Questions and Answers about DDClip

Q: With the Save command in the File menu I can save only my project. How can I save the result of my work into multimedia file on disk (WAV, AVI) with mixed audio and/or video to be able to play it with Windows Media player, open it in other editor, record my songs to an audio CD etc?

A: You should use Export submenu in the File menu to save result of your work to a stand-alone multimedia file. Select AVI command (or press F11) to save video and/or audio, WAV (or press F12) or AIFF (Mac audio format) to save audio only.

In DDClip Pro and DDClip SE you can also use Multiple WAV command in File/Export menu to save sequence of WAV files for tracks of audio CD. You should set special marks on places where you want your project to be separated to audio tracks. Please read online help included with the program for details about it.

If you want to save WAV file(s) for audio CD, remember that you should set the following audio parameters: sample rate 44100 Hz, 16-bit, stereo (you should set such parameters in Settings/Audio or using Options button in standard Save file dialog before saving WAV file).

Note that non-registered copy of DDClip saves only first 10 seconds of your project to a resulting file! Please visit registration page for details about how to register your copy of DDClip.

2. Is it possible to add more than one source file on track at a time in DDClip?

Q: I want to add some source multimedia files (WAV or AVI) to tracks in the Project window simultaneously. I can't do it with Open Clip dialog (F4) nor with drag-n-drop from Windows Explorer window. Is it possible?

A: No. You can add multiple source files simultaneously to the Clip Collection window only. Then you can add them one by one to tracks dragging them with mouse to the main Project window.

A: Of course Yes. DDClip supports video files in AVI format (see also video-related questions below) and sound files in WAV and AIFF formats (see also audio-related questions below).

You can open source video and audio files by pressing F4 or using Add source file command in the local menu of any track. If you don't see video, audio or midi tracks in the main Project window, use commands in View menu to show them.

Use File/Save command to save your project and File/Export command to save result of your work to a resulting multimedia file. See also first quesion for details about saving of result of work.

A: Of course Yes. DDClip works under any modern Microsoft Windows operating system, including Windows 95 (OSR2), 98 (and 98 Second Edition), ME, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP.

Note that it is recommended to have enough amount of memory for best performance of latest versions of Windows, for example, 64 MB memory for Windows 98/ME/NT 4.0 and more for Windows 2000/XP.

Q: I have a video file, but I can't open it in DDClip. It is played well with Windows Media player, and even Preview button in DDClip's Open Clip dialog plays file too. What is wrong?

A: DDClip can work with AVI files only, it can't open video files of other formats (MPEG for example) except QuickTime MOV files that are only partially supported (only ones compressed with Indeo or Cinepak video codecs).

Note that if an AVI file can be successfully played back with Windows Media player and/or DDClip's Open Clip dialog (called with F4), it does not guarantee that this file can be opened in DDClip. Some video codecs are available only as Microsoft DirectShow filter modules. DDClip can't work with them, it works only with video codecs that are fully compatible with Video for Windows (VfW) standard.

To know do you have an appropriate VfW-compatible video codec or not, look at format field at the right in Open Clip dialog that is called with F4: when you select an AVI file, name of its video codec is shown in the format field. If Unknown is shown before codec name, you don't have VfW-compatible video codec for selected file.

A: DDClip works with any hardware playback videocard that is fully compatible with Video for Windows (VfW) standard (for example Miro DC30 and others). It means not only that video captured with software bundled with videocard must be stored into AVI files, but there must be a video codec for videocard's compression format fully compatible with VfW. Some modern video hardware is compatible with Microsoft DirectShow only, DDClip can't open video files captured with such hardware.

Please contact videocard's manufacturer to know is it fully compatible with VfW or not. See also answer to previous question.

Q: I have a video capture board and digital video camera, and I want to capture digital video to my PC with DDClip. Can I do it?

A: No. You should use software bundled with your capture video board to capture digital video to your PC. It must be saved to AVI file(s) if you want to edit it with DDClip.

See also questions about what video hardware and file formats are supported by DDClip.

A: Yes. Large AVI files with size greater than 2 Gb are supported starting from version 3.04. It is strongly recommended to have the latest version of the program to be sure that any problems with large AVI files are resolved in it.

Important:

Please note that FAT16/32 filesystems do not allow to work with files of size greater than 2 GByte (FAT16) or 4 GByte (FAT32).
Large files are supported only on the NTFS filesystem under Windows NT/2000!
Extended AVI file format specification is described in the document OpenDML AVI File Format Extensions published in 1996 by the OpenDML File Format Workgroup. The document is in PDF format and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to open it.

Q: I successfully opened an AVI video file in DDClip, but I get an error message when trying to start playback with Play button. How could I resolve this?

A: You should try different video decompression modes. Open Settings (press F5), select Video tab and find Playback mode drop-down list. Try to select different mode in the list and start video playback again.

If you use hardware videocard for playback on an external TV monitor, try Default or Full screen modes. If you want to play video in a window on screen of PC monitor, try Decompress and draw mode first. Note that some video hardware can play video on an external TV monitor only, so you may not be able to play video captured with such hardware in a window on screen of your PC.

If it does not help, try also turning on Reopen codec at any operation mode in Settings/Troubleshooting.

Q: I want to insert an image from BMP or JPEG file to the video track. How can I do this?

A: You can't insert image file to the video track. You must convert it to AVI file with one frame first. You can do it with AVI_Edit program included with DDClip (it is placed in the same folder where DDClip is installed).

Copy your image to clipboard from any image/photo editing application (Paint, Adobe Photoshop etc.), run AVI_Edit, paste image in it with Edit/Paste command. You must set the same video options as are set in your video project in DDClip (video codec name, video frame size, video frame rate). To do this, use Edit/Info and File/Save options commands in AVI_Edit.

Then save AVI file with File/Save command, and you can insert it in DDClip and place it on video track.

A: DDClip supports audio files in WAV, AVI (audio stream in AVI file) and AIFF (Mac audio) formats, uncompressed. Supported audio sample formats are:

Integer: 8/16 bits (standard formats supported by almost all soundcards)
Integer: 20/24/32 bits (formats supported by professional soundcards)
Float: 32 bits with 24-bit mantissa (IEEE normalized between +/- 1.0 and non-normalized)

The program with version 3.5 or later also allows you to use compressed audio of the following formats:

ADPCM/IMAADPCM (4-bit audio)
a-Law/u-Law (8-bit audio)
mp3 (files with both mp3 and WAV extensions)

All compressed files are decompressed during playback of project without use of any temporary files. Note that decompressing requires additional CPU power, so your computer must be fast enough to use compressed audio in your projects (400 MHz or faster CPU is highly recommended for mp3 playback).

Important! The program contains no mp3 decompression code, you must have ACM mp3 codec installed in your system (typically file named l3codeca.acm stored in the system folder)! Note that hacked version of mp3 codec allows use of only one instance of it, so you won't be able to play more than one mp3 file at the time with hacked codec!

mp3 codec is not included with DDClip, it can be installed with some other software, for example Windows Media player version 7 or later (please visit Microsoft Download page to get it). It is already included with Windows ME and Windows XP.

A: DDClip supports any soundcard with driver that provides standard WAVE audio device for playback. All soundcards should have such driver, and we don't know any soundcard that is not supported by DDClip.

DDClip LE and DDClip SE allow you to use playback sample resolution 8/16 bit only. Use of 20/24/32-bit audio playback (on professional soundcards) is allowed in DDClip Pro only. However, you can use any supported audio files in your projects in any package of DDClip, only output playback quality is restricted in minor packages of the program.

A: Yes, but currently DDClip does not allow assigning different tracks to different channels (inputs/outputs) for multi-channel recording/playback.

You can use only one/two-channel (mono/stereo) modes. Multichannel playback/recording will be implemented in future versions of DDClip.

A: The program with version 3.5 or later allows you to use files with different sample rates in one project. In the earlier versions of DDClip this was not allowed - all audio files should have sample rate equal to project output sample rate (it is shown at the right bottom of the main Project window and can be changed in Audio Settings - press F5).

Note that all audio files with sample rate different from output sample rate of project are being resampled during playback, it requires additional CPU power and can produce some distortions in high-frequency components of sound (however, high-quality and very fast algorithm is used for resampling).

If you want to get best performance and quality of sound, it is highly recommended to use audio files with sample rate equal to output playback sample rate of project.

A: You can do it in different ways:

Use Set size button in the main Project window
Open Settings (press F5), select General tab and change number in Audio tracks
Set number of audio tracks when creating new project with File/New command

Note that different packages of DDClip allow you to use different number of audio tracks (max): DDClip Pro - 32 tracks, DDClip SE - 16 tracks, DDClip LE - 8 tracks, DDClip Free - 4 tracks.

A: First, you must have a soundcard that allows simultaneous playback and recording in desired audio format (please consult documentation for your soundcard or contact its manufacturer). Note that some old soundcards like ESS 1868 support 16-bit playback, but only 8-bit simultaneous playback and recording.

Open audio recording dialog with the red button on toolbar or by pressing Ctrl+R on keyboard.
Select desired audio format for recording and be sure that it is supported by your soundcard (Supported or Not supported will be shown in the dialog).
Check that you properly connected all cables and that you properly selected inputs for recording in the audio mixer of soundcard (you can use DDSound Volume Control included with DDClip or standard system Volume Control to select input(s) and set levels for recording).
Be sure that you didn't include playback output of your soundcard as one of inputs for recording - you will get audio being played back recorded again!
Check that Synchronize Playback option is turned on (this option enables simultaneous playback and recording).
Be sure to use Prepare button before start of recording - it will guarantee almost instant start of recording with the red Record button.

A: There may be some different reasons of that. Try the following to resolve your problems:

Possibly your hard disk is fragmented too hard. Try to defragment it with any disk defragmentation tool (one is included with the system - open My computer, select desired disk, press right mouse button on it, select Properties and then Defragment in the Tools tab).
Try to increase audio buffer size in Settings (press F5)/Audio tab up to 1-2 seconds or more.
If it does not help, it seems that your project is too complicated. Possibly too many audio tracks are used, too many audio effects are applied, or too many compressed audio files are used in it. Try to get more powerful PC with faster hard disk (7200 or more rpm disk with UDMA mode is highly recommended) and CPU.
Some (not all) audio effects allow you to descrease quality of processing a bit to decrease calculations and CPU usage up to 2 times or more. You may set fast processing mode for audio effects for playback and keep highest-quality mode for mixing and saving resulting multimedia file. Use Settings (press F5)/Effects tab for it (please read online help included with the program for more details about it; read help for particular audio effects to know what ones support different modes of processing).
Try to get more than one hard disk in your PC (not logical drives, but physical ones). Keeping different audio and video files on physically different hard disks helps to increase disk performance a lot. Is is especially important if you want to record and use professional-quality 24bit/96 kHz audio.

Q: There seems to be no presets for the audio effects. What do I do if my computer crashes and I loose the system and will have to reinstall Windows and DDClip?

A: Here are the instructions:

Using presets. Add any audio effect to a track for example (press "A" on keyboard when mouse cursor is over a track header with speaker image, press "+" button at the top of dialog and select any audio effect).
Open window of effect, you will see drop-down list at the top of it named "Presets". Type a name in edit box of drop-down list (combo-box), for example "Preset 1". Press "Add" button at the right of the list. Preset is saved, you can recall it in the future just selecting its name from drop-down list.
Use "Del" button to delete preset if you want (you must select it first).
Making backup copy of presets. Presets are stored in the system folder (for example "C:\WINDOWS") in a file named "ddcfxprs.ini". If you want to save your presets before re-installing the system, just make a backup copy of this file on a floppy, CD etc.
After you re-installed your system, install DDClip and overwrite the file "ddcfxprs.ini" in the system folder with your backup copy.
Your presets will be restored.