Adjust Time Range-duration does not adjust in Timeline

[goddi]

Greetings,

I used the 'Adjust Time Range' to change the speed of a video to achieve slow motion by changing it from 100% to 50%. The video does slow down but the new duration (doubled) is not automatically changed for the video in the Timeline.

Should changing the 'Speed' of a video in the 'Adjust Time Range' function automatically adjust the duration of the video to the new duration in the Timeline?

Gary

[jt49]

The video does not have a duration in the timeline. The slide containing the video as an object has that kind of duration. This slide may contain other objects. Why should its duration be changed automatically? This would spoil the synchronization of all subsequent slides. Another feature with an awful side effect (like KFSD)

[goddi]

1 hour ago, jt49 said:

The video does not have a duration in the timeline. The slide containing the video as an object has that kind of duration. This slide may contain other objects. Why should its duration be change automatically? This would spoil the synchronization of all subsequent slides. Another feature with an awful side effect (like KFSD)

Greetings JT,

Not sure what you mean when you say a 'video does not have a duration in the timeline'. When you drop in a video in the project, it has a 'length' (duration) and the Slides/Timeline adjusts for that length. If you change the 'Speed' of a video clip, would you not expect the length to change (shorter or longer)? So wouldn't you expect the results? If you did not want to 'spoil' any synchronization you have already done, then you might not want to do it. I don't understand why, if you change the length using the 'Speed', you would not want it's new length to be automatically inputted into the project. If you plan to use the entire new length of the video that was affected by the 'Speed' change, you would have to make any adjustments anyway.

Perhaps, a check box should be made to allow or not allow the length of a video clip to be automatically adjusted. If you change the length of a video clip using 'Speed', it seems intuitive that the new length would show up in the Slides/Timeline.

Gary

[jt49]

When I look at the timeline, I only see the durations of the slides, but not the lengths of the videos that are contained inside the slides. A single slide may contain 10 or more videos all of which may have different lengths. If you now adjust the time range of one of these videos, what should happen to the duration of the corresponding slide? You are looking at a very special situation. But if you want to see a feature where the adjustment of the time range should have an effect on the slide duration, you should provide an appropriate specification of this feature.

[goddi]

1 hour ago, jt49 said:

When I look at the timeline, I only see the durations of the slides, but not the lengths of the videos that are contained inside the slides. A single slide may contain 10 or more videos all of which may have different lengths. If you now adjust the time range of one of these videos, what should happen to the duration of the corresponding slide? You are looking at a very special situation. But if you want to see a feature where the adjustment of the time range should have an effect on the slide duration, you should provide an appropriate specification of this feature.

Greetings JT,

I really am trying to understand your point. But I do not. I don't understand when you say a "single slide may contain 10 or more videos all of which may have different lengths." Do you  mean a project can have many videos or do you really mean one slide will contain many videos. I am referring to placing one video in the project and changing its 'Speed'. When you change the 'Speed' of that video, using the 'Adjust Time Range' function, it will change the length of time the video plays, longer or shorter. Currently, when you change the playing time of the video using 'Speed', the change in its playing time is not automatically made to the video clip in the Slides/Timeline. The video clip stays the same playing length.

So, if you have a 20 second video clip and change the Speed to 50%, the playing length changes to 40 seconds. But when you do this, the video clip's playing length in the Slides/Timeline stays at only 20 seconds. You have to manually change the duration of that clip in Slide Options to have it play the entire 40 seconds. The new playing length of the video clip is easy to compute if it is 50%. It just doubles the length. But what if you use 32.5% or 180%? More difficult to compute. But, if you wanted to change the Speed of a video clip, don't you expect it to change in its playing length?

When the 'Speed' of a video clip is changed, whether you adjust the new length manually in the Slide Options or it is done automatically (as I suggest), the slides coming after this video clip are just moved down to the right, as expected. The duration of any other slide is not affected. Yes, any audio tracks you need sync'd with particular slides might have to be moved down too, but that is an easy adjustment. But audio clips can also be linked to individual slides so they would automatically adjust.

So I still do not see what your opposition is to this change.

Gary

 

[Tonton Bruno]

Gary, please consider that many of us include in a single slide one or several video clips which are not the main image of the slide, and the duration of each video clip is shorter than the duration of the slide itself.

Please have a look at this slideshow.

My first animated slide (#2) has a duration of 51s and includes 5 short video clips extracts.

 

Please consider that the use of a video-clip as the main object of a view is just a lazy way to proceed, and may be a marginal one.
This is why many of us will not support your suggested improvement.

[wideangle]

17 minutes ago, Tonton Bruno said:

Please consider that the use of a video-clip as the main object of a view is just a lazy way to proceed, and may be a marginal one.
This is why many of us will not support your suggested improvement.

Tonton

Please do not make assumptions which may not be true.

 

Clearly, there are two very different situations being referred to here in this discussion.

Gary is raising the issue of the slide duration in the case of where a slide consists entirely of just one single video clip. He is quite correct in his request. It makes perfect sense for the slide duration to be updated by Pte when his suggested changes are made. In fact, it is illogical not to do that.

Tonton and jt49

You are referring to when a single slide consists of several video clips. This is clouding the discussion set up by Gary, and has nothing to do with the point in question.

Regards

wideangle

 

 

[Tonton Bruno]

Wideangle

You're right; The two situations are different.

The point rised by Goddi is not a bug. It is just a feature which could be improved in adding a chek box as Goddi suggested in his second message.

Igor will decide what is the value and the priority of this improvement, wich look very minor from my point of view, and I explained why: we include a limited number of video clips in our slideshows, and not necessarely as main object of a slide.

 

 

[goddi]

Greetings All,

Tonton, saying "using the use of a video-clip as the main object of a view is just a lazy way to proceed" is like saying using the fade transition is dull.    We all have our own ways of developing our projects. Yes, I think we have not been on the same page about this 'feature'. I don't think you even used the 'Speed' function in your example. As Wideangle said, your points have nothing to do with my suggestion. I'd like for you and JT to take a single video and change the Speed to 50% and then tell me what you think. I think it is logical for the duration of the video to be updated with its new length, because that is what the function is expected to do.

Gary

[jkb]

Gary,

I agree with you on this one. I too find it frustrating if I adjust the speed of a video & the length of the slide is not altered. Especially if I am trying different speeds to get the right effect.

But I also agree with Tonton, that if a video is just one of the Objects on a Slide then the length of the Slide should not be adjusted.

So a check box is a good option.

I would also like to see this happen if I manually adjust the length of the video by dragging in the sliders at left & right - ie crop the video duration.
Again a check box to allow adjustment of the Slide duration.

 

Jill

[Tonton Bruno]

Gary, I prefer to adjust the speed and the duration of my video clip when I edit it under Photoshop CC, or under Da vinci Resolve, depending on the video clip.

Generally, I modify the duration for timelapses or cinematographs, prepared under Photoshop CC and saved in MP4 format.

Then I convert the video clip using PTE video converter, but at this level, I no longer make any duration variation.

If I am not convinced by the result, I go back to Photoshop and redo all the process, in order to keep the optimal quality.

So you're right, I never use the speed variation under PTE, and I recomand to my trainees to never use it.

[Lin Evans]

HI Guys,

I suspect part of the confusion which appears here is because there isn't a clear understanding by everyone of what the word "slide" actually means. We often use the term "slide" synonymously with image which though in the sense of the old audio visual shows where transparencies were common is correct, but in the present sense of PicturesToExe a "slide" is a container which might contain even hundreds of images, numerous videos and other "objects" which I believe is where the confusion arises. JT is correct that having a "slide" time absolutely correspond to the length of a video is incorrect. This situation is correct if and only if the video is represented on the slide list and not just as an object in Objects and Animations. Tonton and JT are correct that multiple videos may well be a part of a slide so changing the length of one of these videos should not arbitrarily change the slide time. Having an optional check box would be a solution but it seems that in reality it is an extra step which would only really apply to the case where, IMHO, a video is found on the slide list. It's a minor task when one elects to change the speed of a video to other than the original to adjust the slide time accordingly if that video appears on the slide list.

Best regards,

Lin

[goddi]

Greetings Lin,

I tried to make it clear that I was referring to applying the 'Speed' function to a single video clip that was brought into the Slides/Timeline. When you say it is "a minor task when one elects to change the speed of a video to other than the original to adjust the slide time accordingly if that video appears on the slide list", I don't think I go alone with that. Yes, you can but why have to do it? If someone has set up multiple video clips in an object in a very specific way, why would he want to use the 'Speed' function after the fact? To change the Speed of a video is a choice to be made in each instant.

To 'adjust the slide time accordingly' after a Speed change is implemented, it becomes a manual adjustment that you should not have to make. For example, if you have a video clip that MediaInfo says is '23s 991ms', the File Info shows only '23', and the Slide Options shows the duration to be '22.681' (because you dragged over the following slides to help the transition from the video clip to the still image to be smoother), would it not just be easier to have PTE automatically calculate the precise updated length if the Speed was set at, say, '65'?

Otherwise, you would have to manually move the slides that come after the video clip back and forth trying to find the spot where you had the video clip's ending point before in the project relative to its following slide. It would seem to me that if you changed the Speed of a video clip, whether it is a single clip from the File List or part of an object in a slide, you want to use the entire new length of that clip, and calculated precisely, automatically. The window in the 'Adjust Time Range' shows the new duration, why would it not just update the duration with that new length? Isn't it what you are expecting to do with the video clip?

The neat thing is that if you do change the video clip's Speed to, say, 65, you can also enter your own duration in the 'Adjust Time Range' window for the length of the video clip you want it to be. So someone with multiple clips in an object, he has control to leave the length of a Speed-adjusted-clip to their choice. Best of both worlds. But it would help if the length (or duration) of these changes in the Speed of video clips were automatically adjusted in the Slides/Timeline to whichever duration of the Speed of the specific video clip you changed.

Gary

[wideangle]

Sorry to repeat myself, but this whole thread is being overcomplicated by discussions of Photoshop and other methods, and of multiple videos in a single slide. All of that is completely irrelevant.

Let's keep it simple guys, and limit the discussion to a single slide holding a single video clip.

Regards

Wideangle

[Lin Evans]

"Greetings,

I used the 'Adjust Time Range' to change the speed of a video to achieve slow motion by changing it from 100% to 50%. The video does slow down but the new duration (doubled) is not automatically changed for the video in the Timeline.

Should changing the 'Speed' of a video in the 'Adjust Time Range' function automatically adjust the duration of the video to the new duration in the Timeline?

Gary"

Above is the original post which said nothing about a "single slide holding a single video clip" so actually, the discussion is quite relevant I think. If the slide time is automatically changed for one video clip and there are multiple video clips as objects it can't be assumed that the user intended that changing the slide time to correspond to one of many clips is intended to happen. To assume that would be presumptuous and would possibly disrupt the entire intent. Nobody knows apriori whether the user wants the entire time span of the slide to be changed just because they want one of the video clips to be played at other than the original speed. No one should assume that because one of numerous video clips in a slide is changed in speed that that entire video clip is intended to play from beginning to end. The only time that such an assumption is logical is if the single video clip is reflected in the slide list and not only one of many objects in the Object's List.

Best regards,

Lin

[goddi]

Lin,

This has been an interesting back-and-forth on this issue. Actually, I never considered anyone having multiple video clips in one object. Ok. But by my second posting, I think it was clear I was talking about simply dropping a video clip into the Timeline. I have not become more creative than that with video clips, yet.

But I think the more intuitive approach for PTE to take is to automatically adjust the length of a video clip when you change the Speed. What else would you expect to happen? The good point is that if someone had multiple video clips in an object, they can retain the original video's duration by just inputting that length in the 'Duration' in the 'Adjust Time Range' window. But the problem with that is, for example if you choose, say, '50', it will play only the first half of the video clip, you lose the rest. Why would you want to do that? If you choose, say, '200', you get the clip played in half the time but you have the other half still hanging around in the Timeline, and have to manually made the adjustment to the new duration. Why would you want that?

Perhaps, a logical solution would be to show 'Original Duration' and 'New Duration' with a check box for the user to select, so the Slides/Timeline will reflect whichever you choose, and have PTE automatically update the playing time in the  Slides/Timeline. If someone had multiple videos in an object, he could keep the original duration of that clip with its Speed change.

Gary

[wideangle]

2 hours ago, Lin Evans said:

Above is the original post which said nothing about a "single slide holding a single video clip" so actually, the discussion is quite relevant I think.

 

Sorry Lin, beg to disagree about the discussion being relevant.

Looking at the broader picture, in the ongoing discussion Gary referred to dropping a single video clip into the timeline:

 

On 4/24/2017 at 9:29 PM, goddi said:

When you drop in a video in the project, it has a 'length' (duration) and the Slides/Timeline adjusts for that length.

So we are only talking about a single video clip in a single slide.

Incidentally, with this same starting scenario, there has been a lot of discussion recently about slide duration being changed or preserved when a slide style is applied to that video  clip slide, Currently, the video duration is destroyed by the slide style, which is totally illogical.

Having a check box, as Gary suggests for this case, and as was suggested for the slide style scenario, would allow the user to have full control over what they want to happen, in a similar and consistent way.

Regards

wideangle

[Lin Evans]

Sorry, but we have to disagree on this. Saying "drop in a video in the "project" does not imply only dropping a video into the slide list. The "Project" implies any place in the slideshow. Dropping a video into the "project" could mean dropping it into a slide as another object or putting it in as the entire content of the slide. We must be precise in our language or it will cause this type of confusion.

Best regards,

Lin

[goddi]

Lin and others,

If I were referring to adding a video into an object in O&A, I would have used the proper O&A menu term, 'O&A/Add Video'. To me, the Slides/Timeline is the 'Project'. Ok, not as precise as I could have been...but  close. Seems some responses are more concerned with what is not there, then what is there.

But as I said before, this has been a good debate and it is good to learn what others think, even though some things get lost in translation. I just wish we would have these debates on so many other suggestions. I have made many and most just sit there without pros and cons added by the other members of the Forum. You'd think after a hundred or so views, you'd get some responses. No, I don't  want to start a thread on why we don't get such action. Thanks for the thoughts and I hope Igor gets to read this, too.

Gary