Sections of video have lost the images. Playback is black

anne-p wrote on 10/23/2018, 1:56 AM

Using MEP Plus, Version 18.0.1.209

I was trying to add additional subtitles and discovered that video tracks that had previously displayed correctly are now playing as a black screen. I have re-imported the unedited track and the sections I have edited in the timeline still display without the image. I suspect that the file may not have been copied to the project folder, but I can't work out how to copy it back in without removing the existing edited sections. Any suggestions on how to fix this would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Comments

emmrecs wrote on 10/23/2018, 4:21 AM

Hi, welcome to the Magix forums.

It appears from your screenshots that the "black" sections either are using a corrupted source file or that the project file has somehow become corrupted.

In the former situation, assuming you still have the original "unedited" version of your footage stored somewhere on your computer other than your project folder I would try the following:

Rename the relevant footage in your project folder by adding .old to its file name.
Reimport the original footage to your project folder. Doing this will not remove the "existing edited sections" because MEP, like all non-linear editors, actually makes no changes at all to your source files. The.mvp project file simply contains a series of instructions which tells the playback and exporting processes exactly which section of the original to play now, with what effects or transitions or titles etc.

OTOH, if the project file is corrupted, do you have a recent back-up which you can use to restore your project to a "working state"? By default, MEP creates and stores up to 10 project back-ups as you are working, the files having a ._BAK extension. Just check the time/date each one was created; sometimes the lowest numbered file might actually be the most recent!

HTH

Jeff

anne-p wrote on 10/23/2018, 6:24 AM

Thank you for your suggestions Jeff. I needed to finish the video quickly so did a save as, deleted the black sections, created another project and imported the original footage (which was still fine) for just the sections I deleted, edited them and saved it as another video. I then went back to the project I'd done as the save as, imported the new section and slotted it in. That worked and I was able to export the video.

As I still have the project that I used for the screenshot, I will follow your suggestion in points 1 & 2 and see how that works for practice. It sounds a lot more straightforward. Thanks for taking the time to provide advice.

Scenestealer wrote on 10/24/2018, 9:37 PM

Hi @anne-p

Another trick if the project MVP has become corrupted is to Copy all the edited timeline after "Selecting All" and paste that into a New Movie ie "New Movie" Tab within the MVP. Delete the existing tab if necessary or, save the New Movie as an .MVD and open (import) it in a new project.

BTW - did the black sections export as black? Sometimes this appears in the display but not in the export.

Peter

anne-p wrote on 10/25/2018, 2:52 AM

Hi Scenestealer,

Good suggestion, thank you.

The first time I imported the files they displayed correctly. I edited the videos, exported then had to re-open the project the next day to make changes to the subtitle locations. That's when the black sections displayed. I then tried to import them again, I wasn't given the option to copy again and the second import showed with the black, but only in the parts that were showing black originally. The rest of the unedited track played normally. I am now starting to strongly believe that the file wasn't copied to the project folder, only imported, so once I tried to access the project the following day the non-copied sections were black. The original files were on a USB drive so that had been disconnected and reconnected after a computer restart overnight. I didn't export it while the black sections were displaying, so I can only guess they would've been black too.