (Horizontal and Vertical Values less than 1) Now add the Position effect to the "floating" clip and use keyframes to animate the required movement. If you want more detail on how to do this come back to the forum. If the clip you are using is a video clip containing a PIP it can't be "extracted". You may however be able to use the Crop effect to isolate it and then keyframes to make the cropped area to follow it. Not an ideal solution and results will depend greatly on the sort of motion etc. that the PIP has (and you patience in setting of the keyframes.) Nat

Hi pc The Virtual Dub de-shaker plugin that VP uses can handle quite a lot of shake as well as rotation but needs some experience in setting the different parameters to achieve the best effect. The info to do this is here.... https://www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm VP will allow the user to set parameters for the two passes but in general the default setting do a good job although borders might need to be trimmed off. As for using any of the effects like Mask,Scale and Crop etc. Although you can, as you have found, elongate and deform the image vertically or horizontally the trapezoidal foreshortening effect can't be corrected. However c-major has filed a a suggestion which means such an effect might be forthcoming in some future release. Nat.

Hi Using a transparent png of a rose...... Set Opacity to 1 and Blurriness to 0. The border will then be hard edged. (left image below). The problem is that as a "Shadow" it can't be placed all around the object only at an angle to it Introducing blur softens it.(right) This can't make a centralized shadow, i.e. one behind the object at Distance 0 and Angle 0 significantly larger than the object, even with blurriness set to 100. The way around this is to have a copy image of the object png scaled larger than the original and then add a Two-Tone effect to this, setting the object colour black. and the back colour something contrasting. The downside using this effect is the png background becomes opaque, as Unfortunately the option to make either of these two colours transparent is not available. (Perhaps that might be included as a future enhancement.) Now add a Blur effect of suitable degree. (But see below.) Place the main image on the overlay track and the the scaled up two-tone copy on the main track... Obviously if you want a hard outline don't use the Blur effect. If you now use the Green screen effect and select the background colour of the two tone .png from the preview using the pipette tool you can make the background transparent again. Placing the clips on the upper overlay tracks you can have the shadowed png on a a normal clip (or image) placed on Video track1........ It's about the best you will get at the moment. Nat

Hi The crop effect is rectangular. There is no provision to make opposite sides of the rectangle of different lengths. You can however create a mask that will outline the trapezoidal shape of the foreshortened TV screen and then make the outer area transparent which will have a similar effect. The difficulty here is that the image remains distorted due to foreshortening and I don't think there is a correction for this. Might be worth suggesting NCH include such an effect. Nat

Hi sbgaming wrote:... "Mono track plays left only, despite having pan set to centre. This is not a "feature" nor is it correct behaviour. It is a bug...." I have to agree with this.....see below Also in my post I stated that my mpeg4 clips were mono In fact they do indeed have two channel sound as shown by the properties that VP put out for the clip. I have to say I have never noticed a stereo effect in clips from his little Toshiba camera (I do use stereo sound camera with this one when recording my orchestra rehearsals from time to time) but as a result of this thread I took a closer look at the manual for the little Toshiba. This doesn't actually mention stereo sound in the specs but the mic is labelled a stereo mic. The holes for the mics are in fact very close together on the camera so the stereo effect is minimal but the output IS two channel. Borate wrote: "However, the file reverts to left-channel only if a stereo track is added" I have confirmed this with the addition of another anomaly.... As a test I created a short .avi using a webcam. This had a single mic and the resulting clip was shown by VP to have a single audio channel. On its own on Audio Track 1 (stereo pan setting center) it seemed to play OK BUT the stereo pan box in fact behaved like a fade control. Moving it from extreme left to extreme right the soundtrack simply faded out. The sound did not go from left to right speakers (in earphones) I was expecting the single channel sound to start in the left ear and transfer to the right ear. It didn't do this,. Two channel soundtrack from my normal mpeg4 clips does so. Adding a normal mpeg4 clip to the same Video track so as to follow the ,avi corrected the left-right sound output for the .avi Pulling the avi up to the overlay track (avi audio now on track 2 with the mpeg audio on Track 1) the avi audio was now only heard on the left. It should central. The mpeg audio (the only one with the slider) went from left to right with the slider as was expected. Nat

Hi Downloaded a stereo test file in wav format. (Left, Right, centre ..In-Phase, Out-Of-Phase ) The WAV files are 48 KHz/16bit/Stereo.I placed this on Audio Track 1 with an image on Video track 1 The Audio correctly played Left side....Right side and then mixed. Exported as mp4 and it played correctly (Keeping preferred audio channels as per input....2) I then split the track and dropped the right audio section onto Audio track 2 and dragged it back so it was below the left audio section on Audio track 1. When played in VP the left and right aspect of both tracks was retained as expected. Exported as an mp4 and the sound played as expected (right and left channels kept separate) Added a mono mpeg4 clip (both channels presumably identical) to follow the image clip. Split the stero audio clip again dropped the right hand portion to Audio track 3. The whole sequence of three audio tracks played correctly with left, right and centre channels all mixing together but retaining the right/left/centre output. This seems OK for me (VP 6.23) but perhaps sbgaming is using a different type of stereo file. Nat

Hi It's gone below now! ? But that's the post I meant. Nat

Check reply above Nat

Hi Borate wrote.." Added info for version 6.23 ... the export folder will default to the VIDEOS folder each time VP is fired up, regardless of what folder path was last specified." Hmmm,,,This does seem to be the case now in the last release of 6.23. Earlier versions saved into the previously used destination. pstein will have to keep changing the Videos destination to the required export file every time a save is made. Perhaps a destination folder could be added to the Export page under Options. BTW I have just downloaded what is meant to be the latest release of VP (6.23) but the top toolbar at the far right still says "Beta" and also has the green "File button" (Not the "Hamburger)??????? Nat

Hi The maximum resolution of a DVD movie is 720 x 480 pixels It takes about two gigabytes to store one hour of average video. VP sets this automatically but prompts for NTSC or PAL format as the resolution of each is slightly different. (PAL is slightly wider) Nat

Hi "How can I change this to a new DEFAULT directory to e.g. D:\videos\output\ for all future exports? " Go into Options /Disk and set the defaults shown to the folders of your choice for general save locations. For Export, VP defaults to the last export folder used so once you have changed this by right clicking the current location written in blue to the right of the Save to Folder prompt (version 6.23 Beta) it remains in force until you export to a different folder. The name of the export is at your discretion and is entered in the export window top box. Initial default is Untitled. This does not default to the last named export as it would be too easily overwrite the previous export if inadvertantly missed. If you enter the same name VP will warn you in red text.There isn't a automatic change of name for adding dates etc. You will just have to amend that yourself. You could put in a suggestion that VP show you the previous export name in a labelled box so you could if wished amend it (say, by adding the date ) and then have this transferred to the real export title box. A bit clumsy perhaps..... or simply allow the export with same name to go ahead but automatically adding an incremental number as Windows does with same name files. Currently VP will not allow an export if the name is the same unless you are happy about overwriting the old file. Nat

Hi "Ok, if I want to save the current video as shown in the timeline I have to Export it? This would avoid the creation of a project file.  Correct?" Well, that is correct.......If you don't want to create a project file (.vpj file) which only takes a few seconds, you would need to export it. This can take much longer....minutes to hours depending on length and complexity of the project and the export format chosen and if you are doing this as an interim thing e.g. to save your work when it is at a particular stage, then (IMHO) it's not the way to go. Generally one exports the work when all the editing is completed. For this the destination folder and format can be set in the export details window. However....Do you have a reason to not create a regular project file until your editing is complete? As Borate has mentioned, repeated Save Project File As will create .vpj files that you place in a folder of your choice and which VP can use to regenerate your project at those saved stages. Doing this at regular intervals and using different names or numbers at each save will allow you to revert to the project when it was at a different earlier stage. e.g. Project Edit1.vpj Project Edit2.vpj Project Edit3.vpj. etc. (Note that using the Save Project option will overwrite the .vpj file each time using the same name and so you will only have one. There is no option to change the name. Nat

Hi Any comments regarding the gap closing process. I know I am currently using 6.23 Beta but in the previous version I could add all my clips to the timeline in one go (they were chronological) add Xfade transition to all and then progress along the timeline editing each one in the clip preview pane using IN/OUT settings and removing transitions if required without the need to close any gaps each time and this was both rapid and easy. Can't do that with this Beta version. (Note that I was using a single track apart from overlaid text for titles...i.e. It wasn't a complex project.) Nat

Hi I am not sure exactly what you are referring to here by "keyframe". The process of deleting a section of the timeline as above (or using other methods) does not require the creation of keyframes which are a different thing entirely. I think you might be referring to the rendering process that occurs after you have done an edit. A simple split and section removal usually only takes a few seconds and VP handles this. Note that the original clip is not actually cut, editing with VP is non destructive to your original footage. The timeline displays what one might refer to as a "running copy" Removing a section means the program has to calculate and save the position of the cuts and then recopy the thumbnails of the following section and their positions etc to those places in order to regenerate the timeline. The speed at which this is done as shown by the green progress bar over the timeline is largely dependent on the processing speed and graphics capability of the individual PC and to a great extent also the resolution setting of the preview screen as it seems that thumbnails are smaller and faster to regenerate.. After the edit the resulting timeline (apart from now having a join) remains exactly the same resolution as it was before the section was removed. (The export resolution of your video is set when you output it and is not related to the resolution set within VP for previewing and editing.) If you want to save the project either before or after the edit (or both) you can simply right click the File button and select Save Project File As and then use a new name each time. This will create a .vpj file and takes just a second or two. The resulting .vpj file is a text file that VP can use to recreate your work if needed. Hope this helps. If not please come back. Nat