Hallew

I am growing ever more depressed by the minute. After having learnt how to use pan and zoom and feeling quite proud of myself, I am now growing frustrated because the images that I import through the pan and zoom function keep going missing.

I am working in Avid XPress Pro and up until now I think I have done everything like I am supposed to:
I have dragged the pan and zoom effect onto the timeline
I have opened the effect editor and imported my images (TIFFS @72dpi and 3000 x 3000 pixels maximum) through the pan and zoom
I have inserted my movement keyframes in the various images
I have rendered these effects, played them and felt happy that this is possible

BUT

sometimes it happens immediately, sometimes it happens after a while, those images that I have so carefully imported and added keyframes to ... disappear ...

Sometimes, all it takes is me closing down Avid, re-opening, and boom! the images are back where I left them. Sometimes this doesn't work, though and I have to open the effects editor and re-import the images. At this stage, however, I am forgetting which images I imported at different stages of the cut.

Does anyone know why this is happening and how I can stop it?

Or, is there a way to relink to the images that were imported earlier? Like a right-click function to give me the name of the image? That would be so simple ...

I'm sorry I don't have my system specs up yet (teachers), but I can't even find the right button to click to do this today.

 Please help

TLS 

What are you using for storage? 

Where are your images being stored?

The images are all stored on an external hard drive, in different folders. 

I have unplugged the external drive now and again to collect these images from the client, but I have not changed the folders after importing images from a folder.

In current available releases Pan and Zoom relies on drive path.  So, if you dismount and re-mount an external drive and the drive letter changes as a result, then Avid will have trouble finding the file.

Hallo Kenton.VanNatten

I wish it were that.

The external drive to date has always registered as "External M" and it is the only external drive that I have ever attached to the machine while working on this project.

Also, the last time this happened, was this evening, and I had not dismounted (first time I'm using that for drive activity) the drive at all today.

These images that it happened with this evening also had a superimpose effect on them. When I stepped into the images to see the pan and zoom effect, the images were visible in the stepped-in timeline, but not when I stepped out again into the main timeline. And even though I tried re-importing the images while I was stepped-in, they weren't visible once I stepped out.

Further ideas?

What happens if you Render?

Hallew

Nothing happens when I render. The black holes remain black holes.

The other thing I thought I should mention is that not all the disappearing images have the superimpose effect on them.

Do you think it may have anything to do with my specs? I'll get those just in case ...

I hope someone can help. The client is coming to view (black holes) today.

Thanks!

What do you have in the timeline as P & Z placeholders?

I usually open all P&Z stills for a project in Photoshop and run a Photoshop Action on them to image resize (to 720 by 576 PAL) and save as "samename.jpg" to a folder labeled low res.  The low res folder is placed inside the folder that the high res stills are in.

Import all the low res still to a Low Res bin in Avid.  Place appropriate images in the timeline as placeholders.

Now when I apply the P&Z my timeline clip has the name of the High Res file I need. If I loose the P&Z still in the timeline, which has not happened yet, my timeline still tells me the filename I need to get again. 

I keep all stills on internal harddrives as a matter of housekeeping.

Hallo Andrew

I'm not sure what you mean by P and Z placeholders: in my timeline I drag in the P and Z effect, which is labelled "filler" on the timeline. Then I open the effects editor, drag in the image and this is also labelled "filler" on the timeline. So I use the actual image in the P and Z, I don't use substitutes ... I think that's what you mean.

Are you saying that you use the low res images on a video track underneath where you have the high res with the P and Z? That sounds quite clever to me, and I will do this in future :), but what do I do now? I will also keep all stills ont he internal drive in future. Damn!

The specs of this machine:
Pentium 4
2GB RAM
3.4 GHz
Avid Dv XPress Pro

[:'(]

P&Z is an effect just like any other.  If you apply it to Filler, then it affects Filler.  What Andrew is suggesting is to import the image you want to P&Z and cut that into the sequence. 

Now place the P&Z effect onto that clip and do the same process of pointing to the file.  This way the "clip name" is not Filler, but rather the name of the actual pic you're placing the effect on.

Hallew Kenton

I've resigned myself to creating video mixdowns of stills montages that use the P and Z effect. These I place on a video track above my actual images and use as a reference in case the real images get lost. Then I will create a folder on the internal hard drive and copy my original images into this local folder; then I will relink the images on the timeline to these ones in the new folder.

P and Z doesn't work like you have described it, though. Before you can import the still onto the timeline, the effect needs to be in place. Then you have to import the image into the effect. Check it out at this link: http://www.avid.com/video/xpressDemos/index.asp?currVideo=7

Maybe it depends on the version we're using. I certainly don't know, but this demo really helped me.

What would be even mroe helpful, is if they explained all the things I am subsequently learning / finding out / struggling with.

Hallew Kenton

I've resigned myself to creating video mixdowns of stills montages that use the P and Z effect. These I place on a video track above my actual images and use as a reference in case the real images get lost. Then I will create a folder on the internal hard drive and copy my original images into this local folder; then I will relink the images on the timeline to these ones in the new folder.

P and Z doesn't work like you have described it, though. Before you can import the still onto the timeline, the effect needs to be in place. Then you have to import the image into the effect. Check it out at this link: http://www.avid.com/video/xpressDemos/index.asp?currVideo=7

Maybe it depends on the version we're using. I certainly don't know, but this demo really helped me! It worked.

What would be even more helpful, is if they explained all the things I am subsequently learning / finding out / struggling with.

TLS:

P and Z doesn't work like you have described it, though. Before you can import the still onto the timeline, the effect needs to be in place. Then you have to import the image into the effect.

I think you misinterpreted my method. 

a)  Import the image into your Bin (it will be conformed to the resolution your working with and not suited for Pan and Zoom

b)  Edit this image into the Seq

c)  Place the P&Z effect onto that image/clip

d) Follow the P&Z tutorial from here on out. 

What this does is give your P&Z a clip name besides "Filler" that you can make sense of as a reference on the Timeline. 

For example, I have an image of "puppies.jpg" that I want to P&Z, import the file "puppies.jpg" to the Bin, edit it into the Seq, now I have a clip on the timeline with the name "puppies.jpg"  Add P&Z effect and point to "puppies.jpg"   The Timeline still says "puppies.jpg"

If you don't put this "placeholder" in then your Clip and effect will just say FILLER, which makes it impossible to know what the file *should be* if it gets lost somehow - as is the case you have now.

Doing the video mixdown is not as efficient in my opinion because a)  You have to do an export more or less when you do a mixdown and b) you still don't know what the name of the file being used is... though you can see what it looks like. 

Hallew Kenton

I will try the method you've suggested. I hope it works because that will certainly save me a lot of trouble.

Although I've already done the mixdowns because I needed to make sure the client had some images to look at for the viewing. I agree that it's not efficient, but I was stuck and it helped.

Did you watch the demo? In the demo there is no image on the timeline, they place the effect there first and then the image.

Anyway, I will try to work it out as you say. I don't think I tried importing the images into a bin in the project. I don't remember why not ...

Thanks for responding!

The video shows the Pan and Zoom workflow of how to place the effect and point to the image, there's nothing wrong with that. 

BUT as a person who has used P&Z extensively and often times coming into a project to finish it for another editor where P&Z was used, I can tell you first hand that "pre-importing" is not required by the workflow to get P&Z to work, but it makes the Online editor's work easier. 

Another benefit to using a placeholder is let's say you have the Tracking Info above the Composer set to show you the names of your clips in the Timeline.  If you don't use a placeholder clip, it will display the name at that point as Filler - if you use a placeholder clip, it will show the name of that clip.