Why do my pictures in a Nero Video project not all shift to the left when I shorten the clip duration?

Since Nero 11 Suite, Nero Video has an integrated very easy yet powerful ‘Express Editing‘ mode. Since then, ‘Advanced Editing‘ with a multi-track timeline has been co-existing side by side with ‘Express Editing’ in Nero Video. Both are switchable within one project.

In the case asked for here, advanced editing was used. The advanced editing mode with a multi-track timeline is the versatile manual editing mode in Nero Video and gives you the full range of editing options. When shortening the duration of a clip  that exists in the first position of a sequence of clips in your timeline – say trim it down from 7 to 4 seconds – a gap will show on the right side, i.e. between the new end of your trimmed clip and the next clip in sequence you will have a gap of 3 seconds.

A simple way of getting rid of that gap is to just move the standard arrow tool over the white space and right click on it, then select ‘Remove from Track and close Gap’.  When executed this tool will align all associated clips located right of the gap to the end of your trimmed clip (your new mark-out), or if there is no other clip left of the gap, it will put the project to the timeline start position. I recommend using this tool with care as this action will delete anything on all associated tracks within the existing timeline gap.

There are also standard ways of closing a gap via multi-selection and dragging your project content to the wanted position.

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In advanced editing you can also modify the duration of an image clip within an existing arrangement of clips in your timeline via the context menu. Select a clip and right click on it. In the context menu select ‘Set Duration’. A window will open. If you want to change the duration – e.g. extend it from 7 to 9 seconds – just type in the new value or use the up and down arrows. When ‘Shift’ is selected (default selection) it assures that none of your clips are touched but just the duration of this one clip is going to be extended and the other clips will all line up in sequence in your track as before. The project will just be the amount of seconds longer that you added (in this case 2 seconds). If you select ‘Overwrite’ instead, the beginning of the clip right next to your prolonged clip will be overwritten (in this case by 2 seconds) while your project will not change its duration.

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Express Editing

Express Editing

In ‘Express Editing‘ mode – in favor of ease of use  – the editing handling is mostly automated. Although you have less editing options and only one video track at hand you can do all the regular editing, and can even utilize some advanced automated options.

In express editing you do not have to bother about empty spaces as Nero Video takes care of that, deletes gaps when you delete clips automatically, automatically aligns your clips when trimming, and automatically shifts your project when you extend or shorten the duration of clips within your project.

Just select the clip in the storyboard that you want to extend or shorten. Put the mouse over the clip and two icons will appear. Select the trim icon most right.

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A window will open that lets you easily modify the clip duration by typing it into the fields or by using up and down arrows.

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You can even type in a duration for single frame editing and this way create a stop frame animation project.

If you have several image photo clips in your project and plan to do a stop frame animation project, just select any single clip in your project and set the duration to 1 frame or 2 frames using the above method.

Then simply change the duration for all photos by using the context menu as below.

set duration express

Your project will then show single frames in sequence. Below we have 5 photos with a total project duration of of 5 frames.set duration stop frame

Note that switching from advanced editing to express editing is no option if you already have done a project in advanced editing. By design advanced editing has much more editing options that do not match to express editing.

The regular and conceptually implemented way of using express and advanced editing is starting in Express (1) and switching to (2) Advanced Editing. When switching from express to advanced editing your complete arrangement including all trim marks and effects will automatically be taken over to advanced editing mode.  If you switch from advanced editing to express editing or vice versa, your given project is auto-saved and this way ready for continuing work on that any time later.

Tip: ‘Nero KnowHow 00027’ – more details on Nero Video Express Editing and Advanced Editing 

 

Nero KnowHow 00073

 

I have installed Nero Suite but cannot launch Nero WaveEditor and Nero SoundTrax via Nero Start Screen. What can I do?

Nero WaveEditor and Nero SoundTrax are free to use programs for anybody. They are no integrative part of any Nero product on purchase.

But, if these free products are installed on the same system as your Nero Suite they integrate into Nero Start Screen under ‘Nero Tools’.

Both product are now availbale for download with a new version number under below links.

Nero WaveEditor

Nero SoundTrax

 

Nero KnowHow 00068

 

I purchased Nero Platinum online but don’t seem to have the Premium version of Music Recorder available. What can I do?

Once ‘Music Recorder’ was installed with your Nero Platinum product and you open ‘Music Recorder’ you will see ‘Enter activation code’ at the bottom of the user interface.  Type in your activation key here and ‘Music Recorder’ will automatically become ‘Music Recorder Premium’ with all Premium features enabled.

If you have an earlier version of Nero Platinum that already included ‘Music Recorder’ installed on the same PC, and your ‘Music Recorder Premium’ account is already activated, you do not need to do this again for a later version.

In some cases it may happen that ‘Music Recorder’ will still show ‘Music Recorder Premium’ advertising. In this case please proceed with the following steps.

  1. Click the ‘Upgrade’ button within ‘Music Recorder’ user interface. An upgrade page will open
  2. On this page click the link ‘I purchased Nero Platinum and have a Music Recorder activation code’. The ‘Unlock Music Recorder now’ page will open
  3. Enter your e-mail address and password to register the activation code
  4. Now, enter your activation code into the ‘Activation Code’ box
  5. Then, click the ‘Unlock Music Recorder’ button to connect ‘Music Recorder Premium’ to your e-mail address.

Once you unlocked ‘Music Recorder’ will automatically become ‘Music Recorder Premium’ with all  Premium features enabled.

Music Recorder

In case the auto-login does not work, simply sign in manually, using the same e-mail address and password you provided to register your activation code.

Nero KnowHow 00065

How do I make my photos look better with just one or two clicks?

Open ‘Nero MediaHome‘ and attach your smartphone, DSC or USB stick to your PC. ‘Nero MediaHome‘ will detect your device and show files on your device that you can select for importing. If your photos are already availabe on your PC, ‘Nero MediaHome’  will probably already have scanned your system and will show the in images in ‘timeline view’, ‘faces view’, or ‘places view’. You can also add folders manually to ‘Nero MediaHome watched folders or drives ‘ by clicking ‘Options‘ > ‘Library‘.

Now select a photo in browsing view and double click on it. Your photo will open in full screen view. In the bottom panel click ‘Edit Photo‘.

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A message box appears telling you that all changes you are to apply in any part of the image editing will be stored in history for an ‘undo‘ at any point later. It is also very convenient that you do not have to save any of the changes applied. Check the box ‘Never show me again‘ and proceed via ‘ok’.

Enhance2

Now the left hand image editing menu opens. Click on ‘Auto Enhance‘ for one click image fixing, or click ‘Auto Exposure‘ and ‘Auto Color‘ to auto enhance these two values individually.  In our example we just clicked
‘Auto Exposure‘ to brighten up the image while color already looked great.

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Under ‘Adjust‘ you will find more options for manually fine tuning your images, if wanted.

You can also crop and straighten your images, or remove red eyes. Let us take a look at the crop functions.

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As you can see you have handles top, bottom, left, and right to easily crop your image to the wanted dimensions. Click ‘Apply’ for using the selected dimensions. Under ‘Manual‘ you will also find typical useful template sizes to auto-apply (post card sizes, A4, 16:9, 4:3, and more).

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Now, let us also take a look at the nice image enhancing effects. You have got a number of vintage photo effect templates here. Just put the mouse over one of the effect templates and you will see a preview immediately. Then just click on the wanted effect template and it will be applied automatically. In our example we used a sepia effect.

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That’s how easy it is to enhance your images with ‘Nero MediaHome‘ applying just one or two clicks.

By the way: you can also make use of these easy image enhancing functions when you have a series of images inside of a slideshow project – you don’t even have to leave your project for applying image enhancement.

Just try it out and have fun.

Nero KnowHow 00062

Why do I get a “Unable to open the database file.” message upon launch of Nero MediaHome?

Please open Nero MediaHome via Nero 2017 launcher screen.

Background Information:

In former versions Nero MediaHome used to be a standalone product that was version independent from Nero Suite product releases. A new version or an update of Nero MediaHome would have just updated any version of Nero MediaHome on the same system and overwritten the former version.

Starting with Nero 2017, Nero MediaHome 2017 like any other application of Nero Suite was changed to be version dependent with Nero Suite releases. There is also no feature reduced free version of Nero MediaHome available any longer. Due to these modifications the new product can be better positioned in the market and you as a paying customers can benefit from an extended feature set. Moreover, there is no disadvantage or risk of data loss against older versions. Any asset of the media library of an existing product will be automatically taken over to the new Nero Media Home 2017.

Same as before, only the latest available Nero MediaHome on an end-user system is allowed to access the media library.  Different than before now an older version can exist side by side with new Nero MediaHome 2017 on the same system. In such a scenario – if you try to open a former version of Nero MediaHome (which by design does not include the media library any longer) it will fail to launch with the message: “Unable to open the database file.” This is the expected behavior and you can safely uninstall the older version.

Unable to open

Also, if you are using the text search from Windows start menu to launch Nero MediaHome possibly an older version might be executed and you will run into the same issue. In this case you can safely uninstall the older version of Nero MediaHome, too.

 

Nero KnowHow 00059