Must use clips with different properties in same project

[WestbrookNH]

NOTE:

I have changed the name of this topic, because I discovered that the problem I was having was using clips of various sizes and properties in the same project. Original entry follows below.

Hi, guys. It's been a while.

I have a new system (see my profile) that I think should work with Pro X4 just great.

However, I had some AVI videos I tried to edit. I could not get frame resolution in the time line, as I remembered getting with older Corel products editing MPEG files.

Nevertheless, I was able to edit AVI and get good results as long as the AVI files did not have sound. When I tried to edit AVI with sound, preview was unusable. The transitions got lost during the preview, and the sound dropped out around cuts and splices and transitions.

Needless to say, editing did not go well without a decent preview.

Are these artifacts of trying to edit AVI files, or is there something else amiss?

Should I be capturing in MPEG or some format other than AVI?

The following settings seemed to get the best preview results, but I still had sound drop outs around cuts, splices, and transitions (which are splices). I expected the sound to x-fade around transitions.

NTSC drop frame (29.97 fps)
MPEG files
24 bits, 720 x 480, 29.97 fps
Upper Field First
(DVD-NTSC), 16:9
Video data rate: Variable (Max. 6000 kbps)
Audio data rate: 384 kbps
Dolby Digital Audio, 48 KHz, 3/2(L,C,R,SL,SR)

I set the project to MPEG, even though the source was AVI, because it seemed to improve the preview response time a bit, but not enough to make a real difference.

[BrianCee]

hi again

Avi is certainly the best format to edit with - BUT - Avi is a great big bucket full of all sorts of variations and the first thing we are going to need to know is where did they originate from (what camera etc.) and exactly what are their properties - could you do a right click over one of the Avi's in the timeline choose properties and post up the result

Thanks

[WestbrookNH]

I was using Debut Professional screen capture software, v 1.64 with the following settings.

avi
Video Compressor: H264 (Native)
Video Compressor Settings: Quality Rate Factor 28.0 (where HiQ is 1.0 and LoQ is 51.0)
Sound Compressor: MP3 (Native)
Sound Format (44100 Hz, 128 Kbps, Stereo

Resizing of video was OFF.

Screen Capture rate was 30 frames/sec

When I right-click the clip in Pro X4, I get the following:

File Format: Microsoft AVI Files
Frame Rate 30.000 frames/sec
Data Rate 64.93 kbps

Video:
Compression: Microsoft DTV-DVD Video Decoder
Attributes: 24 bits 1852x982
2035 frames

Audio:
Compression: MPEG Layer-3
Attributes: 128 kBits/s, 44100 Hz Stereo
2,977,982 samples

[teknisyan]

This can be a codec issue, specially to new system such as yours. Here are some of the codecs that you may want to install.
RealPlayer: http://www.real.com/
DivX: http://www.divx.com/en/software/divx-plus/codec-pack
XviD: http://downloads.xvid.org/downloads/xvidcore-1.3.2.zip
Windows Media Player: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/wind ... dia-player or just download the Windows Encoder at http://www.microsoft.com/expression/pro ... rview.aspx
QuickTime: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/
Direct X: http://on-msn.com/aLrk0j (WinXP)
Direct X: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/window ... tx-11.aspx

[WestbrookNH]

This can be a codec issue, specially to new system such as yours. Here are some of the codecs that you may want to install.

Okay ....

http://www.real.com/

Downloaded and installed.

DivX: http://www.divx.com/en/software/divx-plus/codec-pack

Downloaded and installed. Should have paid closer attention to what was being installed, because I got Google Chrome, among other things. Don't need or want a new browser.

XviD: http://downloads.xvid.org/downloads/xvidcore-1.3.2.zip

Good thing I'm a software engineer. Had to download and install nasm and put it in the msvc project path so I could build this thing from the sources. But it's done.

http://www.microsoft.com/expression/pro ... rview.aspx

Don't know what this did. When I clicked the "Download" button, I got another browser window that flickered for a few minutes. There was network activity while that was happening. When the network activity stopped for a minute or so, and the browser stopped flickering, I X-ed the browser.

QuickTime: http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Already have this.

Direct X: http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/window ... tx-11.aspx

dxdiag shows that I already have this, too.

Well, I will give my avi editing another try tomorrow, now that I have all these codecs installed.

[WestbrookNH]

This can be a codec issue, specially to new system such as yours. Here are some of the codecs that you may want to install.

Apparently, some of those codecs are clashing. Pro X4 is hanging and crashing, now.

I will need to delete them.

[WestbrookNH]

OK, I deleted DivX first, and Pro X4 stopped crashing.

So, I won't bother deleting the others, unless I see other problems.

However, I still have the original problem of lousy Previews, with sound dropping out for at least a few seconds after cuts, splices, and transitions. And the Preview rendering of transitions is very poor.

This machine is very fast, much faster than my old one, and I have no problems with other complicated software, like CuBase Digital Audio Workstation.

I suspect a settings issue, but I'm asking you guys, because you're the experts.

[skier-hughes]

You need to set your project settings to the same as your files to get the best from the files.
You have 1852x982 sized files, but are editing in 720x480.
Depending on what your final output is going to be, so viewed full screen on your monitor, then stick to your screen size, and custom output, or I'd capture to match my output/editing sizes.

[WestbrookNH]

> You need to set your project settings to the same as your files to get the best from the files.

Thanks, Graham.

Problem is, I am capturing windows of varying sizes with screen capture software for technical training. Sometimes, I need to capture the whole screen, and sometimes just portions of it, as well as odd-sized popups.

So, properties of all the clips vary, and that's probably the source of my problem.

If I set the capture window to a fixed size, some captures will include unnecessary clutter, and others won't be large enough to capture the whole picture.

Is there a good solution for this? I don't mind taking an extra step to make the clips compatible.

[WestbrookNH]

Bump hoping for help.

[aljimenez]

Bump hoping for help.

Here are some ideas. Look into resizing of photos using a photo editing program. Edit your screen captures to blur the areas you don't want detracting from the areas you want. Allow black borders to photos.

[WestbrookNH]

Bump hoping for help.

Here are some ideas. Look into resizing of photos using a photo editing program. Edit your screen captures to blur the areas you don't want detracting from the areas you want. Allow black borders to photos.

Thanks for the good suggestions, and they are good ones.

Unfortunately, these are video clips of various sizes.

Maybe I can find a way to crop all the videos to the same size, or maybe to shade the areas in the videos that are not important. Is there a way to do that with X4?

[aljimenez]

Look into video filters and some companies sell video filters to do blur backgrounds or to highlight some area of a video... Al

[WestbrookNH]

Thanks, Al.

Filters are a good idea. Why didn't I think of that?

I guess the best thing to do is to do all the screen capture with the same settings and use filters to highlight the areas of the screen that are of interest.

[lata]

Hi
As your video clips are various sizes have you tried using the overlay tracks instead of the main top timeline, or maybe you are?

After using Debut Professional I assume you convert the clip to a format of your choice, or at least have a choice of outputs. Have you tried MP4, or maybe Mov