An Easier Way?

[dawnmichele]

Hi.

 

I've been using these Roxio products for a couple of years to make simple videos. Photos with music and an occasional video clip thrown in. Currently, I'm using Creator 2009 and here's what I typically do:

 

1. Put photos with song into VideoWave. I generally have several of these VideoWave productions for each video I make since I create one VideoWave production for each song. My current project has 12 songs with related photos, so 12 VideoWave productions.

 

2. I output each VideoWave production to a video file using the AVCHD 1080i setting. I use this because the first time I used a 720p output setting and the video was fuzzy when played on an HD TV. The video files that are output say they are MPEG-4 Movie files. I'm not at all certain that this is the best setting to use. My current project, then, has 12 MPEG-4 Movie files.

 

3. I put all of the 12 MPEG-4 files into one VideoWave production. I do this because I want to have just one movie in my DVD project once I get there. I like to be able to have each song as a chapter.

 

4. I create a a DVD project in MyDVD and add this VideoWave production (the one with the 12 MPEG-4 files) as the movie. Then I burn to a DVD.

 

They come out as I want them to, but I'm thinking I've complicated things too much. Is there a better way to do this?

 

Thanks...Dawn

 

 

 

 

[Jim_Hardin]

Hi.

 

I've been using these Roxio products for a couple of years to make simple videos. Photos with music and an occasional video clip thrown in. Currently, I'm using Creator 2009 and here's what I typically do:

 

1. Put photos with song into VideoWave. I generally have several of these VideoWave productions for each video I make since I create one VideoWave production for each song. My current project has 12 songs with related photos, so 12 VideoWave productions.

 

2. I output each VideoWave production to a video file using the AVCHD 1080i setting. I use this because the first time I used a 720p output setting and the video was fuzzy when played on an HD TV. The video files that are output say they are MPEG-4 Movie files. I'm not at all certain that this is the best setting to use. My current project, then, has 12 MPEG-4 Movie files.

 

3. I put all of the 12 MPEG-4 files into one VideoWave production. I do this because I want to have just one movie in my DVD project once I get there. I like to be able to have each song as a chapter.

 

4. I create a a DVD project in MyDVD and add this VideoWave production (the one with the 12 MPEG-4 files) as the movie. Then I burn to a DVD.

 

They come out as I want them to, but I'm thinking I've complicated things too much. Is there a better way to do this?

 

Thanks...Dawn

I do not see any better solution…

 

You want ONE Movie with 12 Chapters… (I am using ‘12’ for example purposes)

 

If you wanted 12 Movies then you could get by with bringing VW Productions into MyDVD – creates separate menu buttons for each Production.

 

You ‘could’ combine all 12 into one VW Production using Markers then load the single VW Production into MyDVD and Edit Movie to change the Markers into Chapter Markers…

 

But that is pretty well 6 of one or 1/2 dozen of another…

 

I am guessing you want to create sort of a Music DVD but with unique slideshows attached to each song??? Sounds pretty neat

 

[dawnmichele]

I do not see any better solution…

 

You want ONE Movie with 12 Chapters… (I am using ‘12’ for example purposes)

 

If you wanted 12 Movies then you could get by with bringing VW Productions into MyDVD – creates separate menu buttons for each Production.

 

You ‘could’ combine all 12 into one VW Production using Markers then load the single VW Production into MyDVD and Edit Movie to change the Markers into Chapter Markers…

 

But that is pretty well 6 of one or 1/2 dozen of another…

 

I am guessing you want to create sort of a Music DVD but with unique slideshows attached to each song??? Sounds pretty neat

 

 

Hello Jim Hardin, Digital Guru.

 

Thanks for your input. Yeah, that's a good way to describe my videos. They're like a continuous music video with different songs.

 

I guess I'll just keep doing what I do. It's time-consuming (and chews up a lot of hard disk space until I finalize everything), but the end product is decent.

 

Have a great weekend...Dawn

 

[Jim_Hardin]

Hello Jim Hardin, Digital Guru.

 

Thanks for your input. Yeah, that's a good way to describe my videos. They're like a continuous music video with different songs.

 

I guess I'll just keep doing what I do. It's time-consuming (and chews up a lot of hard disk space until I finalize everything), but the end product is decent.

 

Have a great weekend...Dawn

There is a backdoor way to add multiple VW Productions into MyDVD so they act as 1 Title…

 

This would save you 12 of the 13 rendering processes you are doing now. It takes advantage of a ‘bug’ in 2009/2010.

 

Only drawback that I know of, is that it may be “fixed” in later versions…

 

Open MyDVD and add the first production – Production 1.dmsm. - not the mpegs but the dmsm files!

 

Now choose Edit Movie. This takes you to MyDVD’s editor which looks like VW.

 

Choose Add Movie. Now if you manually type in the full name and extension of the VW Production file, Production 2.dmsm, it will add it to your current Title!

 

Add all you want the same way. As you add them, add a Marker at the beginning of each one and right click it to change it into a Chapter Marker. (purple arrows in the pic)

 

Lastly go Back to MyDVD and it should give you what you want.

 

 

You should have plenty of VW Productions you can try this out with. Give it a try and see if that is not a little faster overall.

 

[dawnmichele]

Dear Jim Hardin, Digital Guru,

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is what I was hoping for...a way to add a VW production to a VW production. You are brilliant. I'll give it a try with a few of my current files. I love bugs!

 

Have a great day...Dawn

 

[Jim_Hardin]

Dear Jim Hardin, Digital Guru,

 

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is what I was hoping for...a way to add a VW production to a VW production. You are brilliant. I'll give it a try with a few of my current files. I love bugs!

 

Have a great day...Dawn

Brilliant??? ~ not so much, I tried something one day and got lucky

 

I hope it will give you what you are after!

 

[dawnmichele]

Hi Jim,

 

You were so kind to give me a fix for what I'm doing, I thought I'd let you know how it all turned out...

 

Excellent.

 

I followed your instruction and added each of my VW productions to a blank VW production by typing in the .dmsm file names (now grown to 16). I added this new VW production to MyDVD as the movie and, voila, I have a final video that plays as one continuous movie (without all those pesky little pauses you get when you add each VW production as a separate movie). And, I can use the 16 individual panels as chapter markers.

 

The best thing, though, is that I don't have to do all of that rendering anymore. No easy task for my poor old computer that's down to it's last 24GB of free space.

 

There is one little glitch that I have to work on, though. The audio from a couple of the VW files doesn't come over when these files are added to the blank VW production. I haven't spent any time trying to figure this out yet, but I'm sure there's an easy fix.

 

So, thanks again for the "work-around". Much appreciated.

 

Peace...Dawn

 

[Jim_Hardin]

Hi Jim,

 

You were so kind to give me a fix for what I'm doing, I thought I'd let you know how it all turned out...

 

Excellent.

 

I followed your instruction and added each of my VW productions to a blank VW production by typing in the .dmsm file names (now grown to 16). I added this new VW production to MyDVD as the movie and, voila, I have a final video that plays as one continuous movie (without all those pesky little pauses you get when you add each VW production as a separate movie). And, I can use the 16 individual panels as chapter markers.

 

The best thing, though, is that I don't have to do all of that rendering anymore. No easy task for my poor old computer that's down to it's last 24GB of free space.

 

There is one little glitch that I have to work on, though. The audio from a couple of the VW files doesn't come over when these files are added to the blank VW production. I haven't spent any time trying to figure this out yet, but I'm sure there's an easy fix.

 

So, thanks again for the "work-around". Much appreciated.

 

Peace...Dawn

 

That is good!

 

Thanks for the feedback

[greenjeans]

That is good!

 

Thanks for the feedback

 

 

 

 

AHA! I, too, do "music videos", only my problem is about those pauses you mentioned. I usually make one long video (about an hour) of scenery I have shot, (video and stills I extract), then break down the chapters by the scene, leaving the music to cross over the chapter lines.

 

 

There is invariably a break in the music, and the only way I have gotten around it is to make sure the music stops before the scene does. If this other method of putting a movie together would eliminate those breaks, I should try it. The only problem then comes in figuring out where to cut the music for each "mini-movie" to really have continuous sound across the chapters.

 

 

Interesting to try. Thanks for the info. greenjeans

 

[dawnmichele]

Hi Greenjeans,

 

Yaay, someone else trying to figure out how to do this. I'm not sure I can be much help since I don't really know what you mean by scenes. But, here's what I've learned in order to make one continuous music video without any pauses in the music or in between chapters.

 

I make several individual VW productions for just that reason. I've found that the simplest way to control the continuity is to make one VW production for each song or music clip that I want to use. It takes a little planning ahead of time, but it's easy to adjust the timing of things if you have just one song in a production. The song ends automatically when the images stop. If the song is shorter or longer than the images, just adjust the duration of images. Each production then becomes a chapter. Again, I'm not sure what your scenes would be relative to these chapters, so this might not help you.

 

Once I string together all of the individual VW productions in one VW file (thanks to Jim for that), and add a transition between them all, all of the productions transition into one another seamlessly in the final MyDVD video. No pauses in the music or the movie, unless they're intentional.

 

Occasionally, I will use more than one song in a VW production. In this case, if there are pauses in the music, I either split out the silent parts at the end of songs, or I overlap the songs in the Timeline section and fade one out while the other fades in. This is a nice effect sometimes.

 

Peace...Dawn