Sharing Project

[wkadams]

I am using VS X2 on windows 7. I am at the point of sharing. I want to burn serveral projects to the disk. So I add the projects in sharing, add the selection menus. Everything is fine. If I leave sharing either at this point or after burning, the sharing project is automatically saved and then I am prompted to save a project which I guess contains the sharing project. That is all fine. If I come back and open the project I saved, go to sharing everything is there. However, if I have made a change to one or more of the many projects that make up the sharing project, those changes are not included. In other words, the sharing project contains the original versions of the individual projects and doesn't pull in the latest version. Is there a way while is sharing, have it update to the latest version? I couldn't find anything in help about it. I know I can delete a project and add it back and that gets the latest version. Depending on the time in between, it may be hard to remember what individual projects have changed and need to be updated. Any suggestions. Suggestions may include a different workflow than I am using for sharing.

Thanks
WK Adams

[Ron P.]

The easiest way to understand this is, to understand that a project file (VSP) is in simplistic terms a text-like file full of instructions. Instructions like where the various clips used in your project are located on your system, where to make cuts in those clips, what transitions you want applied and where, what effect and filters you want applied, and so on. There's no actual video, photos or audio included in a VSP file. If you want to get a look at this right-click on one of your VSP files, choose open with, and use Notepad to open and view it. First be sure to uncheck the option to always use notepad to open the file. There will be a bunch of machine code, but mixed in that, you can see some of those instructions.

So if you go back and edit a project, you will need to delete it from the burn module timeline, then re-import it. There's no provision in the burn module for re-link checking. The burn module is going to use the project as it was when you last saved it. This is not all that bad, and goes along with how VS was first designed by Ulead years and years ago. They created the Step method, where you go step by step, from Capture to Share. The Share step being the last because all of your editing should have been completed by then.

[wkadams]

Thanks Ron. Your explanation of the video project files is exactly as I understood it to be. I will just have make sure I am using the files that I want in the sharing process.

I appreciate your time.

WK Adams

[Ken Berry]

Ron's reference to the step by step method also explains why many of us here still prefer the "old" workflow of finishing our editing, and then first converting our project into a final DVD-compliant mpeg-2 before moving on to the authoring/burning stage. And in that stage we then insert all our new mpeg-2s rather than project files. That way we know precisely what we have in the burning timeline.