Hi John

My first reaction to the new colour coding was rather negative. That might have been exaggerated because the project had an untypically high number of text objects. All that purple was definitely a distraction!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-Colours.jpg

However, maybe I'll warm to this feature.

BTW, I found that previous versions MEP17 and MEP MX now have this same colour coding. Same for you? Some common file I suppose, so if I really hated it I'd be in trouble!

More important, I'm very pleased to find that the following bugs I'd reported in MX and/or 17 have been fixed:

1. Size/Position bug as reported in
http://www.magix.info/uk/size-position-maximize-changed-in-mx.forum.780726.html

2. Audio Recording bug as reported in
http://www.magix.info/uk/mx-recording-another-bug.forum.781379.html

3. Movement Templates as reported in
http://www.magix.info/uk/movement-templates-inconsistent-behaviour.forum.809718.html

But the Grouping Text bug as reported in
http://www.magix.info/uk/move-text-and-graphic-together.forum.785354.html
remains unfixed, and I haven't got any further down my longish list!

Unfortunately, within a few minutes of using 2013 I found another bug. Contrary to what it says in Help and the PDF manual you can no longer d-click an effect to apply it to an object. Try it for instance in Movement Templates, with Rotate, or any other.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-Dclick-2.jpg

I wonder if the problem is connected to the fact that those two icons at the bottom left of the preview monitor, for toggling modes, have disappeared without mention in 2013?

That last screenshot mayt need some explaining. I think I've now isolated the circumstances in which I have great trouble using the drag method. If I've previously double-clicked the effect, so that (in 2013) it has played in the monitor, then if I subsequently try to DRAG I get an opaque grey rectangle behind the 'drag' icon. This moves as I move the mouse, obscuring short clips.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Terry

Re colour coding objects - mine are still grey for video and audio and a shade of yellow for titles - no change.!!

There is some serious subtitling on that project .

Double clicking the effects templates has gone on mine too - plays the effect with the selected timeline object - never noticed it as I always drag the effect so I know for certain which clip I am applying it to.

I also get the grey box when dragging after double clicking - it appears to be the same length as the effect.

John

Hi John and Terry

Isn't the double click to apply or preview selectable in the "program settings > System tab" like it has always been?

I have been giving 2013 a spin and so far I quite like it - there are some useful improvements but I might do a bit more testing before judging it.

John - are you editing 50p files when you refer to the smoothness of the preview and transitions? I see GPU-Z utility shows greater GPU usage than MX when playing unaltered files and greater usage (with even more standard effects - as Magix claim) - which is good. I am getting pretty good 1080 50p playback with Full res. selected and really like the little button (4 squares or 2) at the bottom right of the preview window that lets me switch between Full or Half res. You need to do this a lot if you use Mercalli V2 stabiliser as it will only tolerate Full.

Peter

Hi Peter

I am using 1080i 25fps AVCHD and 1080p 29.97fps MOV files at full resolution in the preview monitor.

The only double click setting I can see is for the import of media which works as it should.

John

Morning John,

I've just done some more methodical testing. It looks like this is confined to projects created in MEP 2013. It was such a project that I had tried in MEP16, 17 and MX. All displayed the colour coding. But since then I've tried opening those versions and simply dragging a single JPG onto the timeline. No colour coding. Same with any old project, one that's never been near MEP 2013.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Isn't the double click to apply or preview selectable in the "program settings > System tab" like it has always been?

Hi Peter,

I assume you mean this one?
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/MEP2013-Dclick.jpg

I've always had that enabled and as you see it still is in 2013. That was the first setting I looked at when I discovered this newly-introduced bug. I wasn't sure if it was meant to affect d-click behavior for effects anyway, but from John's reply it doesn't.

FWIW the 2013 Help and PDF Manual still show that d-click should apply an effect to the target object.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/4019461/ApplyEffects-MEP2013Manual.jpg

I've always used the d-click method as I find it faster than dragging. And with very short clips obscured by that grey rectangle it can be even slower. If it was confined to the Movement Templates then that wouldn't bother me, but it's the same for my User Effects, where I keep the zooms and pans that I use regularly.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Thanks for checking Jon and Terry.

The only double click setting I can see is for the import of media which works as it should.

This also works for effect preset templates but seems to only work with some!  eg. Old film sepia, negative, solarisation, etc., but not Black and white to colour, beginning unfocus, etc. which just play the preview on d-click. Perhaps you could try these (in General Effects) and report back. You should also try selecting in Program settings > display options a tick in the "Always use DirectX9" which can solve some display problems if you are using XP or an older graphics card that does not support DX11. It appears a lot of the increased display performance in 2013 is based on optimising the program for DX11 and I have found that some effects like Rotation will apply with D-click with this new box checked, even though my card and OS support DX11. I would have to say though this double click apply feature seems rather random (on my system anyway) at present.

John - 1080i plays back much smoother that 1080 50p in MX and 2013. I have taken to loading my 50p files and then changing the project setting to 1080i (25fps) then changing back to 50p at the end. One slight worry is that a warning comes up about " to keep the consistency of the project, all object lengths must be modified to fit the new frame grid". If I click continue, the timeline shuffles minutely and shortens by a few frames but I have not seen any obvious change to any of the objects or subseqent export file. 

Continuing....

Peter

This also works for effect preset templates but seems to only work with some!

Hi Peter,

That 'random' aspect sounds like the Movement Templates bug I reported here
http://www.magix.info/uk/movement-templates-inconsistent-behaviour.forum.809718.html
but which happily appears to have been fixed in 2013. If you report this bug in Effects > General Options I'd suggest you quote that as I suspect the cause may be similar - e.g. careless coding!

eg. Old film sepia, negative, solarisation, etc., but not Black and white to colour, beginning unfocus, etc. which just play the preview on d-click. Perhaps you could try these (in General Effects) and report back.

Well,this is odd. I thought I'd reproduced that. I d-clicked Old Image Sepia and that applied the effect. Then I d-clicked 'Black and white to colour' etc and it didn't. In fact I couldn't find any others that did. But then I went back to 'Old film sepia' and now that doesn't get applied, just previews.

When I've sent this I'll try restarting MEP 2013 and see if that's reproducible.

You should also try selecting in Program settings > display options a tick in the "Always use DirectX9" which can solve some display problems if you are using XP or an older graphics card that does not support DX11. It appears a lot of the increased display performance in 2013 is based on optimising the program for DX11 and I have found that some effects like Rotation will apply with D-click with this new box checked, even though my card and OS support DX11. I would have to say though this double click apply feature seems rather random (on my system anyway) at present.

I have DirectX Version:  DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904) on this XP PC. Im not sure I follow you. Are you saying MEP expects DX 11? Or that it benefits from it if installed, or what? And is there some test I can try to compare the performance with Always use DirectX 9 enabled? I couldn't find anything in Help or the Manual on this. The only hit for 'directx' was about audio playback. But that's typical for Magix documentation. 

(BTW, I can't get Smiley icons anymore, just text descriptions.)

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

I closed and restarted MEP 2013. This time I couldn't apply any effect in General Options using d-click.

Go figure!

But at least that's now made it consistent. In 2013 no effects at all can now be applied with a d-click.

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK

Hi Peter

I have DX 11 installed and AFAICS the DirectX 9 checkbox has no effect on the problem of double click not applying some templates to the object on the timeline.

As I understand it each version only installs the extras needed to give access to the new features in a particular version of DX. So if you start from DX 9 and then install 10 and 11, then you still have DX9 with the extras for DX10 and DX11, so the checkbox just disables using the extra functionality of DX10 and DX11.

Terry - I cannot repeat the Old Sepia being applied first time, double click always plays the effect

John

Hi All

Thanks for the further testing which confirms that the D-click behaviour is very random and probably a bug that goes back to MX as Terry has reported. Old Sepia and Solarize seem consistent on my system but I suspect that the change in behaviour when selecting "Always use DX9" may have just been an inconsistency as you guys have reported.

As far as the DX selection goes I agree with you John but I think Magix may have pre empted the fact that some effects that, say were not designed for DX11, could be troublesome, with this comment in the Help > Display options:-

Always use DirectX9: Normally DirectX11 is activated for the preview in the arranger. DirectX9 can be activated for Windows XP and graphics cards that don't support DirectX11. You can also activate it if you are having general problems.

In your case Terry, I guess you should always have the DX9 option checked because XP does not support 11 at all. On my Vista SP2  installation DX11 is used and the main difference I see from checking the DX9 box is that graphics card GPU usage drops from around 30% when playing unaltered 1080 50p footage at full resolution, to less than 20%. During fades GPU load can hit 40% or more on some fades with DX11 and less with DX9. This shows the GPU is doing more with DX11 and this theoretically is good, but the result is not that obvious in what I can see in the preview of effects or fades at this early stage. Lets say it is good though!

FYI - GPU load can be checked in real time by installing GPU-Z from TechPowerUp.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks for that helpful advice about DirectX.

When you say "Old Sepia and Solarize seem consistent on my system..." do you mean that they were getting applied by a d-click, as you said earlier:
"...but seems to only work with some!  eg. Old film sepia, negative, solarisation, etc.,"
but are now playing in Preview like all the rest? IOW, similar to my report.

Or are they still the few exceptions and are consistently getting applied with a d-click?

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK