Slide Shows made in Edit Room Disappear

[Janet]

Hi Everyone,

I am using Movie Factory 7 SE and love it. But it's been driving me crazy and cost me a lot of time recently. I am a fairly good computer/software troubleshooter but I just can't get a handle on this.

I have successfully made a .dwz file consisting of an .MPG video followed by a "color" slide with text on it inserted while in MF plus about ten .JPG photos. I've saved it, retrieved it, burned it to DVD, and viewed it on DVD players, at it has been fine.

Please note I used the *Edit Room" to create this file. I noticed on posts on previous versions of MF that you didn't used to be able to combine video and photos, but in MF7SE you can. It even gives you a mini-menu offering the insertion of videos, images, color (slide), and audio into the time line.

I tried multiple times to create a new slide show doing the same things as I did with the first .dwz file I created, with the same ingredients -- i.e., .MPG video and .JPG photos -- and believe it or not, each time it now deletes the slide show from the .dwz! However, while you stay in the .dwz everything acts fine, including the play button, preview, etc. There's absolutely no warning nor even a hint that anything is awry from MF's point of view.

But if you exit MF7SE you may never see your slide show again. The .dwz does open... but there's nothing on the time line. Just in case you're wondering, yes, I am certain I saved my .dwz after creating the slide show.

More detail: If you don't include a .MPG file, and have only .JPGs, then you will never see your slide show again once you exit MF7SE -- even though everything seems fine as you're working with the file. There's no warning that there's anything amiss. If you include a .MPG file at the beginning of your slide show, then you will see it after exiting and re-accessing MF7SE about 7 times but at the 8th time it will have disappeared.

I am astonished at this turn of events since my first such slide show effort had gone so well.

In the problem slide show there are many more .JPG photos than in the successfully-created .dwz -- about 90 to 95 photos. Is that too many?

Add Slideshow: I do not want to use the "Add Slideshow" utility because while it will let you add "color" slides, it won't let you write text on them! Unless I've missed something, whenever a "color" slide is highlighted, the "T" text option becomes grayed out! (Why in the world did they ever do that??)

I am running XP Pro and have plenty of disc and memory space.

I want very much to create this slide show of our week together for a friend I visited. Any help you can offer will be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Janet

[Ron P.]

I read your post several times, and finally had to install the SE version on one of my computers to see what it was that you were doing, and why this may be happening. This is what I think is occurring.

While you can add color clips, photos, titles, in the edit room, they are being added to the video file, referred to as a Title in DVD authoring, that you used to enter the edit room. I don't think they're really disappearing. In your project (dwz) highlight the same video clip that you added the photos to, the open the edit room. Now scroll the timeline to see if the photos are still there. They should be. They are not going to show up on your main timeline, as they are now part of that video clip.

If you want to add more, just do what I stated above. I've tested this, doing just as you described. I had a video clip, color clip with a text-title, and several photos. I saved the project, then closed DMF7SE. I then re-opened my saved project, went to the edit room, and my photos were still there.

[Janet]

Dear Ron,

Thank you so much for taking so much time to install the SE version of Movie Factory 7 in order to try to see the problem I've been experiencing, and thank you so much for trying to duplicate the situation .

What happened was that everything disappeared from the timeline -- the initial .MPG included. In other words, the timeline was completely blank. There was nothing to click.

In the meantime, I tried starting with the .MPG file I'd used with the successful Edit-Room type slide show I'd made (which I referred to in the initial post). I added .JPG photos to it and inserted into it text slides made in the Edit Room. So far they haven't disappeared yet.

All I can conclude is that for some reason MF7SE didn't like the .MPG file I'd used with the disappearing slide show. Unfortunately there may never be a way to define the problem. If you'd like me to send you the problem .MPG file, please let me know.

Thanks again for your help !

Best,
Janet

[Ron P.]

What's the size in MBs of the MPEG? If it's less than 25MB you could send it to me. I'll PM you with the info..

[Janet]

Hi Ron,

Thank you once again for wanting to take the time to try to replicate the problem !

Unfortunately, the .MPG file size is a little over 31Mb.

If you wish, I could try to cut it down smaller and then try to replicate the problem with it myself and let you know what happens. If the problem does show up again, if you still wish, then I could send you the smaller file. I have the PM info.

By the way, the sizes of the .MPGs of the initial successful Edit-Room slide show were: 20.8Mb, 18.8Mb, and 55.1Mb. These three .MPGs were at the very beginning of the slide show, one right after the other, with nothing else in between. The photo .JPGs were placed after the 55.1Mb .MPG.

The Edit-Room slide show that kept disappearing had only the one 31Mb .MPG in it.

Let me know if you're interested in the 31Mb's file being made smaller and tested here that way and I'll do it right away.

Thanks again !
Janet

[Ron P.]

Just checking back... Have you tried replicating it by cutting it down? If so what was the result? You could try sending the video file to me. One thing that I forgot to ask is are you located in NTSC or PAL areas? It doesn't matter that much for testing on the computer. I would just have to add similar files to the project to test it.

One other alternative would be to open the project where you created the problem MPEG video file in VS. Then add your photos to the end of it in VS. Render another video file to replace it in DVD MF. In essence that's what you're doing in DVD MF, is adding on to that video file.

[Janet]

Hi Ron,

I was waiting to hear whether you were interested in my making a smaller file and trying to replicate the problem with that and if so sending the file to you. I'll work on that and get back to you as soon as possible.

That's a good idea as far as trying the VS route. Thanks . I'll explore that, too.

As of now, it sure is a mystery!

By the way, I tried re-creating the slide show from scratch using the first .MPG of the successful "Edit Room" slide show. I loaded all the photo .JPGs, too. So far, it's behaving itself, though I want to test it some more before deciding it's okay.

Thanks again ,
Janet

[Janet]

Hi Ron,

I was trying to finish my newest "Edit Room slide show" and guess what -- its timeline, too, disappeared! I think I've defined what happened (see below). I believe its reasons for failing are different from those of the first unsuccessful ER slide show -- so I still have to go back and try to figure that one out; I'll let you know what I find.

For the newest circumstance, I'll give you my conclusions first and then list what went into them.

Conclusions:
1--This new ER slide show failed because the date and/or time stamps of one or more of its .JPGs changed. Both the date and time changed; it may be both which caused the failure or maybe just one of them. Note that the pathnames did *not* change.
2--MF7SE is using more than just the pathname to reference .JPG and maybe all files on an Edit Room slide show's timeline. It's not like it doesn't know the pathnames -- it is storing them (see "Further Exploration"-#5 below). MF7SE should use the pathname, and the pathname only, for file references.

Facts:
1--I made this new Edit Room slide show the same as the others: with a .MPG followed by many .JPG photos.
2--I inserted a "color slide" (as in the "insert color" choice on the mini-menu) at about 6 locations between groups of .JPGs. I added text to each color slide.
3--I changed the viewing duration from 3 to 8 seconds on all .JPG photos, slides, and text.
4--The whole ER slide show was now finished.
5--I tested it many times by exiting MF7SE, re-accessing it, and re-accessing the ER slide show.
6--I put it out to disc and viewed it on my DVD player and TV: it came out fine from the software's point of view but I noticed some further editing I wanted to do to some of the .JPG photos.
7--I edited these .JPG photos. Note that I did *not* change the pathnames at all.
8--I accessed MF7SE and the ER slide show: the whole timeline was blank, just like with the problem ER slide show I wrote about originally.

Verification 1:
1--I backed up all the files in the ER slide show and then restored the files from a back-up a few days ago -- before I had edited any of the .JPG photos. Now the files were exactly as when the .dwz was working. Note that I did *not* restore the .dwz file in question, on purpose.
2--I accessed MF7SE and the ER slide show: it came up on the time line; when I went into its Edit Room, the .MPG, .JPGs, and color slides with text were intact and behaving perfectly.

Verification 2:
1--I exited MF7SE.
2--I pulled up one .JPG photo and merely re-saved it without any editing, again without changing the pathname.
3--I accessed MF7SE and the ER slide show: the timeline was totally blank even though the file had not been edited.

Further Exploration:
1--I copied a back-up over the file re-saved in Verification 2.
2--I accessed MF7SE and the ER slide show: it came up on the timeline and was fine.
3--With the ER slide show in the Edit Room, I edited a different .JPG photo.
4--When I clicked on the edited photo's thumbnail in the Edit Room's timeline, the display at the top-right turned black. When I clicked un-edited photos' thumbnails, the photo displayed in that area in the normal fashion.
5--MF7SE did not react until I clicked OK. It displayed the message "The file [pathname] lose [sic] link, do you want to delete it? (Y/N)"
6--I chose "N" -- it stayed in the Edit Room.
7--I clicked OK again -- it displayed the same question; I chose "N" again and it stayed in the Edit Room again. Therefore, you cannot get out or save your file unless you choose to delete the "offending" photo.
8--I clicked OK yet again -- this time I chose "Y". It stayed in the Edit Room, but when I clicked OK again, it exited the Edit Room and I could save the file.
9--I exited and re-accessed MF7SE.
10--I pulled up the same ER slide show: it came up on the time line and was fine except for the text (see next).
Note -- and this is on another topic -- that while all the photos were there, the text from "color slides" after the deleted .JPG photo became misoriented. The text would begin after about half the color slide had displayed, and would continue till about half of the photo following it had displayed. I have noticed this many times -- each time a change is made in an ER slide show.

The original problem I wrote about still has to be figured out, and I will work on that. However, I hope this additional information on another cause of disappearances from the timeline may help .

Janet

[Ron P.]

Thanks for that further explanation. However I think this is a bug, a non-fixable bug, since Corel probably is not going to do any further development with DVD MF. I also think that what you're doing is an "outside-the-box" action for a DVD authoring program. You see what you're really doing is editing a video file. When you enter the Edit Room, you have a video file selected. While DVD MF does allow for some minor editing, it really is not intended to be used to edit video. So when you add the photos and color slides, titles to your video clip, those are being appended to it. Then when you open the project again, that video clip is not being fully and properly loaded after you have edited or accessed the photos that are linked to that video clip.

I guess you could say the project file (dwz) is corrupting to an extent, as there has been a change to those linked photos. I agree that it seems the program used more than the location for linking. This is evident in VS when you try to re-link to a clip that is not the same duration. Project files store what it last knows of the clips, and the date/time info might be a part of that. The file size of an image could change after editing, and this too could cause the program to think that the original photo is no longer where it thought it was.

I must admit that I've only tried a few times to use DVD MF from start to finish for a project, meaning that I start with a raw video file, one that I have not edited in VS or some other program. Most of the time when I open DVD MF it is to build my menus and burn a disc. All editing has been done prior to launching it. If I wanted to add a slide-show to my DVD, I use the Slide-show function in DVD MF or better yet, I create them in VS.

[Janet]

Hi Ron,

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.

I have the feeling that what went wrong with the first ER slide show that failed is akin to what happened in the second failure (the one I just wrote about) and therefore may also be a bug. Since Corel is probably not going to do more fixes for MF it may not be worth the time to track down the steps needed to re-create what happened with the first file that failed.

I will try VS' slide show. Till now I've hardly used VS because it's so restrictive, concentrating as it does on the people who don't want to be bothered learning the detailed functions that allow one to do a lot with a product. In VS, they seem to have decided, "You can do only a few things we have chosen, and no more; you must do them in the way we have pre-ordained; and you can't even do what we allowed you to do before [MF]."

Be that as it may, I'll give it a whirl. Worse comes to worst, I'll still be happy to use MF7SE's ER slide show function and I'll just make sure all editing is complete, and all text on photos is within large margins, before I put it together. Plus I'll be very happy to use MF7SE's many other wonderful functions. In addition, I'm sure, at times its regular slide show function will come in handy.

Thanks again for your many valuable thoughts and the time it took to convey them!

Janet