Recent VS updates

[billseifert]

BTW, I let it install DVD Factory again and clicked on "repair" this time. The repeating request to install DVD Factory has stopped.

[Accolades]

Now I notice that every time I open VS, it wants me to install DVD Factory 7 again. As much as I know it is there and can be selected via the tools pull-down How do I stop this? When both VS X3 and the install windows open up, the only options the install window gives me is "next time" or "in 7 days." Nothing that allows me to say never again." It's always something, isn't it?

Did you remove the program?

I believe it is part of the update to X3 DEFAULT X3 install.

Have you installed it?

[billseifert]

With each repeated notification of the same thing, I had three choices: uninstall, repair, and custom (I beleive), or delay until later. I got tired of this, so this time I clicked "repair" which seemed to do something. It then was happy because it stopped asking me to install in subsequent running of VS. I have yet to notice any difference in operation since then because I already had DVD Factory 7 show up on the pull-downs.

[Accolades]

With each repeated notification of the same thing, I had three choices: uninstall, repair, and custom (I beleive), or delay until later. I got tired of this, so this time I clicked "repair" which seemed to do something. It then was happy because it stopped asking me to install in subsequent running of VS. I have yet to notice any difference in operation since then because I already had DVD Factory 7 show up on the pull-downs.

i guess it thought it was missing something...

[billseifert]

OK. I'm up to date and my extra music tracks now save and stay there. Except for some basic design issues (like I have never been able to go to SHARE and do PROJECT PLAYBACK in full screen as advertised - for me only quarter screen appears), I am extremely happy with VS as usual. But I have returned to my current set of draft DVDs of 20 half-hour photo shows of my Hawaii trip which includes about 9000 stills of stitched, single photos, and video clips and my nagging problem is still there in the edit mode long before burning:

If I go into any formerely set pan and zoom of one photo to make some adjustments or corrections, the following test and playback in the edit mode gets weird, as I've reported several times. The zoom especially goes off on another completely different direction. And the pan'' will often slip off the edge and then when to pans the other direction, it will start off slowly and speed up to catch up and overshoot the other edge. All the parameters I set are correct because I can save, quit VS and return, invoke that same show, and all runs correctly. Sometimes it works correctly if I go through the series of photos where the problem first appeared at this moment and do this: I open each photo and transition in order and click on each diamond in the pan an zoom in order, return to a point just prior to the series, save, and test play while in the edit mode. It all plays correctly. My zooms and even pans are set to match continuation of either in the next photo or video clip, so the setting of either needs to be precise. A final run shows up disjunct settings that I must correct. Hence the extreme dislike for this penalty I endure for not having done it perfectly the first time on every one these photos.

With the thousands of photos I have with pan and zoom in these 20 shows, you can see how irritating this is to go through this LONG process EACH TIME I notice something has to be tweeked as I run through the shows one final time. The reaulting burn always is fine, but the review before I feel I've finished and ready to burn is where I observe this time-wasting error.

Isn't there something, or isn't there someone I can talk to who can help solve this problem? Surely I'm not the only one to observe this.

Bill Seifert

[Accolades]

OK. I'm up to date and my extra music tracks now save and stay there. Except for some basic design issues (like I have never been able to go to SHARE and do PROJECT PLAYBACK in full screen as advertised - for me only quarter screen appears)

You should be able to view your project in full screen at any stage of the process by selecting the enlage option.

[Accolades]

If I go into any formerely set pan and zoom of one photo to make some adjustments or corrections, the following test and playback in the edit mode gets weird, as I've reported several times. The zoom especially goes off on another completely different direction. And the pan'' will often slip off the edge and then when to pans the other direction, it will start off slowly and speed up to catch up and overshoot the other edge. All the parameters I set are correct because I can save, quit VS and return, invoke that same show, and all runs correctly. Sometimes it works correctly if I go through the series of photos where the problem first appeared at this moment and do this: I open each photo and transition in order and click on each diamond in the pan an zoom in order, return to a point just prior to the series, save, and test play while in the edit mode. It all plays correctly. My zooms and even pans are set to match continuation of either in the next photo or video clip, so the setting of either needs to be precise. A final run shows up disjunct settings that I must correct. Hence the extreme dislike for this penalty I endure for not having done it perfectly the first time on every one these photos.

With the thousands of photos I have with pan and zoom in these 20 shows, you can see how irritating this is to go through this LONG process EACH TIME I notice something has to be tweeked as I run through the shows one final time. The reaulting burn always is fine, but the review before I feel I've finished and ready to burn is where I observe this time-wasting error.

Isn't there something, or isn't there someone I can talk to who can help solve this problem? Surely I'm not the only one to observe this.

Bill Seifert

I assume the Pan And Zoom Error only occurs with STITCHED photos?

Using P&Z on any standard photo works fine?

With stitched photos how many do you normally have stitched together?

Does the error occur no matter how many or only when done with the AUTOPAN program?

The error may be due to VS not being able to detect the ending of the pictures or indeed detecting a picture ending in the stitched sequence?

I think I may have suggested this before. Have you tried exporting your stitched photos as an mpg file, importing as a video and using the video pan and zoom filter?

[billseifert]

*********No, you misunderstand. Go to the SHARE mode and click PROJECT PLAYBACK. There you view all or part of your current project in crisp definition but there are no controls. It plays in quarter size in the middle of the screen. Why not full size?
********

I assume the Pan And Zoom Error only occurs with STITCHED photos?

*********No, once it starts, it affects all photo of any type. It's as if the file that records the parameters gets confused and each photo down the line is affected until I take these annoying steps to correct it.
********

Using P&Z on any standard photo works fine?

****See above

With stitched photos how many do you normally have stitched together?

******It doesn't matter. VS makes a resized copy of it. But the stitched photos could be from 2 to 50 images. But the resulting image is one jpg and VS takes it as any other. It should not know it from any other.

******

Does the error occur no matter how many or only when done with the AUTOPAN program?

***** No matter in all cases. It can be working perfectly fine and I just tweek one part of pan or zoom and the problem shows up. Leaving VS and coming back in to the project clears it up until I go in and tweek another P&Z photo.
******

The error may be due to VS not being able to detect the ending of the pictures or indeed detecting a picture ending in the stitched sequence?

*****I seriously believe that a stitched photo has nothing to do with it. They are all normal jpg photos to VS.

[Accolades]

*********No, you misunderstand. Go to the SHARE mode and click PROJECT PLAYBACK. There you view all or part of your current project in crisp definition but there are no controls. It plays in quarter size in the middle of the screen. Why not full size?
********

When in the ENLARGED version as above select play then double click on the video being played back. This should then go to full screen.

Hmmm Unable to get PROJECT PLAYBACK to view in full screen?

Just another undocumented feature?

Just did the old RTFM and it stated "How your video is played back will depend on the PLAYBACK METHOD option thet you selected in Preferences". I have changed all the options with the same result!!

[Ron P.]

What frame size do you have for your project properties? It uses those sizes, for example for SD DV, AVI, NTSC it plays at 720 x 480. Most computer screens are much larger than 720 x 480. To play full screen on my laptop it would need to be upscaled to 1280 x 800.

[billseifert]

I think I tried over the years most preferences and even Windows XP display properties. I got it somewhat larger, but at some point I got a message saying the large size was not supported. My prior video softwares, despite other shortcomings, had no problem in displaying shows in sharp images in full screen. Then I jumped to VS with its so many great features, and now it couldn't display full screen - all 4 versions that I bought. It's always something.

[Ron P.]

vs_fullscreen.png (298.06 KiB) Viewed 4978 times

VS does and has in all previous versions that I own, have the ability to play in full screen mode. However, unless your talking about a high-def project, where the pixel resolutions are as large as or larger than that of your computer monitor screen, it will not fill the computer screen. If you set your windows display to VS's minimum allowed of 1024 x 768, a standard-def video resolution (720 x 480 for NTSC, or 756 x 480 for PAL) still will not fill the full screen on your computer.

VS X3 no longer does High-quality playback, like the previous versions, so any preview of your project is done on-the-fly, throwing together all your edits, effects, clips ect.. without any sort of rendering. Depending on how robust your computer is, and the complexity of your project, this preview may not be crisp and smooth.

Finally to best see that in Project Playback it is playing your project in its full size, try using some different frame sizes. For example try a small frame size of say 320 x 240, comparing it to the frame size of your normal project. You'll see that it is smaller on your PC screen.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi

I have always used the playback from the timeline.
As mentioned the enlarge button to the lower right of preview screen will re-size the screen with controls.

Additionally from the edit timeline view, if you double click the preview screen whilst playing in either Clip or Project then the screen will enlarge to full without controls.
Double click again to return to normal view.

[billseifert]

*****Why does everyone always refer back to the other playback - the one from the timeline? Doesn't anyone ever go to (or are aware of) SHARE and use PROJECT PLAYBACK available there? That is what I keep asking about and everyone avoids talking about it. Where your playback method has a full-screen low resolution result (even others who I have talked into converting to VS question as to why it's so fuzzy), the SHARE/PROJECT PLAYBACK is really sharp. All I ask is to have it play in full screen too so I can preview (or play for others a finished project) on my my PC or my connected large screen HDTV. I like to see how it looks on large screen before burning it to DVD and going to a presentation where they use large screen TVs with their DVD players. Is that too much to ask for, especially when other products have always provided that?

Bill
******

I have always used the playback from the timeline.
As mentioned the enlarge button to the lower right of preview screen will re-size the screen with controls.

Additionally from the edit timeline view, if you double click the preview screen whilst playing in either Clip or Project then the screen will enlarge to full without controls.
Double click again to return to normal view.

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Bill

Sorry Bill didn’t mean to upset you.
As for the option from Share-Project Playback, I am aware of it but do not use it.
Project playback does not always produce a good representation of the final video irrespective of which approach you use.
The program has to combine all the elements in the timeline and play them on the fly, heavy editing does create playback problems.
I do not see any improvement in quality when using any of the project playback options.

I have looked into the Share approach and it appears to play the project using the Project Properties frame size. Being Pal I see my video as 720 x 576 pixels (16x9), this is displayed on screen as a small version, actual pixel size. I’m afraid that’s what it does.
For what its worth I think the Share-Project Playback should be removed from the program.

By editing the Project Properties to use 1920 x 1280 (full hd size) then my playback fills the screen.

High Definition video is very demanding on the pc, Smart Proxy is employed to help VS cope, but creating smaller files again will not represent the final video quality in Project Playback

If I rendered the project to a single video file using the final output properties then I would see the true quality of the video. I would then be able to play the video using other Media Players in full quality.

I can of course select the option for High Quality Playback, this renders the project, saving files in the Preview folders. (don’t think X3 has this capability) the files being used to produce full quality playback.

The option for full screen playback exists, i just double click the screen.........