I use Xara P&GD (or Designer Pro) directly from Magix Movie Edit Pro 2015 Premium (MEP) and Magix Video Pro X7 (VPX7) to create overlays, masks and animations. In Xara P&GD 9 and Designer Pro X9, this worked perfectly. MEP opens Xara, usually in animation mode (slight bug here) and then one can create an animation as per normal. With every advance of a frame, the video background also advances. Thus one can create an animation that follows the action in the video. Closing Xara simply returns a file to MEP that can be kept as a normal (colour) animation, or given a chromakey alpha in the case of a B&W mask.

However, starting with P&GD 10 (and Designer Pro X10) and now in P&GD 11, Xara opens fine with the video background, but the video does not advance with the frame change. As well, even after creating an animation, the file returned to MEP is not animated, it is static, showing the last frame that had focus (whichever frame was still open).

I have reported this to Magix for VPX7 (and VPX6), and they have acknowledged this problem. I presume that the problem is more on the Xara side, but I have not raised a ticket with Xara. I will do so once Designer Pro X11 is out and I buy it.

Have others experienced the same problem? Any workaround?

My current workaround is to export multiple frames, say every 15 frames from the video to use as a background guide to create an animation independent of MEP.

I have not found a way to have MEP open a specific version of Xara, like version 9. It opens the most recent version. Any solution to this?

Other than this problem, P&GD 11 works very well with MEP and VPX7 to create static overlays and masks. The new brushes are great. Going back and forth between programs to make modifications is quick and easy, as Xara remains open.

Thanks,
John