Video Pad from NCH Software

[Hugh-AR]

Video Pad from NCH Software

Click onto the Index Titles below to be taken directly to that Topic.
After viewing, click the back-arrow to get back to this page.

INDEX

AUDIO on Imported Video Clips (Removing Audio from imported video clips)
AUDIO (Adding your own MP3 Audio Track to your Project)
BLACK BARS (Getting rid of the black bars either side, or top and bottom of a photo using ZOOM)
DEFAULT OPTIONS (Setting up the Default Options for the Program)
INTRODUCTION (An overview of what the program looks like, and what the program does)
PAN & ZOOM (Adding the Pan & Zoom Effect to your clip)
SUBTITLES (Adding Subtitles to your Movies)
TIME (Changing the time an image displays)
TITLE (Creating a Title for your Movie)
TRANSITIONS (This is what connects between one photo/video clip and the next)
TRANSITION - Cube Spin
Using the ZOOM feature to zoom 'in' and 'out'

INTRODUCTION

When you first run Video Pad this is what you see.



You start by clicking on Add File(s) at the top which will put all the files you want to use for this project into the box to the left. It is a good idea to first create a Folder on your computer and put into it all the pictures & videos and the MP3 file you are wanting to use so it's all ready and waiting. When the box comes up for you to select the files you want you can highlight them all, click on Open and they will all be put into that area. Note that there are three 'Bins' over the top, Video Files, Audio Files and Images. The program will automatically sort the files into their correct Bins.



To get your project going you then click on the appropriate Bin for the file you want and click on it's picture. The file you have chosen will appear in the area on the right, and this is where you can work on the specific clip you have chosen. If you look at the top of the area on the right you will see Clip Preview and Sequence Preview. The 'Clip' is the clip you have just chosen, and the 'Sequence' is the whole video you have done so far. Click at the top for the one you want and you can 'Play' it (etc.) from the controls showing.



You then need to get the clip into the 'Sequence' at the place where you want it, and you can do this by dragging the file to Video Track 1 underneath. Or, you can do a right-click (you can do most of the things in this program by doing a right-click) and do a left-click on where you want it put.



Your clip will now appear in the bottom section (the Sequence).



You will see at the top of this section the word Timeline, with a down-arrow beside it. Clicking on the down-arrow will give you two 'views' of the Sequence, one called the Timeline (the one we are looking at now) and one called the Storyboard. You can work from either.



The Storyboard line looks like this.



The big X between clips is where you click to put a TRANSITION. That's what happens between one clip and the next.
And you click on the FX if you want to do a Video Effect (Eg Pan and Zoom).

Of course these are the two things we want to be able to do.

As with other programs, once you have positioned a picture you can drag it about on the time line and put it where you want it.

Why haven't I put a YouTube video here for you to watch so you can pick up the essentials of doing this program? Well there are plenty about, including ones from NCH Software themselves, but they all overcomplicate things and they show you how to do things assuming you are going to make a blockbuster film to show in a Cinema. We just have simple photos and video clips we want to put with an MP3 we have done, so forget downloading some music that is Copyright free to go with our video! Our MP3 will probably be flagged up as Copyright material, but YouTube are not bothered about that as they have an agreement with the Copyright holders.

Not only that, but for a number of those videos the headings at the top are completely different to what I am showing you here. So these must be for an older version of Video Pad, and that doesn't help as every step they show you doesn't have any relevance to what the program is like now.

Having said that, there are some very good videos from NCH Software themselves that explain very clearly how to do specific things within the program. These are accessed from the program itself. At the top of the screen you will see Video Tutorials and if you click on that you get a drop-down list of what those videos are. So for example, watching the video on how to do Pan & Zoom is very helpful in sorting out what you can do and how to do it. You certainly have numerous options for doing most things, which makes this program very good for creating a video to show as you want it to.



I have now downloaded all the clips I want for my video, and in my next post I will set about doing those TRANSITIONS and PAN & ZOOM for each clip.

This is what my video looks like on the Timeline ...



... and this is what it looks like on the Storyboard.



Note that there is a bar underneath that you can drag to left and right to get the parts of the video you want into the middle of the screen.

It's probably easier to continue working on this project from the Storyboard view.

[Hugh-AR]

With all my clips put into the sequence the first thing I looked at was the time each photo shows for .. and that is 3.00 seconds.



For my first photo (the Christmas Trees) I wanted longer than that .. say 9.00 seconds.
So you click on the digital clock to get the mouse cursor in there and change the time to what you want.



Next, I have clicked on the FX on my photo so I can apply a Video Effect.
NB. You have to click on an FX in order to identify which picture you want to apply your Video Effect to.



When the box comes up, if there is already a Video Effect showing then click the X by it on the right and you will end up with this screen, where you can choose which Video Effect you want to apply.



When you click on Add New Effect, these are the choices that come up. An amazing number, but I will list them below so you can see what they all are.





We are interested in Pan & Zoom, but when looking closely there are two functions that appear to do the same. Pan & Zoom, and Ken Burns .. hover your mouse over them. Whilst deliberating on this, the following message came up:



OK. I've got it. The new name for Ken Burns is Pan & Zoom. That at least gives a clue as to what this Effect does!

When you click on Pan & Zoom you get this.



A 'frame' is put over your picture for you to set up as the 'Start frame'. The default is for the frame to cover the whole picture. You can change the size of the 'frame' over your picture by dragging one of the markers on the edge. The frame will keep in proportion as you change it's size. Once you have made it smaller you can click with the mouse anywhere within the frame ad drag it to where you want it. If the 'information box' is in your way, you click on the white bit at the top of it and drag it out of the way.

I want to 'Zoom Out', so I have set my Start Frame as in the picture below.



I then clicked on Select end frame and dragged the corner markers to fill the whole screen, as below.



The best way to think about this is that both frames, "start" and "end", will fill the whole screen from side to side and top to bottom. So as my smaller frame at the start fills the screen, and at the end of the clip the whole picture is showing, it is effectively doing a 'Zoom Out'.

To see how this all looks, in the information box click in the little box that says Preview effect:. Keep an eye on the 'blue bar' at the bottom of the preview screen. There is a grey bar moving across from left to right 'replacing' the blue bar. This is the program 'loading' the information for the effect to take place.



Wait until the grey bar has moved all the way across to the right before attempting to see the 'preview'. There is also a green bar moving across the top of the frames in the Storyboard, so maybe wait until that has completed what it is doing too.



Then click the Play arrow in the viewing section where you have been working (you may have to move that information box out of the way in order to get access to the Play button!). Watch the screen and see how your handiwork has turned out. If you don't like it, do it again.

But ...

Before doing it again, click the X on the right of the words Pan & Zoom in the Effects information box. When you hover your mouse over the X it says Delete effect. So click the X and start the process over again. I didn't do that and ended up with multiple Zooms and Pans on the same picture one after the other!



When you have finished, just click the X in the white area (top right) to close the Effects box down.

Note: It may be easier to use one of the 'default' options, which will set up those rectangles for you. In that information box it says Select preset, with a down-arrow beside it. Click that down-arrow and you see this:



Default Preset means to do a ZOOM as I have done above. Click on that and it will set up both rectangles for you. If the zoom is too much, just change the size of the second rectangle.

The others you can click on do Pan and Zoom. To be honest, I didn't find the pictures did what I wanted them to when I used the 'default' ones. I found it quicker and easier to concentrate on the areas where I wanted the Zoom to Start and End, as this was in a different place for each individual picture.

I am not aware of being able to do a 'Pan' on it's own.

Watching this NCH Software video below may help to explain how all the above works.

How to Add a Ken Burns Effects (Pan and Zoom) - VideoPad Video Editing Tutorial

[Hugh-AR]

TRANSITIONS

By clicking on the X between clips you can set up a TRANSITION.



Quite a selection you can choose from!





At the bottom of these Transition choices you will see that the 'default' time Duration is 1 second. You can change this to something different if you want to. Also, if you click on the down-arrow by Apply to Selected Clips you get the option to put the transition you have chosen to clips you select, or Apply to All Clips. Easy and quick to apply the same Transition to all the clips, but I want some variety in my video! So I will do each transition separately.



Hovering your mouse over any one of them will show you what the Transition does. I have chosen Cross Fade for my first one. When clicking on Cross Fade I get this box, telling me that in order to carry out the transition I must 'overlap' the two pictures. Obvious really, as the pictures do have to appear 'together' as they blend.



I clicked on the top one, and as I have a lot of transitions to do, I ticked the box that said Always use this choice and do not ask again.

I have now been through all my video clips and chosen a different Transition for each.

When I complete each part of my project I click on the down-arrow on the tab Save Project (at the top), and in the drop-down box choose Save Project File As... and give it a name, which I increase by 1 each time I save it. If things go wrong as I progress, I can always go back and load one of these up again and go back to where I was before. Or, you can just click on the Save Project tab itself which will replace the file you had previously with your updated project.



This NCH Software video explains about how to do Transitions.

How to Add Transitions - VideoPad Video Editing Tutorial

[Hugh-AR]

Removing Audio on a Video Clip

You can do this either by removing the Audio completely; or Muting the Audio (see comment at bottom of post).

One of the video clips I have downloaded for my project has an audio track with it, which obviously I don't want as I want my MP3 track to run with this video. How do I know? Well, in the top left area where all my files have been put ready and waiting to go, in the Video 'bin' there is a 'musical note' showing on one of them.



I have put this video into the Sequence at the place I want it (at the position of the cursor). But beware! I made an error when doing this. I didn't quite have the cursor in the gap between the two clips, and when it put it at the position of the cursor it split the existing photo into two, putting 1 second of the photo to the right of the video clip. So I had the photo image showing on both sides of the video clip. Oops! It would probably have been better if I had put it at the END of the Sequence, and then grabbed and dragged it across to where I wanted it. When you do this it moves it one whole frame at a time.

Note: There are two 'modes' you can work in: Storyboard or Timeline. When adding photos/video clips to my project I am finding it much easier to do this in Storyboard mode. Put the clip at the end of the sequence, then grab it with the mouse and move it along to where you want it. In Storyboard mode it only moves along in complete picture frames, and where you have got to is indicated by a green arrow .. so you can drop it where you want it. Then move back to the Timeline. Only the Timeline shows Audio; and only the Timeline shows Titles to put over your images.

Now, in the Timeline screen the Sequence has expanded downwards to show an Audio Track underneath as well as showing the clips. By hovering the mouse over the 'LINK' symbol on the audio track for the clip it says this:



So I have clicked on the link symbol and have done that and unlinked the audio from the video

Next, I have done a right-click over that audio clip and in the drop-up box clicked on Delete.



The audio that was attached to the clip has now gone.

*Note*: Another way to remove the Audio from an imported clip (as indicated by a 'musical note' in a video clip in the Video Bin) ..



.. is to hover over the loudspeaker symbol at the bottom.





Click on the loudspeaker symbol symbol, and in the box that comes up, click into the square that says Mute. Then click OK.



There will now be a red splodge in front of the loudspeaker symbol, indicating that the sound is muted.



The Audio clip will still be there, but you won't hear it. In all my subsequent use of VideoPad I have removed unwanted Audio from imported clips this way.

[Hugh-AR]

Setting up a Title

Note: You can only set up a Title in Timeline mode.

Click on the Title tab at the top.



You get these choices in the drop-down box.




I have clicked on Simple Text Overlay.

A box comes up for me to type my Title in, and this is what is called a 'transparent' frame ie. you will see a picture behind it, with the writing over the top. Top left of this Text Editor box you have a choice of Fonts to use; and Bold, Italic, Underline; size of text; colour of Text; 'shadow' and colour of shadow. And on the right it's the background colour. In the 'Image Bin' on the left hand side you will see a 'see through' box (indicated by the chequered markings) ready for it to go on the Timeline.



To change the Font, click and drag across the words Title Text and then click the down-arrow by the Font showing.

Note: By doing this you will be removing the words "Title Text". If you just start typing in the box then the words "Title Text" will appear in your Title. You can also DELETE those words by starting at the right hand end and 'back-spacing' to remove them.



A box comes up showing all the available Fonts for you to choose from.



For my project I am going to stick with Comic Sans MS. I type my TEXT, starting with a blank line at the top (I want my Title words to appear in the middle of the blue frame) using the return key for each new line. I want WHITE lettering and a BLUE background, so have set these up by clicking the relevant boxes in that Title Text screen.

This is what my prepared Title looks like.



This image will appear in the 'Image Bin' on the left. If you do a right-click you can change the name of this clip to represent better what it is. I have named this one INTRO. You must grab the image and drop it at the start of the main video track (Video Track 1).

Next, I want to have some more text, but this time at the end .. and I want it 'Scrolling from bottom to top'. So click on the Text tab at the top, and this time I don't want blue as my background colour as I want the text to scroll across an existing picture. So I choose for the background to be clear (the chequered frame indicates that) and again I want white Text. This image appears in the 'Image bin' on the left and I have done a right-click on it and changed it's name to EXIT.



This image must now be put on the Timeline but it is put above the picture we want the Text to appear over. This area above the main pictures/videos show is the overlay area ie. anything put just above a picture will combine with the picture underneath it and the two will show together. Which is why we had to have a 'clear' background to this image and not blue. So this frame is placed above the end photo.



Looking at the length of my timeline I needed another 10 seconds added into the project to cover the length of the MP3 track I had played. So I added in another short video and another picture.

All to do now is to add the MP3 music, which I will cover in my next post.

[Hugh-AR]

Adding an MP3 to your Project

Finally, go to the Audio Files bin where you have put the MP3 track you want to add.



Grab and drop that audio file onto Audio Track 1 as shown in the picture below. It's the Timeline that shows it all, not the Storyboard. But you will find that as you are doing your project the Storyboard is the best view to work from to put in those Zoom & Pans, and Transitions.



The whole completed project looks like this. Note the overlay frame at the very end which is sitting above the final picture in Video Track 2.



Run through it all by clicking the Play arrow in the upper section. Make sure the MP3 track and the video end together. If they don't, either add or take out some of the pictures you have for the project .. or if it's close, alter the time that a picture clip is showing for.

So, what does all this look/sound like? Next post!

[Hugh-AR]

What I was very impressed with was how you set up the Pan & Zoom. You set a 'Start Frame' and an 'End Frame', preferably keeping a full frame for one of them and making the other one smaller. You can position this wherever you like over the picture, but ideally it should contain a particular feature within the photograph. As it 'plays' both your frames fill the screen. This creates significant movement within the photograph. Judge for yourself by watching the below, and the other two I have put up on YouTube, one using Movie Maker from Windows Live Essentials and one using Video Edit from Windows 10.

"Over The Rainbow" put together using Video Pad by NCH Software.

Click the back arrow after watching to get back to this page.

[mikeg]

Hi Hugh I enjoyed the video and your version of Over The Rainbow. A great combination. I have been following your tutorials on this subject but doubt ever to achieve this.
Best Regards mikeG.

[lesh]

Hi Hugh,

Wow, you must have spent a few hours or days putting this excellent tutorial together, a great reference asset to the forum.

You have produced a brilliant video, loved the Transitions used and backing track.

Excellent work.

Les

[Hugh-AR]

Thanks Mike and Les. It was days! It's like having a keyboard for the first time. You look at all those buttons and wonder what they all do! And when you start doing something it never does what you expect it to! But, having spent some time on it, I reckon next time I do a video it will only take me a few minutes (as with Movie Maker) as I now know how it operates and how to get it to do what I want.

I have spoken to Den about making videos, and he says that when he is out and about (and when he has been on holiday) he always has a video camera with him and takes loads of video clips. So his objective is to trim and join those clips together, and maybe do a commentary on them. So he doesn't need to apply 'effects' to his visual content.

What I have always done is to take loads of photos with my mobile. Not just of family, but scenery .. mountains, gardens, trees, flowers, sunsets, beaches, cliffs etc. so it is important to me to be able to apply pans, zooms, and transitions to my photos. It was the Pan & Zoom that really got me hooked. As I said, you have a "Start frame" and an "End frame", one of which you make smaller than the other, and then move the smaller one and position it in the photo where you want it. So for example, if you had a photo of a lake with a rowing boat on the lake, you would start with a frame over the full picture, and position the smaller frame over the rowing boat. Both frames will fill the screen from side to side and top to bottom. So you start with the picture of the whole lake, and end with just the rowing boat .. filling the screen. This effectively zooms across the photo and enlarges the rowing boat.

When you get a FREE program (or a program offering a Free Trial) you never know what you will/will not be able to do, and for how long. In this one, there were 'features' that you couldn't action without buying the program, which was fair enough. One was the 3D Transitions. This was where you grab a picture by a corner and 'turn' the page over (you can do this in Movie Maker). I would have liked to have done this.

The one thing I found very annoying, having spent so much of my time doing my project, was that when I had finished and clicked on the button to EXPORT what I had done as an MP4 file I was told that this was a 'Paid For' feature .. "Did I want to buy the program now", "Maybe later". That is not on! It would be better to let the program work in full for eg. 30 days .. and then stop working.

I pondered on this overnight, and then the following morning discovered I could save it as a WMV file. This stands for Windows Media Video, and can be played on a Windows computer. So I did get to see my work (finally!) as a full screen video. I was subsequently able to convert my file to MP4 for uploading to YouTube. But in a Google Search I asked what Formats YouTube would accept, and this came up:

YouTube supports the following video formats for upload: 3GPP, AVI, FLV, MOV, MPEG4, MPEGPS, WebM and WMV.

So maybe I didn't have to do that.

This is what I had as the cost of buying the program.



The Home Edition would be OK for me .. but there may be a problem with buying it. My laptop is about 7 years old now and I am expecting to have to buy a new one. Will I be able to transfer the program I have bought over to my new computer? I have researched this, and NCH say:

Frequently Asked Questions:
Does my software license expire?
The Serial Number purchased must be activated within 12 months. The codes generated from this activation will only work on the software version released at the time of activation. This code will never expire for the purchased version.
We recommend that you make a backup of the installation file on a CD or USB drive that can be used to reinstall the software at a later date if needed. We also recommend that you keep a copy of your registration code.
What restrictions apply to the license?
If the license is named as an "Installation License" the main restriction is you need to purchase one license serial number for each computer that the program runs on.
Can I move the software or reinstall the software in future?
Within reason - yes. As long as the software does not continue to run on the old computer you can install the software on a new computer. As a piracy control measure we do limit the number of installations to 2 times in any 12 month period.
Note: we do run an anti-piracy system which can detect multiple installs. But as long as the software (with one serial number) runs on one PC at any one time, you will not have problems.

That looks reassuring. So I may very well get it. I know I would use it quite a bit.

[Hugh-AR]

More on "Time a picture is displayed"; "Picture Size (Aspect Ratio)", "Titles & Text", and "Pan & Zoom".

I have started a DEMO Project to check out the above in Video Pad. This is what I have in my Images Bin.



Working in the Timeline view, I have done a 'blank' blue rectangle to put my Title into (done a right-click and Renamed my rectangle "Title"); brought in two new pictures, and set each of these individually to run for 5 seconds instead of the default of 3 seconds. You get at the 'time' a picture displays by clicking on a picture in the Images bin (or on the Timeline) so it comes up in the main screen, and then the digital time shows underneath. Click with the mouse into the time box and change the time showing.



Aspect Ratio

In my Timeline, the two pictures have 'black' on either side of them. This is because the pictures are not in Widescreen (16x9) Format.



When making a video with your pictures you need to either have everything in Standard (4x3) format; or Widescreen (16x9) format. I'm wanting to do this video in 16x9 format, and as it happens, Video Pad can sort this for me.

Do a single click on one of the pictures to highlight it. Click on the FX in the bottom left hand corner.



.. and you get this screen.



Click on Crop to Aspect Ratio, change Auto Aspect Ratio to 16x9 and it will remove that black from either side of the picture.



Note that an option showing in the box is Add New Effect. You can apply as many "Effects" as you want to a picture, and I will be doing Pan & Zoom shortly. All the effects applied to a particular picture are listed when you click the FX.

Following the above for the other picture, we now have the Timeline looking like this.

[Hugh-AR]

The Title.

When in the Timeline view, anything placed in the area above Video Track 1 will appear over the top of the picture underneath it .. ie. Overlay it.



So this time for the Title I am going to do a Text with a clear background, set the Display time for 5 seconds, do the text in WHITE, and drop it over the top of the blue rectangle at the beginning.



Click on Add Text, and choose Simple Text Overlay.

.

Typed in my Title .. in black so I could see it!



.. then highlighted all the text by dragging the mouse across and changing it to WHITE (so can't see it any more!), changed the background to Editor Background (which is a plain 'see through' background), and made sure that Outline was either not ticked, or if it was, the slider was all the way to the left (Outline controls the thickness of the Text).



Then dropped it over the top of the blue rectangle.



I have also done another 'Title' at the end of my DEMO video. Put another 5 second blue rectangle at the end, done some Text with a Scroll from bottom to top, and put that on the upper Video Track 2 area so it runs over the blue rectangle underneath it.

[Hugh-AR]

Setting up the Pan & Zoom

Note 1: When setting up any Effect it is a good idea to double-click on the image you are dealing with on the Storyboard or Timeline in order to bring it up into the DISPLAY area, top right. If you don't do this, you may find your Effect added to all the previous ones you have done in addition to the one you are currently dealing with.

Note 2: When setting up Pan & Zoom you can apply it to both still images and video clips.

On the Timeline I have clicked (double-clicked) on the first picture, Photo 1. Clicked the FX in the bottom left corner and clicked on Pan & Zoom (you have to click on that GREEN + in the top left hand corner of the first box that comes up in order for the Effects options to show).



Note that this is the second 'Effect' we are doing, as we have already re-sized the picture to 16x9 (Crop to Aspect Ratio .. this shows at the bottom of the box). There is a 'dot' on Select start frame, and the frame showing is the full picture. For this photo we'll start with that.



Click on Select end frame and you are presented with a smaller frame in the middle of the photo.



This frame can be changed in size by grabbing a corner or edge and dragging it inwards. I want to make this the same size as the paddle boat (roughly). Then you can grab the frame anywhere inside it, and drag it over the photo to where you want it. In this case, over the middle of the boat. If the frame is the wrong size, I can adjust it again from a corner, and move it again until I have it over the boat where I want it, as below.



Remember how this works. Both our 'frames' fill the screen from top to bottom and left to right. So this picture starts with the complete photo, and ends with the boat, full screen. Clearly this is a 'zoom and pan' in to the boat.

Click the X in the top right hand corner of the Effects box. This closes the box and SAVES your settings. There is no 'Save' button.

Next, Picture 2. I'll do this the other way round. Click on the picture, click on the FX, choose Pan & Zoom and you are presented with the 'Start frame' round the whole photo (that is the 'default' for the Start frame .. the whole photo). This time I am going to change this and make it smaller by pulling a corner inwards, and repositioning the frame over the boat so the first 'frame' looks like this.



For the 'End frame' I want the whole picture. By 'default' we are presented with the smaller frame for the End frame, so to change this to full picture grab the bottom left hand corner of the frame and drag it to the bottom left hand corner of the photo.



Then grab the top right hand corner of the frame and drag that up to the right hand top corner of the photo. Now you have this for the second frame.



So this runs in the video starting with the boat filling the screen, and ending with the original photo. This is clearly a 'zoom and pan' out from the boat to the full picture.

Click the X in the top right hand corner of the Effects box, which closes it down and SAVES what you have done.

[Hugh-AR]

I have now added some music, and clicked on Export Video to convert my DEMO project to a Video File for putting up on YouTube.



This is how my DEMO Video has ended up.



As I will be mostly using photos for my videos (I have never taken 'movies' with my mobile when on holiday) it seems to me that being able to set up a start frame and an end frame to zoom between gives me complete control over the movement of a 'still' picture. All those choices you get of where to pan and zoom from/to with all those other programs means you could end up anywhere. You certainly wouldn't get the boat in the middle of the frame!

[Hugh-AR]

I have taken the plunge and bought this program .. even though I have Movie Maker! It's the Pan & Zoom that sold it to me. To be able to fix the START and END of the 'Pan & Zoom' is brilliant. When programs give you a variety of options to choose from for Pan & Zoom you only get a 'general' zoom across the picture. There is no way you could get those pictures in my YouTube video above to start/end on the boat, showing it in the middle of the picture.

Note 1: The Zoom option in this program is not a Zoom!! To do a zoom you need to work from Pan & Zoom. What Zoom does could better be described as a CROP. But then as it fills the frame, I suppose it is a sort of zoom. The idea is for you to adjust the rectangle and put it over the part of the picture you want. This part of the picture then 'fills the screen' replacing the original picture. It doesn't 'zoom' into it. It replaces the full picture with what you have selected. As it now fills the screen, it is obviously larger than it was before. But this shows as a fixed picture for the whole frame. So I would call it a crop and enlargement. Not a zoom.

Note 2: When you are using these 'effects' you are probably wondering how you SAVE what you have set up, as there is no 'Save' button. If you run your mouse over the 'white' bar at the top it says Close.



This is misleading. It should say 'Close and Save'. So clicking on that X on the white bar 'SAVES' what you have done as well as closing the box.

Note 3: You can apply as many effects as you like to a picture, and all the ones you have done show in that list. So beware! If you decide to go back to the picture and do the Pan & Zoom again you will be doing two Pans & Zooms. I did a Pan & Zoom three times on the picture of the Waterfall in 'Over The Rainbow' and the result was to carry out three 'zooms' and end up with just a rock filling the frame!

In this screenshot below you will see two 'Effects' listed. In fact, I want them both as one is to fit the picture into the frame with no black areas (Crop to Aspect Ratio), and the other is a Pan & Zoom. To remove an effect listed you click the X on the line of the description. If you hover your mouse over the X it will say Delete effect. Click that X to remove that one effect. If eg. you had several Pans & Zooms showing (as I did with my Waterfall picture) just click all the Xs to close them all down so you can start again.



Note 4: When you do a Crop to Aspect Ratio this is a Crop. It is not a 'resize' ie a resizing of the picture to fit the frame. If you did that you would 'stretch' the photograph to fit, and that would distort faces etc. Just be aware that in doing a CROP you will lose some of the edges of the photograph .. either a bit from top and bottom, or the two sides.

[Hugh-AR]

I had been concerned as to how I was going to make backups of this in case I needed to load the program again. Computers don't last for ever and this laptop I am using is getting on a bit. If I replace my laptop I don't want to have to buy the program again. But I needn't have worried. Once I had completed my purchase a message box came up on screen with a couple of options to click on. One was to SAVE what I had purchased to a DVD, and the other was to SAVE it to a Memory Stick. Or, not to save it at all. There wasn't an option to save it to the computer I was using. So I'm glad I had a Memory Stick handy. Inserted that and all the necessary was put on by them. This is a Setup Program which would set up the Video Pad version I have purchased together with my activation code .. I think! But I have made a note of my activation code in case I need it again.

If I want to set my Video Pad up again I can just do it from the Memory Stick. They do say that you can't have two of the one you have bought running at the same time (obviously they must prevent their work being passed on from one person to another without it being paid for) but I haven't a clue how they would do that.

Hugh

[Hugh-AR]

Setting up the DEFAULTS for the Program

Note: You must set these 'default' Options before you start creating a Project. Whatever 'default' options you set will then be remembered by the Program every time you run it. Of course you can change every option as you go along anyway (eg. the length of time an image is displayed). Once you have put photos/video clips into the Bin (top left box) the 'defaults' will have already been applied. So do your 'preferred defaults' before you start your next Project.

I have discovered that there is an Options tab, top right of the Home Page. Have looked at the picture of the Home Screen I put up in my very first post in this Topic and it's not there! Is this only there for the 'Paid For' version of this program (which mine is)? Anyway, this is what I see:



These options are the DEFAULTS for the program. When you click on the tab you see this:



You obviously want the Welcome screen to come up so you can choose what you want to do eg. New Project.
There is a box that says Show Custom tab. If you tick this it will add the word Custom to the tabs across the top. If you click on that you can choose to show or hide any buttons you want. No thanks! If I do that I won't know they're there! So I won't put a tick in this box.

Next, click on the Media tab and you will see this:



There is a choice of where to put your new clip (I have chosen for it to be put at the end):



Of course in the Storyboard view I can always click on and drag a clip to somewhere else.

The 'default' for how long a picture shows was 3 seconds, so I have changed this to 7 seconds.
I have unticked the boxes that mention Normalize. I don't want that! I Normalise my MP3s anyway if necessary (although I have never had to do that when recording on the Tyros), and if I want the music a bit quieter in the background Video Pad puts it up to full volume!
I had also found that as soon as I plugged in a Memory Stick it wanted to COPY all the media files that were on it into my project, so I have changed that to "Ask me".

Next, Editing.



The default for Transitions was 1 second. I have changed this to 2 seconds.
The default for Subtitles was 3 seconds. I have changed this to 7 seconds.

These choices now apply as DEFAULTS for the program, and are still there when I next launch the program for a New Project.
But for any one of them I can change these individually to something else of my choice. It's just that having these defaults for the majority of what I want to do saves a lot of time.

[Hugh-AR]

Getting rid of the black bars either side, or top and bottom of a photo

When making an MP4 video there are two basic sizes you can have for your project, 4:3 or 16:9 (the Aspect Ratios). In days gone by, all our photographs were 4:3, but with all the 'widescreen' devices we have these days (televisions, mobiles, computers etc.) it is is best to have 16:9 .. and this is better to put up on YouTube too.

And in particular, when you have a mixture of video clips and photographs you may find that your photos are the smaller size and will therefore show up with 'black bars' on either side. When using Video Pad you know immediately when the photographs are not 16:9 as when you bring them into the project 'bin' they show up with chequered bars on either side (see the below).



This is obviously an extreme example as I have taken a photograph in 'portrait' mode rather than 'landscape', and it's doubtful if I can get anything acceptable in 16:9 .. but I'll give it a go.

Whatever approach you take, when you adjust the photograph the program itself has an option of 16:9, and this is the option to click on.

Do a right-click over the photograph. One of the options is Change Clip Aspect Ratio so we'll see what happens with Stretch, which does exactly what it says .. it keeps the whole photograph 'as is' and stretches it left and right to make it 16:9 as opposed to 4:3.



And this is what happens to the photograph.



I don't think she would be happy with that! So Stretch is a "No, No!". But having said that, if your photograph is 'scenery' then it may be acceptable.

In order to keep the subject of the photograph in the right proportions you have to 'lose' (ie. Crop) part of the photograph, which is done automatically to give you the 16:9 ratio.

Next, we'll try the second option, having the 16:9 Aspect Ratio and Crop Center.



This time the 'proportions' of the subject are correct, but basing the crop on the 'centre' is not great, and you get this:



The option at the top, Letter Box keeps the photograph 'as is' and adds the black bars on either side and you get:



But there is another way of dealing with this, and that is to go via the option Effects...



When you click on that option you get this.



Click on the green 'plus' (+) and you get this.



The one you want is Zoom, so click on that .. and you get:



The Aspect Ratio says None: but if you click on the 'down-arrow' next to it you will see the option 16:9 as in the screenshot above.
Click on that.



This automatically sets your 16:9 rectangle at the top of the screen, but if you hover your mouse anywhere over the rectangle you can 'grab' the rectangle with a left-click and bring it down to where you want it.



To SAVE what you have set up click that X top right of the white bar at the top (to SAVE anything you set up when doing Effects you have to click on that X in the white bar .. which of course closes the box down .. but it also SAVES it).

This is what I now have, which is better than that 16:9 picture I had which was 'centred'.



I did say that I had taken an extreme example, which I hope has illustrated the principles behind all this .. and it hasn't turned out too bad in the end! If you had had a 'landscape' photograph rather than a 'portrait' one to start with, once you had adjusted the position of that rectangle within the photograph it would have turned out perfectly.

[dentyr]

You will also notice that in the drop down box from the "Effects" dialogue box you can have 21:9 which is the CinemaScope version. There are curved screens now on the market for just this. Main use for these is for gaming but it does allow you to have many spread sheets open at the same time and actually SEE them. My camera can take panoramic shots so 21:9 is fine for that. Difference is that I get black bars top and bottom as my screen is normal 16:9
Regards, Den.

Click on the picture below to bring it up to full screen in 'panoramic' view .. and note the BLACK at top and bottom of the screen. Then click the 'back' arrow to get back to this page.

[Rev Tony Newnham]

Hi

I've got a lot of 4:3 photographs on my computers, and I've used a few of them in clips in videos. I'm currently producing videos in 16:9 High Definition, so I have the problem of black bars - or even worse - the shot on the next timeline down remaining visible to left & right of the new image. I tend to use the simple solution - expand the shot & re-position if necessary so that the key element is where you want it on screen. I appreciate this may not always work, and most likely would be impossible with a portrait format image (which is why I only ever use portrait format when I'm certain I won't be using the image on-screen!). All of the still pictures on my hymn videos have been treated in this way, and these days I try & think about setting the image up to allow this when taking the photograph in the first place.

The joys of "standards"!

Every Blessing

Tony

[Hugh-AR]

To illustrate what I have said above, here is an example of a video I have done for JT (barwonfan) where I have had a mixture of videos and photographs to make a 16:9 video. This was to accompany his piece The Moldau.

The videos were based on 16:9, so they were fine. But when I put the photographs into the project (into the "bin") they had those chequered strips on either side, indicating that these would end up with 'black' areas if I didn't do something about them.



As I said in my earlier post, to get these to 16:9 you either 'stretch' them from side to side; or 'zoom' them to 16:9 .. in which case you lose either top or bottom of the picture. The 'default' is to lose the bottom part of the picture, but the final part of the picture is where the dotted rectangle ends up .. and you can always drag that downwards.

Now that first picture is one of a sheet of music, which completely fills the screen. I would want to keep the whole sheet of music and not have the bottom (or top) of it removed. Stretching it from side to side would make the picture wider, but to me that seemed quite acceptable. To do this you click on Change Clip Aspect Ratio; Stretch; 16:9.



That is what I did, so the picture is wider. Note that the chequered strips on either side have now gone. This is because I have made the picture 16:9.



The next three pictures, however, show the orchestra .. and they contain people. We can't 'stretch' people from side to side or they will look strange, so this time I did the zoom option.

Do a right-click over the first orchestra picture and in the drop-down box click on Effects...; then the green plus sign (+); then Zoom.

This is what you see.



Click the down-arrow by the word None, and you see the 16:9.



Click on that and you get the rectangle positioned at the top (ie. the 'default' is to remove the bottom part of the picture).



I want to keep the bottom half of the picture and remove the part over the conductor's head. To do this, put the mouse over the rectangle, do a left-click and whilst holding it down, drag the rectangle down to the bottom .. and you get this.



To SAVE what you have done and CLOSE the box, click on the X on the right in the white area at the top.

We now have this:



Then for the next orchestra picture I keep the rectangle at the top (ie. the bottom half of the picture is cropped).



Here are what the first three pictures look like in the '"bin".



When all my pictures are in the 16:9 format I can bring them into the Storyboard and continue with my project.

This is the final MP4 video of JT's The Moldau.

Keep an eye open for the photographs, which are inserted between the video clips. Note that there are no 'black bars' on either side of the photographs as they are all 16:9.



Scroll down a bit further to find another example of removing the Black Bars from a video.
Or click this LIMK below ...
http://www.tierce-de-picardie.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=472&t=9342&p=66461#p66461

[Hugh-AR]

Having used this program for several of my recent videos, this Topic has been updated to reflect a better understanding of how the program works.

In particular, on the opening page of the Topic there is an INDEX. Clicking on any of the listed Topics will take you directly to that Topic.

Click the back-arrow after to get back to the INDEX page.

Or click this LINK to go there.

Return to the INDEX Page

Hugh

[Hugh-AR]

Using the Cube Spin TRANSITION

There is a Cube Spin Transition near the bottom if the TRANSITION page. Wasn't very impressed with that is it looked to me very much like the Reveal Transition.

What I hadn't realised was that there is a slider in the middle called Distance. If you move the slider across to about 10 (on a 2 second Transition) it makes the cube 'move back' as it turns. To make the turn 'smooth', click Smooth as well.



This is how the Transition looks when handled correctly.



A great tool for making videos!

[Hugh-AR]

Another look at BLACK BARS created on either side of a picture when the picture is not the correct ratio for the video ie.16/9.

Earlier on in this Topic I had used ZOOM to get rid of the 'black bars' by re-sizing the pictures to 16:9. This time I tried using CROP .. but that did not work! Although it got rid of the 'black bars' on either side, it introduced another 'black bar' across the topI. So it's back to using ZOOM.

Recently I have been downloading pictures from pexels.com .. only to find that none of the ones I wanted were in the 'standard' 16:9 ratio .. all the pictures were 3:2. This was to do a video for John James' (barwonfan) "Feelings". When loaded into VideoPad they had the criss-cross bands indicating that I would be getting black bars on either side of the photos.



In a situation like this, one option is to STRETCH the image from left to right. Now that would be OK if it was scenery, but these are pictures of PEOPLE, and their features would be distorted with a stretch. The other way to remove the black bars is to ZOOM the picture.

Set the program up so you are looking at the Storyboard (rather than the Timeline). Double click on the picture you want to adjust to bring it up into the Display Area (top right). Then click the FX (for Effects) at the bottom of the picture in Storyboard.

This is the Effects feature. Click the green + at the top.



Choose Zoom from the list.



This is what you see .. None is showing, and the picture is outlined in the main Display Area 'as is'.

.....

Click on the drop-down arrow in None and options will appear. The one you want is 16:9. When you click on that, part of your picture is showing the 'default' ZOOM .. which may not be how you want your picture to show.



.....

If you now hover your mouse in the middle of the dotted rectangle you get a 'NorthSouthEastWest' cursor, and with a left-click you can drag that dotted rectangle to where you want it. Well, I don't want all that sky showing, so I can drag the rectangle down to the bottom. I then get this.



To SAVE what you have done you click the X in the white bar at the top (which turns red).
If you click the white X in the blue bar it will REMOVE the Effect you have been doing.



To make this video for "Feelings" I had to do this with every picture in the "Bin".

This is how the video has turned out .. NO BLACK BARS!



Hugh

[Hugh-AR]

Our televisions and cameras originally used to show pictures in the ratio of 4:3. Over a long period in the late 2000s and early 2010s, the computer industry switched from 4:3 to 16:9 as the most common aspect ratio for monitors and laptops. So when taking mobile pictures in 'landscape' mode it is best to set the camera to take them in the ratio of 16:9. Typically, with a mobile, the actual size will be 1920x1080 pixels. The 16x9 ratio is used as 'standard' for most videos on the internet, including YouTube. When photos are not in the 16:9 ratio then when putting a video together we will get 'black bars' filling either side of the screen. The examples above show how to get rid of these 'black bars' by discarding the parts of the photograph outside of a 16:9 rectangle.

But what about a photograph taken with a mobile in 'portrait' mode? This will appear as a vertical rectangle (ie. the photo is taller than wider) within the 16:9 screen. There is no way you can resize a 'portrait' mode photo to make it 'landscape' mode. If using one of these in a video upload then we just have to put up with those black areas on either side.

Or do we?

Den has explained in his Topic Putting a movie over a still background & Vice Versa how to have a 16:9 photo showing behind a 'portrait' mode video. This will replace those 'black' areas with areas of colour.

Click this LINK to see what Den has said:
Do a right-click to open this up in a New Tab.
http://www.tierce-de-picardie.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=472&t=11608

I am doing another video for Music with Movies and have a video in 'portrait' mode from pexels.com that I wish to use. Having downloaded the video I have also found a suitable 'picture' from pexels.com to work with. This is the photograph I have downloaded:



Following Den's instructions, I have:

1. Put my photograph into Video Track 1. Used the ZOOM method above to make the photo 16:9. It was not in that ratio when I downloaded it (as you can see), and this showed up in the Images 'Bin' as chequered bars on either side.
2. Put my 'portrait' video into Video Track 2.

In front of this, using Video Track 2 I have put the video clip again without the photograph to accompany it. When you run the video you will first get the video clip on it's own, with the black areas on either side, followed by the video clip with the coloured photo on either side. There was some audio on the video of the person walking, which you can hear.



Hugh

[Hugh-AR]

More on this!

Now, as the part with the 'autumn leaves' replacing the black areas had worked out so well, I decided to make this a 'double clip' in the video I was doing. So instead of getting the person walking along the boardwalk with the 'black areas' on each side followed by the one with the autumn leaves, I now had a double-clip with the autumn leaves on either side.

Carried on with adding the other bits to the video I was making .. but it ended up a disaster! Why? It was a disaster because this double-clip I had created had the 'autumn photo' in Video Track 1 and the boardwalk video in Video Track 2. And both had a Transition X at either end. But the only Transition that was active was the one in Video Track 1 (the photo), so that moved smoothly from one part of the video to the other. But the boardwalk video clip just 'jumped' in and out of the mix. That wasn't what I wanted! I wanted a 'smooth' transition at the beginning and end of this doble-clip I was using.

I spent a long time on it, but the problem seemed insurmountable. So I went to bed, and thought about it .. and the solution came to me! Instead of trying to use what I had done as two tracks in the program, I should create an MP4 as a 'finished' video .. and then start again with my video project and use this clip like any other that I download from pexelx.com ie. put it as a single clip in Video Track 1. I would then have only one Transition at either end of the clip, and the Transition would apply to both parts of the boardwalk & autumn trees.

The below is the boardwalk & autumn trees 'finished off' as one MP4 video clip. It is in my Google Drive, so you can watch it by clicking on the LINK and pressing the Play arrow.

After watching, click the back-arrow at the top to get back to this page.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KbQ7eU33YCNDtbQxqmTCXAqTAMnL5MBk/view?usp=share_link

I have put this in to the video I am doing (John James's Try to remember the kind of September), which is below. Note in particular how the boardwalk & autumn leaves clip has now blended in with the rest of the video.



Hugh